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America's Southern Chinese


tigol

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Oh man.  This was one of the coolest stories.  I saw this about two years ago with my parents who are Chinese(from Vietnam refugees) and they kind of laughed.  They said look at you guys.  We came here in 1980.  We spoke Chinese Vietnamese, and all sorts of other dialects.  We even learned English and Spanish.  You kids grew up learning English and Chinese.  Now my grand kids sound like white kids.  It's only been 40 years.  Look at how we eat.  We made brisket fried rice yesterday.  We have Cha siu ravioli because someone thought it might work.   

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A fantastic American story.  I need that rib recipe.
 

I went to school in Memphis with kids who were Delta Chinese; they had strong Mississippi accents.

There are tons of interesting immigration stories. Brazil has a colony established by Confederate refugees; they have assimilated in interesting ways. Brazil and Peru also have a large Japanese populations.
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8 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

No idea they existed.  Pretty cool.

Those accents from the asian faces do kind of freak me out.

We have TONS of Chinese near us, and especially at my son’s school (rich Chinese).  Plenty without any Chinese accent.  But damn if that southern accent isn’t a total trip.

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I did business with a southern Chinese guy, most of it over the phone. When we finally met, I kept looking for an old redneck... finally he introduced himself.  I did my best to not show my surprise, hell of a guy. 

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Summer before my freshman year at Texas I get the letter in the mail that say my new potluck roommate in Jester is Ho-Jae (Last name deleted but obviously a continuation on the Korean theme). So I eventually pick up the phone and call the number to introduce myself, figure out who is bringing what etc.  Phone is answered and I say "Uh yes is Ho-Jae there?"  Little pause followed by this big ole Texas sounding belly laugh and then in quintessential Texas type accent "yea man that is me but nobody calls me that, call me Marvin."

 

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So one of my buddies is a nuclear guy on a submarine.  He's Chinese.  He's married to a Korean girl.  He's from podunk Georgia.  His father died and leaves him a fair amount of money from life insurance.  Super sharp guy.  He gets sent to Charleston to be an instructor at Nuke school.  His 10 year security clearance comes up and needs to be renewed at this time.  He gets selected chief and all that jazz.  Well the money, the Korean girl all throw up red flags and his security clearance gets held up for a year and he's just stuck in limbo.  

He finally asks the command if he can go to Admirals mast(basically request and audience with the Admiral). So he is up in DC in front of NAVSEA08.  Probably the most powerful guy in the Navy.  He has a bunch of people speak on his behalf.  Then he goes up to talk.  The most Chinese looking guy in the room.  He say "sir, all I ever wanted to be was serve my country.". He has the most Southern accent in the world that it caught 08 off guard.  08 just stops him and says son.  I heard enough. Admiral dismisses everyone.  30 minutes later Chan was cleared to handle nuclear material again. N

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11 hours ago, Texzilla58 said:

Brazil and Peru also have a large Japanese populations.

One of them became President. Then was jailed for fraud. I think his daughter went into politics too. 
 

Theres a recent movie with Alicia Vikander about Lousiana Asian with the prerequisite accent, called Blue Bayou

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5 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

Summer before my freshman year at Texas I get the letter in the mail that say my new potluck roommate in Jester is Ho-Jae (Last name deleted but obviously a continuation on the Korean theme). So I eventually pick up the phone and call the number to introduce myself, figure out who is bringing what etc.  Phone is answered and I say "Uh yes is Ho-Jae there?"  Little pause followed by this big ole Texas sounding belly laugh and then in quintessential Texas type accent "yea man that is me but nobody calls me that, call me Marvin."

 

Ho-Jae? I woulda called him The Juice.

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Henry, the guy that owned and ran Sam’s Deli Diner off the Katy Freeway until he died, was 3rd or 4th generation Chinese-Texan in the west Houston area.   I’m sure many of you caught his act and had his burgers over the years. 
 

It was simply fascinating to see him flip burgers and fry eggs with a five-finger front in loader of Copenhagen behind his lip and drawl out “hawer yew doin uh day?  Wars yer buddy, Mawk?  Hadden seen hee-im inna whaaaal.”  
 

Aslo, there was a jillion generation Japanese-Texan I once met that owned a bunch of the land where Meadowbrook Farms was developed.  I had no idea what I was in for when he screeched up in a 4x diesel crew dually complete with tennis ball adorned whip antenna on the back.   He slid out from behind the wheel with a wrangler shirt on, straw cowboy hat snug on his head, cow shit all over his boots, spewed out a string of brown tobacco juice and cackled out “how y’all doin-uh-day? Hotter than shit and too many mother fucking skeeters out here!” 
 

I became a big fan.  Forgot his name.  Something crazy like Mack Nakamora or some such.  
 

You never know until you know. Life can surprise us all I suppose.   

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18 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

No idea they existed.  Pretty cool.

Those accents from the asian faces do kind of freak me out.

I said "freak me out" like something pejorative.  Apparently no one took it that way, which is good.

I love things that "bend genres" or stereotypes, and a redneck, hick Asian has got to top the list.

I knew a few "coastal" SE Asians at UT that were pretty "native Texan" as far as dress and mannerisms, but none of them had an accent like those folks.

