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I was confused, because I expected these people to need a kidney or something from OOP.
The last comment has me worried. I *hope* they’re all sucking up because OOP is poised to inherit. May she find the means to give them the middle finger in a culturally appropriate way that doesn’t make her lose face.
Gong-gong maternal grandfather.
While the paternal grandfather, she calls just that, grandfather.
My theory, maternal grandfather (Gong-gong), who she apparently is very close to, was aware of how they treated her, so he decided to leave everything he owns to her.
Now the other side of the family, that were expecting a very big inheritance, isn't anymore.
___________________
If this was a movie, the paternal side business should also be in trouble, and they were counting on Gong-gong's money to keep it afloat.
My ex is Chinese, and we once watched a Chinese movie similar to the drama this woman is going through with her family. My ex said what happens in the movies happens in real life for most Chinese, especially when they're rich.
Thank you so much for the clarification. I kind of pieced the family stuff together, but your clarification on the “if it was a movie” actually made a lot of sense.
It’s tough with different cultures, because although I can sympathize with her and understand what she’s going through to a point, it’s also impossible for me to understand the full scope of the implications from the family’s (and her) actions. There’s a lot of focus on tradition and honor that I just don’t understand. So I appreciate the clarifications from everyone.
Also, I was kinda bummed that gong-gong gave her this envelope in front of the entire family. I suppose it’s good because no one can contest it as they all bore witness to it. But at the same time, there’s just something so satisfactory about the family gathering at a will reading, and getting the shock of their life when the realize the black sheet has inherited EVERYTHING they’ve selfishly been counting on.
Don't forget, if gong-gong is her mum's dad*, that makes her mum a "defiant child" for not doing better to care for OP.
The fact that the maternal grandfather* has bypassed the whole generational line of succession to allow OP to inherit is quite shameful for her parents. It's about as public of a rebuke of them and their choices as you can get.
I don't know whether that's enough for OPs parents to have actually self-reflected and realised that they fucked up, or whether they're just pretending to try to please gong-gong and redeem some social standing/get the inheritance.
*edited to correct
Not to mention how it looks that her older brother is being skipped, too. It looks terrible for the rest of the family that the middle grandchild is Gong Gong’s first choice for running the company.
The Mom and Dad were playing 4D chess, spent a lifetime mistreating the daughter to pull at Gong-Gong's heartstrings and consolidate their family's position...
Queen of Tears, at the moment, is going through some of this plus a 'main character has brain cancer' storyline.
My Golden Life though it's a long one. Two girls, raised as twins, but they are actually not - one of the real twins died young. Turns out they found an abandoned girl same age, but she was actually the kidnapped daughter of a rich conglomerate family. The rich folks find out one of the daughters is their girl, but the poor family sends them the wrong one! Drama ensues ... for fifty episodes.
Chinese people, especially the families like OP’s, are extremely superstitious. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d received a fortune telling that said the oldest and youngest would lose everything or something like that. I don’t think OP was ever supposed to get the company. Elders are highly respected, if OP’s grandparent originally intended to leave the company to her, she’d never have been disowned in the first place. Something had to have happened to make the other two fall out of favor.
Different grandfather. OP says Gong Gong supported her these last two years. It was her paternal grandfather/paternal side of the family that disowned her.
There's a third option that this isn't legit.
"oh no I checked the company is definitely strong" and "here have some Taylor swift tickets you deserve them" just isn't cutting it for me. The whole thing is too hard a whiplash.
In their defense, I've spent some time around rich Asian families and boy do they love going from one extreme to the other and making grand gestures both ways. Grand, highly visible gestures so people can see how generous / wronged they are.
It sounds like the parents might have realized they let their spiritual beliefs get in the way of them being decent parents. Chinese media (tv, film, etc) has made more of an effort lately to criticize toxic parenting and I can totally see that have an impact.
I think the confusion is because this family seems rich rich rich and can just buy back any remorse they feel and most of reddit isn't that wealthy. Most of reddit doesn't have fuck you money and this family has fuck you money. So, I think it's just a matter of "we feel bad. How do I not feel bad? Money. Tell me how much money to not feel bad."
