What is it Like Raising a MIXED RACE Kid in China?

and when I looked up there was maybe between 30 and 50 people standing around us like asking us questions wanting to see the day wow I need to touch her face Wow really surprised me that was kind of like my trial by fire but of how it was going to be that I know that's really funny [Music] Halon witnesses loudly six here another video and a very special guest today all the way from Shanghai you're not from Shanghai China you're from Shanghai at this point right pretty much I might as well be from Shanghai this is Michael Prima how long have you actually been there by the way I've been in China about 10 years Shanghai about eight years basically I brought him here today just to film in this rainy kind of miserable weather by the way we had a hell of a show today it was it was worst day of my life over 40 degree heat index over 100 degrees Fahrenheit going out there all day sweating and trying to film your daughter because you actually have a channel about you about it we literally walk through the fire we did it was literally the fire we came outside we came out the other side okay that rage I think so I think that's been a couple drinks don't cure us for sure now although we have been kind of roaming around the hot days and filming and stuff there's couple things actually wanted to chat about because I have had few expat friends here in China none of them have kids if they do maybe they had kids back home or there are Chinese friends so they fully Chinese kids but you are in the very unique situation like I am and you actually married a Chinese woman and have a mixed daughter right Nessa focus of your show that's just what you do you go around and you film her life in China but you told me earlier that something very special about this is that she's 8 years old right now she's actually never been to America right you've never been to America so she spent her entire time in Shanghai in China right now and I think it's a really interesting perspective as an American Dad yourself we are raising a mixed child here and I I think I'm in a headline that's really quickly by saying if you had a mixed-race daughter a son in America I don't think anyone with that an eyelid if you were in you know small town Alabama someone might think it's a little bit weird here and there of this 2017 right you have mixed-race kids all over the place that's true now in China it's the polar opposite and something that I've noticed with a 1 and a half year old daughter is the stairs I mean that's the first thing we can cut a mention is the stairs people stare at you right people stare at your kid would you say that the stairs are usually a positive curiosity or something a little bit more malicious a hundred percent it's just a positive curiosity I mean when people see our kids they're usually the same kind of questions right you know where's she from right she mix blood where's her mom from right now where am i from right and then they just ask us usually like how is our life here like what do we do sure what what are some of the most stereotypical things people say Kent can she speak Chinese right can she speak English or does she speak English at home right she speak Chinese I would say that's the first question right so she's 8 years old now and obviously because she's been here so long she does speak fluent Chinese right her spoken English and Chinese is exactly the same that's something that I find really bizarre is that if I speak Chinese and most people would say I'm pretty fluent you definitely know I'm a foreigner right but when I hear your daughter speak English I'm like oh a little American girl I hear speak Chinese oh well Chinese girl there's no difference between the two levels I think it's been fantastic in it good and she can she can switch back and forth like depending on who she's talking to just write on a dime that's crazy that's absolutely that's a benefit right sure do you think that's one of the reasons that you decided to have the child here was it give her an advantage I think for now like absolutely like having the two cultures and it I would say quite different culture right now and to be like an amalgamation of both of these things right even the people who see her outside they make they they do make comments like wow she's gonna be really smart right they even recognize like having these really different cultures coming together is the positive thing sure it's always going to be a positive thing right right there are you know huge benefits to this for sure however I mean like just I don't want to get into the dark stuff or anything but just me like growing up you know raising my daughter here in mainland China the influences of outside forces like mothers-in-law I think we can both agree on can be quite negative at times right would you say that you know there are equal parts Western you know philosophy Western ideas and what you know western style of parenting and Chinese styles of parenting you know it's a it's it's a constant struggle I think at home especially because her grandma lives with us right she's from Harbin and I mean she's basically from another time in place literally right so I can't ecstatic i rolling there's a lot of things that I don't understand right there's nothing I'm going to change about like her philosophy on the world and parenting you know she's raised kids and she has her own ideas about the Aaron team I have my own ideas about parenting sometimes I feel like my