One difference between the values of the younger and older generations is the fact that we grew up in different times. For example, I was born in the late forties and my daughters were born in the mid and late seventies. When I went to school in Sarawak, Malaysia, I was educated in English, and Sarawak was still a British colony. When my daughters went to school in Sarawak, education was in Bahasa Malaysia although both my daughters went to a private school where English was the language of instruction. The history books we read in school were different. My history books had the British as the heroes and the rebels as the enemies. In the history books of my daughters, the heroes were the enemies in my history book. Such a turnaround would create a divide in our ways of thinking.

Another divide between parents and children is the fact that no matter how hard up children are, it does not compare to the hard times experienced by the parents. I would not want my daughters to experience the difficult times I went through during my college years in Texas. Yikes, imagine all those cockroaches in the apartment I shared with a student from China. It was really cheap but disgusting!

I myself grew up, admiring the British and wanting to go to UK for university studies. At that time, China was "bad," in my books. I denied anything
Chinese about myself, then I grew a little older, came to the U.S., read more books, talked a lot more, and now I realize that I am made up of more than just one group. Instead, I am the result of all that happened to me. I visited Beijing and Shanghai in October 2000 and went to stand at the Great Wall of China. Wow! That was awesome. How can I explain to my mother how I feel now? I cannot even talk to her in good Chinese or articulate my feelings to her. I believe that it is so wonderful to be able to communicate with my two daughters in English so that we can actually say things to each other that we can understand. So, hopefully, this will improve and get better.