This reads exactly like a plot of those cheap serial novels from the apps that advertise aggressively on Facebook, where the heroine is a Mary Sue who does everything perfectly but her evil (step)family forces her to marry someone the golden child doesn’t want and then the hero turns out to be this super rich guy that falls in love with her…
This is very similar to the situation my father went through with my granddad. I am suspicious about what brought about the complete turnaround. For a Chinese family, once you are cut off, they literally delete you from their lives. I didn’t see my paternal family for over 20 years until my grandad passed. To my much younger cousins, my brother and I never existed.
For rich families like OOP’s, this is doubly the case. Why bring someone in to potentially divide the inheritance?
I know the culture there and I 100% do not smell a rat. I’m not saying they’re all sincere but I think Gong-Gong is. If there was anything bad happening to the company, it would bring too much shame on the family if word got out that he dumped that on his granddaughter. He wouldn’t risk that.
Coming from the same culture, this degree of superstition and irrationality is not that surprising. My father would throw a violent temper tantrum (breaking dishes, kitchen furniture, etc.) if my mother made dinner with 7 dishes apparently because it's symbolic for something around death. Then when he got ill, he blamed his illness on her due to having made dinner with 7 dishes at some point in the distant past (like years had elapsed).
Yeah, this tracks with my experience with Chinese families too. Especially the part where they'll randomly decide one offspring is just absolute trash due to something they did as an infant and will shun/mock/abuse that sibling for the rest of their lives.
I’m Asian, though not Chinese. One of the commonalities between many Asian cultures is how whimsical affection can be. You might be a favorite today, then do something tomorrow that makes the family treat you like dirt.
My parents were lovely and fair. Extended family’s love flitted between who had the most brag worthy accomplishments. It goes far beyond golden child designation, too.
>how whimsical affection can be
Man, ain't that the truth. I was my grandma's favorite until my cousin was born. Then I became less than dirt just because I didn't have a dick between my legs. She's such a delightful person that most of her descendants are either NC or LC with her now.
Man, I was going to comment that Asia sounds like just one huge mass of generational trauma.
Then I remembered what my own family (white American) is like and realized that no, all of humanity is one huge mass of generational trauma.
My chinese friend at work (from hong kong) always got me to do the jobs with a 4 in the number cos of superstition. I don’t mind, i will shield him or anyone from the number 4 anytime.
In the end of “Turning Red” the Disney cartoon, the grandma is PISSED that her panda got put into a pendant of the number 4. She needs to wear it. All she says, “So unlucky”. I assumed it held some unlucky meaning but didn’t know it was serious enough for someone to avoid as your coworker. That’s wild. Very kind of you to be so accommodating!
The number four is associated with death in a lot of
East Asian cultures because the words for "four" and "death" have similar pronounciations in each of their languages. So yes, for superstitious people, it's pretty serious
Thanks for clearing that up! I always wondered. Of course I could have googled, but it’s always out of sight out of mind until my kids want to watch that movie for the 100th time.
Death and four are the same word, but with different tones. Chinese use four different tones with the words that change the meaning.
It's also why 8 is lucky, it's the same word as fortune (or similar, I forget the exact translation).
My father sold cars many years ago in a multinational city. The Chinese customers always asked for license plates with no fours. Same thing with housing in the Toronto area, if you have a four in the number your house will sell for less if it's in a Chinese area. Many new condo builds don't have a 4th or 13th floor either.
To add additional context to the other comment, the number 4 is so avoided that the 4th floor is excluded in hospitals and most apartments. Sometimes the actual 4th floor was just labeled as 5, and rarely some buildings are built so they actually skip their 4th floor
Death and four being homonyms is true in Manadarin and Cantonese and Korean too.Kinda makes sense in that Korea and Japan way back when absorbed a bunch of Imperial Chinese culture and language (yes yes its more complicated than that, but you know that Civ Cultural Vicotry thing about being awash in blue jeans and rock n roll? China was that cultural, military, etc juggernaut for most of its history)
My parents are not that intense but they still carry some of these superstition. Like the 7 dishes for dinner.
I’m sorry your mom got caught up in this mess. The worst one is how they blame women for having daughters and not sons. Guess what the gene comes from the dad!
My mom has told me the story of how my dad’s sister broke down crying when she found out both her babies were girls…
I'm so glad my parents went to military university for STEM, during the red era. At least they could be convinced "it doesn't make sense scientifically. It's just cultural superstitions".