wife is caught in the middle of that she needs to be reasonable and kind of listen to both of us she can she can she's never said like oh you should listen to my mom right he knows what she's talking about right or she's never said like oh you should listen to my husband because he knows what he's talking about as we go on we are more accepting of each other and we're more like okay you can run with that and she'll let me run with my ideas and they play themselves up that's that's actually idealism I mean I've had I think I've had a lot more difficult scenarios raising my baby I mean especially Cantonese people Cantonese parents I mean they don't budge right so everything they say is it's the Word of God that's basically like it as a 30 year old man I don't have the authority to have my own opinion and that's the biggest trouble we had because I don't argue in my life we she sees things eye-to-eye like me she went to school abroad she gets it right but it's the outside influences right and I wanted to ask you like just in general in China the Chinese influence of childhood the Chinese influence of education all of these things that are so different from where we grew up do you what positives you see and what negatives you see out of those things for sure like the most positive thing about my wife and her mom adelies grandma is that I know she's always going to be healthy she's always going to be full she's always going to be safe right and I think those are like the most important things and then now that she's older we're kind of adding the education to that and how good that is like one of the things that we struggle with the most right I got this so what what are you butting heads about on that front um just the idea of like how much education the kid needs or how how much time an eight-year-old should spend doing math everyday how much time they should spend studying Chinese and how much she balanced that with like play and fun ballet music things like that I would say across the board here in mainland China I mean play and fun is not something in the vocabulary of someone in primary or you know middle school right they slog through tests some of our driven is suicide you know it's it's the stress level is it's something that we've never dealt with I would say the pressure that they put on them especially as they get into high school and and that years the years that they're transferring into college and these tests that they have to take I know there's some big ones and I know that the pressure that these students have to be successful I mean it can make or break them as far as like their whole future right I tried to ask your daughter a couple times you know how do people see her do they think she is a foreigner or do they think she's a Chinese person because a huge topic in a lot of my videos it's just the fact that you can never become a Chinese person it's a racially homogeneous society right right and it's not there's no one to blame for this but it's not the melting pot that we grew up in absolutely so I want to ask you in daily life in general if somebody talks to your daughter Chinese citizen do they treat her like a Chinese person or if she's still this kind of anomaly this weird thing that happened in China she's kind of like the like a unicorn or a white whale or some okay I don't think I'd I don't know I can't say for sure but I don't think that they consider you don't think you know she's kind of in this gray area in between they're totally accepting of her like every teacher she's had all the parents all the students everyone loves her and I'm they're really curious about her but I don't I don't feel like they're fully like oh she's a Chinese person right I mean if she was I don't think they would be giving her that kind of attention you know like if they saw her as another Chinese person they're not they're not going to be so curious they're not going to ask these questions right something actually I noticed yesterday was when she met a cute little girl here on the street and the little girl was definitely intrigued by your daughter's appearance like that's why she probably approached all right ten minutes later they're just chatting away in Chinese and they treat each other just like a couple Chinese which is really cool which is often because children don't they don't see any that they don't see that absolutely now you actually mentioned that it influenced opportunities that she might have had right what opportunities does she have that a normal Chinese kid just plucked off the street wouldn't have she does a lot of like merr shows modeling things like that and I think she gets a lot of opportunities to that I feel like people are more willing to like let her try new things as far as like modeling commercials things like that he looks different and I think like probably the first for sure the first thing people think when they see her as she looks different does not look like your normal trades person so I think she has opportunities to express herself in ways that Chinese people aren't allowed right that's interesting do you think that would actually leave her in a situation where she'd get away with more for sure for sure absolutely a little bit more leeway when we were in Harvey when she was a baby we would walk down the walking Street or just go to the park and there was one time that we stopped on the walking street and I think this probably happens a lot to people in these third tier cities who have mixed kids or torn