Bananas

ba·nan·a /bəˈnænə/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciatio[buh-nan-uh] Pronunciation Key –noun

1.	a tropical plant of the genus Musa, certain species of which are cultivated for their nutritious fruit. Compare banana family.

2.	the fruit, esp. that of M. paradisiaca, with yellow or reddish rind.

From dictionary.com

But do you know another meaning for banana?

An asian person who acts like they are white. Yellow on the outside, white on the inside.

Quang doesn't know what Dim Sum is? man that guy's a Banana.

From urbandictionary.com

Now, as with the real kind of banana, there are many different kinds of “banana”s, or rather, varying degrees of banana-ness.

First condition to be a banana: You have to be Asian, or of Asian parentage.

And the rest, is variable. In this post, we would focus more on the Chinese bananas, since that is what I kind of am, and thus I’m more familiar with this.

What makes me, or anybody, a banana? Any of the following…

• Not knowing how to converse in Chinese
• Not knowing how to read and write Chinese
• Speaking English in “ang mo” style
• Generally acting like Western people, whatever that means
• Not knowing Chinese traditions and following Western kind of lifestyle

People can range from being mildy banana to extremely banana, not even a hint that they are Asian apart from the fact that they look slightly like Asians. It is not easy for bananas in this society, they may get comments like, “Now even ang mo lang (Westerners) learn Chinese, you are Chinese but don’t know Chinese!” or other worse comments.

Most Asian parents discourage their children from becoming bananas and ingrain Asian traditions and family values in them from a young age. However, it is inevitable in this age of globalisation that youngsters will be exposed to the way of life of the West, which has now generally become the way of life of the World.

Take this blog for example, a majority of us bloggers here are Chinese, but all the posts are in English. If we did not tell you that we are Chinese, would you have known from what and how we write? In most cases, I doubt so. Thus, are we bananas? Hmm.. that is an increasingly difficult question to answer.

Some of us here have learnt Chinese from a young age, studied at Chinese schools up until primary or secondary school. Yet somehow, many of us here prefer to communicate using English. But does that necessarily mean we forsake our Chinese origins? No.

Life for the new Generation Y is like a constant turmoil between choosing to be respectful of the traditions of our heritage and being forward thinking, and how much of each. Undoubtedly, there is a time and place for everything. During Chinese celebrations, we may still maintain quite a few traditions, and perhaps add in a few additions of our own. In everyday life however, we may not be so focused on these traditions. The elder generation may chide us for our “liberal” behaviour, but it can’t be help that situation has changed and thus people have to change too.

Ah well, life’s like that, complicated and I think I think too much for my own good sometimes. Which leads to posts like this…

*Listens around for the symphony of people snoring*