I'd appreciate if anyone can help let me know if my story is offensive

[EJDeBrun]

This. All of this.

My own mother endured a LOT of grief from my father's family because she was from a dirt-poor family and "only has a secondary school education" while my dad's family was wealthy enough that my great-granddad had 3 wives and could maintain 3 separate households and multiple children in style, and my dad and his siblings all went to university abroad while my paternal grandparents moved in the same circles as many magnates and tycoons.* My parents' marriage was only grudgingly approved by my father's family (I suspect because, after I crunched the numbers, I was actually ON THE WAY when my parents married. The drama! Oh, the drama!)

Now imagine if my mom was Japanese...

Unfortunately, my grandparents died when I below 12 years of age so I'd never know if their disapproval of my mother and myself would've been alleviated when I won a scholarship to Oxford (their only grandchild to do so and it's a status symbol for any Chinese family to have a member who went to Oxbridge). But my doing well went a long way towards elevating my mother's station in the family.

As I've mentioned vaguely before to @Brian G Turner - if I wrote a series based on my family's multigenerational feuding over inheritance and pedigree, it would be both very entertaining and also cause for half my family to go into fits of apoplexy [evil laugh]

So yeah - if anyone is going to write about a Sino-Japanese marriage, they are going to have to get the ensuing family feuding and cultural dynamics right.

And listening to friends and classmates from Taiwan, China, and all points Chinese diapora families, this family drama is NOT unusual. Especially around inheritance, money, familial status, clan pedigree, and racist attitudes towards other East Asians on account of historical inter-cultural, inter-country feuding and violence.

*Note: I did not grow up in a very rich family - a very middle-class one, but not filthy rich because my eldest great-uncle squandered the family's entire fortune. Yup - D.R.A.M.A. But the snobbery remains intact. Because of the importance of "face" and all that jazz. Another important part of East Asian pride.

Too much of this is too familiar. And I agree on writing about the face and snobbery and yes. I also want to write a book about my crazy family and their stupid fights but I think I'll be kind and wait until all the relevant players are dead.

(also sounds like we have a lot in common and I'm up for exchanging funny stories about family dramas if you are)

 

[The Bluestocking]

I also want to write a book about my crazy family and their stupid fights but I think I'll be kind and wait until all the relevant players are dead.

My second eldest maternal auntie told me to wait until she's dead and gone to do this

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

Chinese marrying a Japanese person, although probably not offensive, makes my eyebrow raise. Honestly, there is still a lot of aggro between both camps because of the 1930-40s. (My brother is married to a Japanese woman and lives in Tokyo, so I've had a few first hand stories from Japan) Of course I'm sure there may be such marriages, but I've come across this sort of assumption in other guises - (real western businesses that thought having someone of Japanese ethnicity and descent was the best person to handle Chinese business - no it wasn't!

A rather airheaded American woman met a Chinese diplomat - I believe it was at a White House party but I've forgotten which administration. Coolidge maybe. He was, perhaps not the most diplomatic diplomat, and he didn't suffer fools gladly. She: "Which 'nese are you? Chinese or Japanese?" He: "Chinese. Which key are you? Yankee or donkey?"