"As Australia welcomes in the Chinese New Year, Compass explores what it all means. As well as marking the beginning of the lunar year, it’s a time when the Chinese community pays respect to their elders, and when good fortune is abundant … It’s also a time to cast aside grudges, make amends and earn forgiveness. Compass follows two very different Australian families as they welcome in Chinese New Year."
Caught this on TV last night. You can catch it too, if you're quick. Watch it in iView or watch it in the flash viewer at the Compass site. It should be up for the next ten or so days. It was filmed during last years festivities (Year of the Ox).
The program follows the Leung family and the Boikov family in the lead up to and the celebrating of Chinese New Year.
The Leungs are a lion dancing family and are busy training and doing dances for retirees in retirement homes, shops and the general public in the days before Chinese New Year. They also go to the temple to pray and burn incense etc.
The Boikovs have a massive gathering at the grandparents house each year where all the sons, daughters, in-laws and grandkids come together to celebrate. The grandmother, despite her age spends a lot of her time going shopping for food and decorations in Chinatown. They spend the day before Chinese New Year eating, chatting and playing games. Later in the night, the make and eat dumplings, before the hongbaos are finally given out.
It was quite interesting too in that one family have had their origins in southern China (Leungs from Canton) and the other in northern China (Boikovs from Inner Mongolia).
The first thing that caught my eye was the Boikov family's surname and I was trying throughout the show to decipher the grandads racial mix. Boikov is obviously a Russian surname and the dude did look vaguely Russian.
This would have made him Eurasian (if he was half-half) or part European (if less than half European) - I try to avoid the term Eurasian if the person is not half-half. I also avoid using the term Asian if the person is a quarter or less Asian. In my experience, many people will say that they are Eurasian, even if they're only a quarter or even less Asian, to try and take advantage of the fact that Eurasians get a good rap in the looks department. The exoticness of the Asian combined with the whatever (status?) of the whites. In my experience, Eurasians are just like the rest of us. There are the good looking ones (Jess Gomes, Kristin Kreuk, Daniel Henney) and what the media doesn't show you are the ordinary looking ones, of which there are a lot. A LOT. I really don't understand why some people choose to put Eurasians on a pedestal and I'm sure a lot of self hating Asians crave to have Eurasian kids.
(On a side note, and I'm really off track now, one of my 'friends' is 3/4 European and 1/4 Asian. Not only does he throw around the Eurasian tag to every new person that he meets, he also throws around the Asian tag whenever he says something racist about Asians, to try and convince us he can't be racist. It's along the same lines of saying you can't be racist towards Asians because you have Asian friends or because you're married to an Asian mail order bride. This guy looks fully white, and knows jack all about Asian culture apart from bubble tea and he claims to know about Asians and even claims to be one! A big WTF indeed.)
OK, back to the story of the Boikovs. After marrying a full-blooded Chinese bride, I was very surprised that the family stayed Chinese in keeping with the customs and celebrating Chinese New Year. His kids look fully Asian and his grandkids look fully Asian too. Perhaps it was the environment in which they grew up in and lived in (Inner Mongolia).
Anyway this got me thinking, wouldn't it be great if more Eurasians married Asians?