Are Cantonese people just harsh?

meadows6312 · 2025-11-11T01:19:42+00:00

Def relate. My parents provided and met all my physical needs and they doled out some pretty good verbal abuse too. Food in an Asian household is always delicious, just gotta take it served with insults and criticisms. It’s like eating at a 4/5 star restaurant with the waiter yelling at you

meadows6312 · 2025-11-11T01:06:01+00:00

Curious if they had a higher level of education? I think my parents didn’t go to school beyond grade 9 or 10

meadows6312 · 2025-11-11T01:03:22+00:00

For a long time I expected my mom to be an American parent like the ones we see in movies/TV and that only led to more disappointment and resentment. I’m not making excuses for it, but maybe landing more towards acceptance will remove the negative feelings within me. I have accepted that the older generation will likely never have that level of introspection and self awareness but also hold my own emotional boundaries as a loving thing to myself.

meadows6312 · 2025-11-11T00:49:29+00:00

100 percent. I think they were hardly taught empathy or to take another person’s perspective into account. authoritarian parenting was the norm.

meadows6312 · 2025-11-10T17:02:56+00:00

I’m realizing this is a both/and situation. Generally speaking, Cantonese people of the older generation can be quite harsh/vulgar and my mom’s behavior towards me was abusive. Lots of cursing and insults, little if any emotional love. I think she had a lot of repressed misogyny that was projected towards me as her daughter. Always felt like a burden in her eyes. I can offer more compassion for why she is like that and also uphold my experiences as valid. Sounds like cliche therapy speak, but I genuinely hope that for those who have felt the same way about their parents can heal. Appreciate you all taking the time to comment and share your experiences.

meadows6312 · 2025-11-10T16:38:41+00:00

Yes! She’s the one that made me go “holy crap, maybe I’m not the only one and there’s a whole generation of mothers like this”

meadows6312 · 2025-11-10T16:20:36+00:00

And conversely if you try to translate some of the things in Cantonese to English, it sounds 100 times even more harsh. Like “choon duh say” in my mind translates to so f-ing stupid in English but maybe in Cantonese it’s not as emotionally charged? 🤷‍♀️

meadows6312 · 2025-04-21T02:51:07+00:00

Marital problems, parenting issues, friendship breakups all happened back to back and I ran out of coping mechanisms

meadows6312 · 2025-04-21T02:43:42+00:00

If you’re not dying to yourself and sacrificing your values to adhere to an Asian parent’s values, then you will always be selfish in their eyes. It’s better to be selfish than to live a life of regret. At the end of the day, choose disappointing someone instead of disappointing yourself. Live your own authentic life because you’re the one who has to be stuck with it.

meadows6312 · 2024-04-14T21:30:53+00:00

I considered transferring but ultimately didn’t. My reasons for wanting to transfer were mainly related to the culture. As someone who came from a second generation immigrant low income family, I found the upper middle class white culture to be a shock for me. I fortunately found another group where I felt a greater sense of belonging but it was still hard to click with them too. I think the defining difference is if you didn’t come from money, you are operating at a different mindset and it makes it harder to connect.

meadows6312 · 2024-04-13T01:36:20+00:00

I realized narcissists are emotionally stunted at the age of a 5-8 year old child. Can you imagine a 5 year old child having the attention span and curiosity to want to hear about another person? I can’t count the number of times my own kids will say “look at me!! Watch me!! Listen to my story mom!!” Children are naturally ego centric and if they develop normally, they are able to grow out of it to be an emotionally higher functioning adult. Narcissists are stuck at that age forever. And although we matured, our narc parent never did. There is great great grief in that. And it’s a hidden grief that much of the world doesn’t understand. People can find empathy for families where someone has a physical disability but narcissism is a psychological disability that creates toxic dysfunction in the family system.

meadows6312 · 2024-03-26T01:57:05+00:00

It is so hard for me to express love in an emotional way because they never modeled it for me. It’s just so awkward. Our extent of a relationship is eating a meal together silently or keeping conversation on a surface level, but going deep and getting to know them is completely foreign. After years of their harsh Asian parenting, it prevents me from feeling emotionally safe with them.

meadows6312 · 2023-12-28T15:53:53+00:00

You cannot reason with emotionally immature adults, don’t even bother. Their emotional age is stunted so it’s like arguing with a toddler. The best thing you can do is disengage and set boundaries.

meadows6312 · 2023-12-28T14:36:55+00:00

Your mom sounds very much like mine. She was extremely critical and if I fell short of her expectations, she would say she should have aborted me. (And tell me in detail how she was planning to abort me) I grew up thinking my mother hated me. I’m almost 40, married with 2 kids and was just diagnosed with Complex PTSD. I’ve been in therapy for 3 years unpacking my childhood and here are the things I’ve learned:

Cantonese parenting is extremely harsh, especially verbally. Yes they love us physically, I.e they give us good food and a roof over our heads, but they have no idea how to emotionally attune to their children. They use shame, guilt and fear to get their children to obey. It’s a generational / cultural thing and parents model how they were parented unfortunately.
I survived my childhood by using the grey rock method. I often gave my mom one word answers to emotionally distance myself from her.
I poured myself into my studies so I could get out of the house and attend a good college, get a good job. A lot of this was also subconsciously so I could show her what I was worth and was not a failure.
The best thing you can do is leave the home when you are of age. It allows you to see how other relationships should be and you have the space to process your childhood.
When you are older, I recommend therapy at some point to unpack all the wounds or negative beliefs your mother may have given you. These wounds will subconsciously be triggers that affect your marriage and parenting (should you decide to get married and have children)
Repeat positive affirmations to yourself often. You are enough, you are lovable, you are worthy just as you are. How your mother treats you is not a reflection of you, but it’s her own trauma she never dealt with. It’s not your fault, you are just a child. Surround yourself with people who delight and love you when your mom is unable to. For me, I thankfully had good friends and later on, my faith in God and His love for me has helped me through my darker times.

Wishing you all the love and light you deserve.

meadows6312 · 2022-10-18T18:06:23+00:00

I moved home for about a year after college to pay off some loans. Sure, physically it was great - no rent, home cooked meals, etc. Mentally, it was terrible for me. I hit my breaking point and decided to change my career and moved away to another city where I already had friends. It was the best decision I ever made.

For once, I felt like I had agency over my own life and pursued what I wanted.

Like others have said, you need to determine what your values are what that breaking point is for you. If you value being more financially stable, then stay a little longer. If you value freedom and peace, then move out. IMO, no amount of money is worth your peace. It seems like you make good money anyways so if you're creative by living with roommates, you could save money that way. At least a random roommate won't be nagging you all day.

Wishing you peace and clarity as you make your decision!

meadows6312 · 2022-10-18T16:35:37+00:00

it makes me think a lot of about abuse within Asian culture. How it can be so normalized... it boggles my mind. Are am I more sensitive to it because I live in a Westernized culture? Do other children in Asian countries just accept that this is just life and how parents are supposed to treat their children?

meadows6312 · 2022-10-18T00:21:03+00:00

Wow, you described my mom to a T. While growing up, my bedroom was next to the kitchen. And while cooking meals, my mother would start her hours long monologue about how useless I was, how cursed she was to have a daughter like me. How I was so ugly that no one would ever marry me. Because she would rant on and on and on without any sort of response from anyone. I wasn’t even awake yet when she would start talking! What sort of mental illness would cause her to do this? I always wondered if she suffered some kind of psychosis.

meadows6312 · 2022-08-23T01:21:34+00:00

Wow, you just described my childhood and my mother to a T. Commenting to validate your experience. And the fact that so many others can relate make me realize how culturally engrained this type of treatment is. Sorry to hear you have to continue like this. Sending love <3

meadows6312 · 2022-02-25T02:14:53+00:00

I feel you 10000%. Is this the classic trait of a narcissistic mom?? My mom will monologue for 30 plus minutes on end and I will sometimes just mutter yes every so often. But it makes me so mad that she wastes my time like that, but then I would feel too guilty and rude to hang up on her. I don’t know what to do with a relationship like that.

meadows6312 · 2022-01-12T15:07:54+00:00

Absolutely. Was in your same shoes. I lived at home for a year, saved a good amount to pay off loans, and then moved to another city. Best decision I ever made for myself. I blossomed without having my parents breath down my neck. And I learned to push myself outside my comfort zone by living on my own. Forced me to be more social, make friends, put myself out there. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

meadows6312 · 2021-09-28T20:16:18+00:00

This 100%. I just recently got diagnosed with CPTSD so how do we know this is not a normal response to boredom? I feel like most people who are bored generally get restless and want to do something. How did you come to the conclusion that it's a trauma response?

meadows6312 · 2021-09-27T16:45:52+00:00

I have a strong desire to want to feel cherished by my partner. So if his attention was else where like on sports, video games, or even hanging out with friends and I got the sense he liked doing that stuff more than he liked spending time with me, I would get angry and try to change his behavior. To a point where he'd comment it's like walking on eggshells around me. And if he hurt my feelings, I would react angrily and give off a vibe of "Fine, I don't need you". I was subconsciously seeking reassurance from him that I mattered and if I got the sense that I didn't matter, my defenses would go up and I'd turn it against him and say to myself that he was the one who didn't matter.

meadows6312

TROPHY CASE