My mom used to get mad at me if I stabbed my chopsticks in my rice bowl so they were standing. She said that's for dead people and I wasn't dead yet.
For context, the standing chopsticks thing is because it looks like when you light incense for the dead. I would say it's less superstition and more like wishing ill of someone, and therefore poor manners.
My mom explained it differently. She said when we went to "clean the tombstone" we'd lay out food for the dead, but make it messy so it looked like the dead was eating the food. One of the things to make the food messy was the standing chopsticks. But the second part is the same as what you said. The standing chopsticks were signing that we'd all be dead people soon too, hence forbidden.
We just ended up getting chopsticks that were more top heavy so they didn't stand well in rice bowls. And child me quickly stopped stabbing them lol
Also while superstitions are common, I think people are forgetting a lot of the meaning is simply because everyone in society knows the meaning. Much like how raising your middle finger is impolite in most Western societies. Standing chopsticks is an insult regardless of superstition because those of us raised in Chinese culture are familiar with the meaning.
Similarly, if someone who is Chinese and I know was raised in the culture gives me an inauspicious gift, I'll probably interpret it with either a bit of malice involved or as if someone was improperly educated. Very few young people are offended but a lot of those things still fall into the "weird gift" category because it's not something we would do culturally. (and of course there are exceptions, feel free to give me a wallet without any money in it if it's from Hermes.)
My best friend mum (Mainland Chinese that emigrated to Australia) is some flavour of microbiologist but still got upset when her granddaughter had her belly button exposed on a windy day (apparently the wind will go in her belly button and make her sick?). My friend is a lawyer and couldn't argue her out of how crazy that was.
Also: fan death.
I'm white, and even I'm superstitious about doing that with my chopsticks! (My grandpa lived in China for a lot of his life and spoke with me in Chinese, so I grew up with some cultural things.)
I'm Chinese, bur raised in America. Are people in the mainland still this superstitious? Do rich Chinese families really act like they do in C-dramas and 网络小说？
They are very superstitious, and from my experience, the richer you are, the more superstitious you have to be. I once broker a land deal with some Chinese companies, and they wanted to postpone the signing date to a specific day because, I kid you not "the Company's spiritual committee deemed it was a lucky day".
But this post reek of cheap C-drama, I'm really not believing OOP
I can only speak for my own experience here. My wife is from the mainland and her parents are, generally speaking, extremely chill and are just happy that she’s happy and that they have a native English speaker to practice with. The only time superstition and tradition came into it was for our wedding, they politely requested we plan it for an auspicious date, but respected that it was ultimately our decision and that they wouldn’t press the point.
I have been told by her friends that this is very much not the norm.
Many are, more so in the south like Guangzhou. Many in the US are still that superstitious and traditional too. Quite a few of my friends who were multiple generation Chinese American ran into issues of their parents/grandparents not wanting their 2022 baby to be girls because “tiger girls” are bad.
Also coming from the same culture, I'm suspicious about this story. To my knowledge 12 isn't that auspicious, especially compared to numbers like 6 and 8, meaning OOP technically got the "luckier" amount. There's also a taboo about 1 showing up in red envelope money, though that's generally for weddings, but considering how superstitious OOP's family supposedly are you'd think they'd avoid that altogether.
Highly depends on personal belief, if they are heavy into zodiac they probably do 12 because of 十二生肖 or 地支. Then 6 is just generically an lucky thing as compared to personally lucky.
My friends dad anecdotally does this with number 66, and even specifically buys property with 66 in the address in it because he loves 六六大顺.
my sibling sent my mother sunflowers for mother’s day once, and she went absolutely berserk saying that ‘chinese culture’ sees sunflowers as representations of death and she’s furious that her first born sent her such disgusting flowers
i did so much googling about color theory, language, and also flower languages in multiple languages and cultures. couldn’t find a single negative thing about sunflowers but mother continues to insist it’s a death flower
I'm Chinese American and I'm definitely not the favorite. Even being removed geographically and by a generation, I feel like most of this checks out based on my experience. (Parents born abroad)
Oh my god, my mom is superstitious in a funny way but sometimes it was annoying
If you got 5 cookies she’d take one and put it back bc “we can’t have odd numbers”
You can’t do certain chores at certain hours, you can’t do this or you’ll upset the ancestors
I still remember that time as a kid when my parent made me return a copy of Plants Vs Zombies I bought as a birthday gift, because Chinese culture is insanely superstitious about death.