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19 hours ago, FartingMonk said:

Oh man.  This was one of the coolest stories.  I saw this about two years ago with my parents who are Chinese(from Vietnam refugees) and they kind of laughed.  They said look at you guys.  We came here in 1980.  We spoke Chinese Vietnamese, and all sorts of other dialects.  We even learned English and Spanish.  You kids grew up learning English and Chinese.  Now my grand kids sound like white kids.  It's only been 40 years.  Look at how we eat.  We made brisket fried rice yesterday.  We have Cha siu ravioli because someone thought it might work.   

 

User name checks out.  

 

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On 4/23/2022 at 11:36 AM, FartingMonk said:

Huge Chinese population in Mexico. Some of the fusion is fucking amazing.

 

When I was a kid we went to a Chinese restaurant run by a Chinese family from Mexico. They were talking in Spanish and then my mom started talking to them in Spanish because she knew the owners. My brain was struggling to associate the Chinese people with the Spanish being spoken.

I remember asking what was going on because I was really confused. Finally my mom said they are Chinese but they are from Mexico and moved to the U.S. and since they are from Mexico they are Mexican. La Raza!

 

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Ive been to some Chinese-Mexican restaurants. It wasn’t because the proprietors had any cross-cultural connections to both places simultaneously. But because there were no other ethnic restaurants around, and in this manner they hit 2 birds with 1 stone. 
 

The food was awful. 

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On 4/23/2022 at 11:36 AM, FartingMonk said:

Huge Chinese population in Mexico. Some of the fusion is fucking amazing.

 

Hell yea. Some of the best Chinese I've ever had was in Jalisco. I was pretty surprised.

Also yea it was a shock at first ordering in Spanish. Took me a minute 

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Speaking of curveball accents…My best bud at Florida was a Chinese-Jamaican. The looks he would get from the rednecks when he started speaking in that thick Rastafarian accent were priceless. Was a stud in the USMC as well as a Force-Recon Company Commander. Hell with a pair of nunchucks in the day.

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On 4/22/2022 at 11:33 PM, FartingMonk said:

We have Cha siu ravioli because someone thought it might work.   

never tried char siu ravioli but i've been waiting a long time for char siu tamales.

 

On 4/23/2022 at 12:15 AM, Texzilla58 said:


I went to school in Memphis with kids who were Delta Chinese; they had strong Mississippi accents.

There are tons of interesting immigration stories. Brazil has a colony established by Confederate refugees; they have assimilated in interesting ways. Brazil and Peru also have a large Japanese populations.

have a couple friends who are brazilian chinese.  their parents/uncles/aunts/gparents all speak Portuguese.  couldn't wrap my mind around it first time i heard them speaking to each other. 

 

another time, one of the kids i coached on my baseball team had just moved to our school.  couldn't speak more than a few words of english, he was korean.  but he could play.  he was a freshman on varsity.  communicating with him was hard.  then third practice of the season i hear him speaking fluent spanish to the other pitchers.  WHAT?  turns out he had just moved to austin but not from korea, he had moved here from mexico.  his dad was an engineer and he had lived there for the past 10 years after being born in korea.  how bout that.

 

 

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14 hours ago, Zepol87 said:

Hell yea. Some of the best Chinese I've ever had was in Jalisco. I was pretty surprised.

Also yea it was a shock at first ordering in Spanish. Took me a minute 

Haha.  Same thing happened to me in Mexico City and Tula De Allende.  I went in there and tried to order in English.  Got a no halo Ingles in a fluent Mexican Spanish.  So I tried to use my 3 years of high school Spanish.  Then the dude says "ni Mexicuh hua ho Cha ah". Basically said your Spanish is shitty in Cantonese to me.  Turns out the immigration population there is huge and they all speak the local language.  I still can't wrap my head around it.  And I get pissed off when people assume I don't speak English but I make the same damn assumptions of other people.

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2 hours ago, FartingMonk said:

Haha.  Same thing happened to me in Mexico City and Tula De Allende.  I went in there and tried to order in English.  Got a no halo Ingles in a fluent Mexican Spanish.  So I tried to use my 3 years of high school Spanish.  Then the dude says "ni Mexicuh hua ho Cha ah". Basically said your Spanish is shitty in Cantonese to me.  Turns out the immigration population there is huge and they all speak the local language.  I still can't wrap my head around it.  And I get pissed off when people assume I don't speak English but I make the same damn assumptions of other people.

This dude I met during undergrad was from Taiwan but his family immigrated to Mexico before the US.  They changed their names while they were there so his legal name was Jose Lee Garcia.  Also met a few from Taiwan that went to Peru first before the US.

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14 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

never tried char siu ravioli but i've been waiting a long time for char siu tamales.

 

have a couple friends who are brazilian chinese.  their parents/uncles/aunts/gparents all speak Portuguese.  couldn't wrap my mind around it first time i heard them speaking to each other. 

 

another time, one of the kids i coached on my baseball team had just moved to our school.  couldn't speak more than a few words of english, he was korean.  but he could play.  he was a freshman on varsity.  communicating with him was hard.  then third practice of the season i hear him speaking fluent spanish to the other pitchers.  WHAT?  turns out he had just moved to austin but not from korea, he had moved here from mexico.  his dad was an engineer and he had lived there for the past 10 years after being born in korea.  how bout that.

 

 

oh man.  I'm going to look into that.  I have Cha siu mastered.  I have to do tamales

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Ha. Started watching and then recognized the reporter's voice before I saw the source of the video. She interviewed and filmed me a few years ago for one of these stories. The package aired but they cut the parts containing me out of the final product. I was just a peripheral character in the storyline. Cool series. 

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