I hate it when it's, like, a security question on your online bank account or something, because it's so common for "What's your grandmother's maiden name?" to be a security question, and I'm always like, "FU, MY GRANDMOTHER DOESN'T HAVE A MAIDEN NAME >8(" and my parents have both gotten to the point where they'll answer any and all security questions with weird family in-jokes. I haven't quite gotten there yet, but I'm pretty close :/
I think part of it is that Anglophone culture especially seems to consider the operative unit of familial interactions to be couples, while Sinophone culture is more focused on lineage, so getting married doesn't separate you as a unit from your parents if you're Chinese, but if you're USian, it does? IDK, man. Like, in English if you talk about "the Lees" you're talking about Mr. and Mrs. Lee and their one-and-a-half sproglings, but when you talk about "the Li family" in Chinese you probably mean a particular subtree of the hugemongous network of people named "Li" who can all trace their lineage far back enough that they know they're directly related to within a few generations. Or IDK, maybe I'm just pulling that out of my ass.
Yes, of course! Haha.
Haha, yeah, although I think Dairine is even less likely than Nita--Nita at least has some respect for tradition and cultural norms. Dairine is just like, what, you think these dumb arbitrary practices should have anything to do with me?
On the other hand, I think "Hermione Weasley" sounds kind of stupid. For one thing, it has way too much assonance on top of an amphibrachic meter.
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Date: 2010-01-26 11:33 am (UTC)I think part of it is that Anglophone culture especially seems to consider the operative unit of familial interactions to be couples, while Sinophone culture is more focused on lineage, so getting married doesn't separate you as a unit from your parents if you're Chinese, but if you're USian, it does? IDK, man. Like, in English if you talk about "the Lees" you're talking about Mr. and Mrs. Lee and their one-and-a-half sproglings, but when you talk about "the Li family" in Chinese you probably mean a particular subtree of the hugemongous network of people named "Li" who can all trace their lineage far back enough that they know they're directly related to within a few generations. Or IDK, maybe I'm just pulling that out of my ass.
Yes, of course! Haha.
Haha, yeah, although I think Dairine is even less likely than Nita--Nita at least has some respect for tradition and cultural norms. Dairine is just like, what, you think these dumb arbitrary practices should have anything to do with me?
On the other hand, I think "Hermione Weasley" sounds kind of stupid. For one thing, it has way too much assonance on top of an amphibrachic meter.