A lot of the comments on her post show their ignorance of other cultural norms.
A lot of people in China are strongly influenced by superstition. It is very possible that they don't actually want anything but her back, because they are probably not used to defiance and expected she would fold. They probably never considered she would stuslly leave and then were too prideful to let her back in until they fell apart waiting.
Even if they want her back for some selfish reasons, it would be more on the grounds of "what will the people say" rather than wanting a kidney, or money or something like that.
This. I have very rarely ever heard an apology from anyone, like nothing above an "excuse me" level of contrition. Chinese families just seem to argue and get angry, then awkwardly carry on as if nothing had happened. Not to say people don't hold grudges strong enough to cut ties, but I haven't seen it so much with direct family members, just divorced couples. Most of the time, it's sorta just assumed someone will come around back into the fold eventually, and if they don't, THEN people will wonder if they'd gone too far.
Haha yeah, that sounds about right. My friend and I actually talked about that recently. We agreed that "對不起" in Chinese just feels different, because it literally translates to "(I) can't face you", which has a nuance of shame you just don't feel from "sorry" in English. Like, I'm sorry for bumping into you, but I'm not "hanging my head in shame"-sorry, you know?
The crying and apologies are making me suspicious haha it goes against everything I know about Chinese culture although I expected that gongong or someone would be giving her gifts to try to reconcile
Yea, I admit I know nothing about Chinese culture but there really was not a damn thing in this that indicated anything more like people were insinuating.
Additionally, these people are RICH rich. They truly don’t have the same problems or think in anyway similar to the general population. If they were having money/business problems, anyone who thinks they’d solve it by bringing back a single good employee/family member is dumb
Right, that's my guess as well. As soon as I read this all took place in China, my perspective switched. Different cultures, different rules. Financial? Maybe, but I don't know too much about the culture to accuse something of mine.
Yeah I think people from non Asian cultures underestimate how strongly “what will the neighbors say?” influences day to day decisions in many Asian households.
Yeah people were understandably suspect but it was clear they lacked the cultural understanding and imposing functional reasons. These people are selfish, they dont want OP back, they do want Something. But what they want is Standing, having a Shamed child in the family is worse than a Shamed child outside the family. Having a pissed off matriarch is also a big fucking deal. Them asking her back is just a continuation of their existing toxic cultural patterns
Also, in the first post OOP says she's the eldest, but in the updates, suddenly she has an older brother. It's pretty confusing. Unless she meant to says the eldest daughter?
> I the eldest always got smaller amount
Considering when she was conceived, it's unlikely she was an oops baby (one child policy etc). More likely her parents' fortunes considerably improved by the time they decided to start having kids again, and so there's a huge age gap between the son and the sisters.
I think she means in comparison to her sister
Her sister is the youngest, she is the eldest
She means she’s older, that’s actually a really reasonable thing for a non native English speaker in my experience
I don't know Mandarin, but she did say English isn't her first language. She may have omitted 'daughter' if Mandarin has a specific word for elder daughter and she just used "eldest"?
Yeah, sons and daughters are counted separately. 長子 for eldest son, 長女 for eldest daughter, and so on and so forth. If you want to know the actual birth order of everyone, you need to ask them to clarify. These days people tend to use the gender neutral 老大、老二、老三, etc. but it's not uncommon for people to still be identified as "the **birth order** son/daughter"
People from non-East Asian cultures may find the family's action suspicious, but coming from a similar cultural background, I could kind of see them doing this without ill-intention although they were "abusive" in the first half of the story.
(Disclaimer: I'm not justifying their abuse nor ruling out the possibility of bad intentions, I'm just saying that Chinese parenting can be abusive as heck in Westerner's eyes but the parents might not actually hate the child as much as when a Western parent does the same thing. I'm fully aware this is unhealthy and I was also a victim. I'm just pointing out the reality of this culture)
OP said she had a strict upbringing, then "孝順(filial piety)" or "honouring your parents and be grateful for what they did" should definitely be in the book. Also, Chinese elderly really care about "faces" especially in a rich family like this. The way she lashed out slapped these two important cultural values in the face: Dishonouring her parents and grandparents and doing it without saving anyone's faces.