babies either no babies are cute but they're really fascinated so anyway we stopped in the middle of the street and I was under the stroller mixing formula and when I looked up there was maybe between 30 and 50 people standing around us like asking us questions wanting to see the big WOW I mean to touch her face Wow really surprised me that was kind of like my trial by fire but of how it was going to be I know that's really funny we were at a mall a couple years ago and we were there was a like a temping I think it was a talent Academy where they teach kids like piano right ballet all of these things were really expensive in Shanghai these kind of training like specialty training schools are few and far between yeah and I was in a mall it was really expensive anyway they they went to my wife and they actually asked her you know if she will be kind of the face okay oh you know and do some post derive some advertising whatever you need like she can go to the ballet clearly she can go to whatever you need it's okay so she represented the brand yes so in return like it was like you scratch my back will scratch yours and it first you know I just asked her adelies that's something you want to do and of course it was you know she loved it so we get like you know even though we could afford to pay for these things we're getting them for free because she's because of the way she looks and that would have never happened if she was a normal Chinese absolutely not actually what thing I wanted to say and to kind of like wrap this up is Michael here has an absolutely fantastic channel we've been in touch for a long time now through a little social media group that he started on WeChat through there I found his his videos and I was kind of blown away because usually when you see kind of smaller channels in the beginning you expect to see this like grainy iPhone footage true poorly edited stuff but this guy you know his his gear is editing his skill and technique is completely completely blown my mind it's it's so much it surpasses everything I've seen in China thus far and I really think that you provide in an incredibly useful insight for people and it's just that it needs to find that audience right and a lot of Chinese people watch your channel and they're thoroughly entertained by and I recommend you guys out there go check it out I mean why don't you just explain what you do real quick I have a show called raising Shanghai or simply Shanghai in Chinese which like rose-colored china and basically we go to places around shanghai and other places in china and she is in the moment in that place experiencing that thing for example a music concert in china or a museum in china restaurants parks sporting events everything but it's all through her eyes it's everything it's the way she's experiencing things I really have nothing to do with it I'm only the camera I'm only the eyes everything is her everything you hear is you know her words her ideas so it really is like a just a small time capsule of her in that moment in Shanghai or China I can safely say I've never seen anyone do anything like this and I love the way that you don't feed her lines she just she can say some ridiculous sometimes I'll be totally honest I'm sure I'll just say like an eight-year-old does right sure I love that aspect about it because what you're gonna do when you stick with this and I'm sure you will you're gonna watch her grow up and this is the best time cap so you could ever give your kids and also a great way to see China through a child's eyes right here we come with preconceived notion about everything it isn't a thirty-year-old of dull if you go somewhere you already have a judgement about that place that's what I find so kind of decompressing and cathartic about watching your videos I like that you know she's always positive about where we go and I like you know when we watch other vloggers and and they talk you know yeah 30 40 year old has different ideas right the world you you're talking to all kinds of things but it's through a child's eyes you're just seeing it like exactly exactly I think that's the beautiful thing about it I've had a lot of fun you know having the opportunity to film with her it's kind of opened my eyes about a new aspect the new way to shoot things anyway to film things without kind of going in there with this huge script an idea of what you're gonna do just get in there and you know see how you feel about the situation I'm quite inspired to balance with you need you guys to definitely go check him out and he's raising Shanghai in YouTube if you're on Chinese media you can find him on what's called I mean pie I mean alfalfa Billy Billy Billy Billy he's on all the stuff that people steal my videos and upload too before I can thank you so much Michael thank you so much la Winterson okay - on the next [Music]

Channel: laowhy86

Views: 594,607

Rating: 4.86941 out of 5

Keywords: china, laowhy86, chinese, asia, serpentza, living in china, chinese girl, asian, advchina, china vlogger, vlog, hong kong, chinese girls, travel, chinese food, food, cmilk, things, shenzhen, adventure, culture, vivienne wei, expats, laowhy, race, mixed, mixed race, ethnicity, white, black, multiracial (ethnicity), foreign children in china, mixed-bloods (ethnicity), c-milk, harbin, shanghai, raising shanghai, mixed race children, mixed race children in china, in china, you'll never be chinese, parenting

Id: pBkxcmx4okI

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 16 2017