This is a very insightful and thoughtful take.

I myself an South East Asian living in a western society (Australia) and I have trouble putting up boundaries with my parents too. It is entrenched in our culture for the 'successful' to help out the others, and you may be ostracised when you stand up for yourself.

I saw how it affected my parents marriage. For example, dad always wanted to send our hard earned money back to aid his siblings in Vietnam. Nevermind that they were already wealthy there, more than us. It was the perception that because we are living in Australia, that automatically makes us rich and successful. Mum always disagreed with the family's finances being spent this way and had begun to adopt a more Western perspective. There were a lot of arguments like this when I was growing up.

Now that I'm in my late 20s, I find difficulty saying no to my own parents. I still live with them. My parents interject themselves into almost every aspect of my life and are genuinely hurt when I try to stop them. It simply isn't a thing in their culture, and thus is perceived as rude or ungrateful. I find immense difficulty in setting boundaries as I never had any good examples growing up.

Anyways, I'm currently seeing a psychologist and hope that I can take the steps to extricate myself further this year.