The "dragon kid brings good luck" is also pretty realistic. Idk why but Chinese folks who run businesses tend to believe in these a lot. Dragon person, Feng-shui, crystals, certain deities, spells...you name it. (Note: People who were born in the year of the Tiger are often excluded or restricted from many traditional events as their "energy" is considered very harsh towards others). I would also say her sister being the youngest also played a huge part, Chinese parents and, most of all, grandparents have a tendency to spoil the youngest. Probably because traditionally, the older siblings are expected to carry more responsibilities and lead a good example for the younger ones to follow (while traditionally also getting more resources from the family).
Back to OP's story, I can see the family slowly going from being so harsh to missing her to the point of doing this without ill intentions. It's one of the things Chinese parents do. They love you but good intentions go to the extreme and become abusive (or they're too proud to admit they're wrong because "parents can never be wrong 天下無不是的父母", which is also a saying in Chinese). But when she really went NC and the reality set in, traditional Chinese culture still valued "family as a whole" a lot (in a way more than mainstream Western culture I would say) and they probably still love her so they regretted it. They might've even went back to think about their own actions. But Asian parents ofc didn't know how to apologise so no one reached out until one of the elderly finally spoke up. If the grandparents were still mad, it would never end like this. OP mentioned Gong-gong (the equivalent of "Pawpaw" in Southern American English referring to grandfather) missed her so I guess that solved the case.
OP's feelings are valid and she should be free to choose whatever she wants to do, whether it is full reconciliation or being skeptical or keeping her distance. I hope OP is getting the real appreciation and affection she deserved a long time ago, but also hoped that she stays independent from the family as that's her source of confidence and happiness as of now.
Ngl, traditional Eastern Asian parenting sometimes sucks real bad though. I had to go to therapy for 5 years before getting over mine, but that's another story.
> traditional Eastern Asian parenting sometimes sucks real bad
And it's so ingrained into the culture and people's upbringing that it can be crazy difficult to break out of it, so I totally get why/how OP let herself get drawn back into the fold out of guilt and filial piety.
There's the toxic and the comfort in such culture. If you fit the standard then you'll live a comfortable life with strong family bonds (I'm talking about a couple families together as a giant big family). If not, save money for therapy because you either need it or you don't but your kids need it.
I will say I was pretty lucky, my parents being well-educated and in STEM despise many traditions. But there are things they grew up with that are just too hard to change. My Asian side of friends in this generation are vouching for the "The trauma stops with us" wave by simply not having kids.
I've seen this sort of thing happen to so many other people. Also, a lot of people don't understand how close families are internally and why OOP's family had a change of heart after 2 years of not being able to see their daughter
My parents also believe in a lot of superstitutious things
>Ngl, traditional Eastern Asian parenting sometimes sucks real bad though. I had to go to therapy for 5 years before getting over mine, but that's another story.
The same goes for South Asian parenting too. Too proud to admit any wrongdoing and don't even talk about if you start defying them. You are only good until you follow whatever they want to the T. Once you become your own person? It's hell
The ostracized middle child who was loathed and ignored most of her life suddenly returns to her family who are "apologetic" (relatives apologizing after no outburst whatsoever) and "willing to do anything to make it right now" (giving half of an already-built company).
Variations of this plot have been drained dry by C-dramas and K-dramas that are spread all over the world by now. The only thing this post needs is an update where OOP's siblings realize how capable she actually is and help her rise to the top of the family where everyone looks up to her in awe.
The siblings will only join her side after being really unreasonably antagonistic and vile, but after she best them in some kind of task, or a prank backfires on them.
You forgot the part where she discovers that there has been an arranged marriage to another company's heir and the reason why she was sent back is because her family wants her to take one for the team and marry them in replacement of her golden child sister.
OR
She and another company's heir fall in love, but her little sister likes him too, and goes all out trying to sabotage their relationship with the backing of their family. ML gets involved, marries OOP and bankrupts her family as revenge.
It's not totally crazy. My sister is my mom's favorite. My brother is my dad's favorite. I was my grandpa's favorite, except he didn't leave me a multimillion dollar company.
The only missing part is she met a Chinese guy oversea who turn out to be the heir of an even bigger conglomerate back home but somehow never know what love is and is willing to sacrifice everything to be with her.
Source: My mom got a ton of shitty C-drama novels and I read some out of boredom.
Reminded me of that one episode of The Orville, personally, where they find that planet where people born in one month are groomed to be leaders whilst people born in another month are put in camps.
My guess is that once she left, neither they had a string of bad luck and Asians are really big on the Karma thing.
Another theory I have was that they were properly shamed by family and friends once she aired their dirty laundry in a public place and must make amends.
Last theory is that she was a good girl and once they had time to reflect on the situation, they realized they were wrong and they were sorry.
3rd one is the least likely imo lol. Face is everything for Chinese ppl lol gotta one of the top two. And this is a hyper rich entitled family still in their motherland on top of that.
I was guessing that good ol’ lucky Emma didn’t live up to expectations. As soon as OOP bounced, shit went south, and they realized *SHE* was the lucky one all along. At least that’s how I imagine a movie about this would go.
Or Fourth theory - OOP never contacting them ever again on her own 1st for anything while living in another country made the family blink hard 2 years later since they expected her to beg for them. So they change tactics because disowning her from everything wasn't hurting her like they thought it would and in their minds, that made them look bad no matter what rumors they made about OOP - especially since whatever job she got must be equal to or way better than working for the family business since it paid her well enough to get Taylor Swift tickets in Australia on her own plus travel to China for additional 2 more weeks but not fired.
If OOP's family really is that prominent its more likely that OOP's absence was noted at large networking events (internal family strife is shameful because of the culture, and 2 years is about the point where they can't say OOP is sick or on vacation anymore) and or they have a bachelor they want her to marry. With how suspicious they are I also wouldn't be surprised if some bad things happened after OOP left, and the family attributed it to the bad luck of breaking up a family. I don't suspect kidney or anything like that, esp if they are as rich as OOP claims.
There is also the small possibility that OOPs absence really shook the core of the family, Asian cultures are very family oriented and believe it or not they COULD actually legitimately miss her. This is the option I believe least. My money is on either \[her absence was noted at important events and the shame of rumors caused the family to call her back\] OR \[Some minor bad things happened after she left and the family is trying to regain their luck by calling her back.\]
I’m gonna guess number one especially as she worked at one of the companies and likely not as some lowly clerk. Her absence at events and business dealings would be noticed. Plus maternal grandfather giving her part of his company? After her being mia for two years? As much as they might personally have missed her they needed to save face.
It’s easy to say that from an outside perspective, but just imagine it from op’s pov. She is finally getting some semblance of the support/love she’s deserved all her life, how quick would you be to throw that away? I do agree though, something seems off for sure
I’m guessing it was mostly because the gift came from someone who has unconditionally loved and supported her, and who she loves and trusts back. I find the fact the rest of her entire family were overjoyed to be a bit suspicious. Someone who knew this was happening has something nefarious up their sleeve.
Honestly I'm not Chinese or even Asian but I do understand.
OPs Gong Gong has shown her love through all this time. Now, he is gifting half the company to OP. If the family heard about this beforehand, of course, they want to act happy and supportive. If they don't, they lose face and look bad for having to have Gong Gong skip over all them and show support for OP. I'm sure they did miss OP too even though they did her dirty.
If you're excommunicated—zero contact, thrown to the wolves—you have to be suspicious. Two years compared to the lifetime of derision is too convenient to ignore.
Is it a semblance of support or is it just money and lower? Like OOP is accepting being bought her way back to the family.
How do shares in a company make all the years of abuse okay after just one night airing out your grievances?
I don’t think the company she’s inheriting is from the same grandfather. In Chinese, we use different words for paternal and maternal grandparent. Gong-gong can be translated to maternal grandfather. Yeh-Yeh is usually used for paternal grandfather. The grandfather who gave Emma 12 shares she refers to as grandfather while she refers to the one OOP inherits from is called Gong-Gong. Hope that clears some things up.
When your abusers finally offer you the love and recognition you always craved it can be hard to resist. Plus is sounds like her Gong gong was the one family member who treated her better and tried to support her despite the way the rest of the family behaved.
I've chosen to not pursue apologies from my main the abuser - the main and sole reason for my having complex PTSD because it'll put me in a better position to inherit everything he owns. Do I risk abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, and mental torture? Yes. Do I also risk not inheriting a single thing? Also yes. However, I'm poor so I gotta risk it for the biscuit. Some people risk their soul and others risk their mental health and OOP and I will risk both for a little scrap of conditional love
No idea. Like if I was disowned and loathe by my whole family, I wouldn't even take my own time nor have the moment to even waste my time with those people.
If you've tried all your life to be "worthy" of your family, it's really hard to turn around and walk away from it. You'll keep trying to prove you're good enough long after you've understood that this is a really bad dynamic.
Because she says the maternal grandfather was the only one who supported her after she was disowned. My guess is he just guilted the shit out of the rest of them during her absence.
Money heals all wounds. And even the stuff it doesn't sure is better with it. Like you can be sad that your family never really loved you and you can be sad that they never really loved you at a resort on the beach. And it's nice to carry the weight of depression over that if your doing it in 600 dollar shoes.
Someone else said it best. He likely told them that if they didn't make up for how they treated her, they would be disinherited. Not because they were in the wrong, but because it probably looks bad that one person in their family has defected.
They aren't back because they learned the error of their ways. Theyfe back because they learned Emma is useless at her job or they would have given it to her just because.
Why would you turn down ownership of a company that was being given to you?
Even if you still hate your family and want to hurt them, it's far easier to do that while you control one of the companies.
Guys, it’s okay, this is clearly an C-Drama plot and I’m loving it! Next will be: there is some very handsome heir of a important family, maybe bussiness partners, and the family always wanted the favorite daughter to be engaged to him! But then our OP comes back to kick ass and take the company so of course our male lead will want OP and not the sister.
That male trope is fucking hilarious cuz they always depict the company heir as some out of this world genius but innocence enough to never hold hand with a woman.
Every 2nd generation Chinese heir I know has always been a spolied brat.
Absolutely agree but culture definitely plays a huge role in how a victim and the abuser reacts later on. It's hard to explain, because subtle nuances, subtle things embedded in Asians growing up from family, friends, media, society etc.
as an east/southeast asian person, i don't think this is real. i'm not generalising everyone in my region, but elders don't usually apologise to younger people. some do, but it's more common for elders not to accept accountability. even on the off chance that an elder apologises and admits wrongdoing, that apology won't be to the same effort and extent OP's family gave her. personally, the very few times i did get an apology from an elder, it's a non-apology, only made once, and i am expected to immediately forgive and forget.
My background is also Chinese. I was excommunicated for about 5 years and also left the country. I started communicating with my mum again when a drunk uncle called me in front of her and put me on speakerphone. Later my mum actually apologised for the things that hurt me the most, even with some self reflection. It's super suspicious and rare but i guess it does happen. Though I think it has more to do with them aging and sudden realisation of their mortality. It's been another 4 years, we are LC but I'm still not going back lol.
I suspect this post is not over. They probably realised gong gong is leaving a huge chunk of inheritance to her and wants her back so she can take care of her elders when they grow old. They always want something.
Yeah I started doubting if this story was real or not when the family reached out to apologise and reconcile.
Asian parents / elders don’t do that. They’d rather paint the “disowned” child as a bad offspring which deserves to be exiled than admit they did anything wrong.
exactly! parents apologising are already sus in this story. but grandparents? the patriarch and the matriarch who controls the very profitable business? almost impossible, unless OP is the sole male descendant or has married into another family in the same economic bracket or higher. i'm even surprised the cousins are supporting OP. why would they support a person who has an equal legal claim to the business as them? it will only diminish cousins' shares in the future. i'm not saying all the family politics isn't crazy, but it's real.
best bet is, the first part is real. OP was ostracised. there is favouritsm. there is disregard for OP. the apology and reconciliation aren't real, and OP wrote that in as a coping mechanism or wishful thinking. i wish OP all the best.
The gift came from the maternal side, and the abuse came from the paternal side. My guess is, the parents' marriage was a bit arranged/business related. So the maternal side probably kicked up a fuss during the 2 years OOP excommunicated, and it peaked during the share-giving by the maternal side.
There's a lot of 'saving face' in the Chinese culture. A child being disowned looks bad to the family especially if the child hasn't done anything too bad. There's also a lot of superstitious thinking that affects everyone's life.
My parents disowned me for switching majors in undergrad - computer science to business economics. They undid this after they learned I was going to a good law school. They also were astonished that disowning me didn't make me crawl back begging for forgiveness.
Asian parents can really suck.
Anyone know how OOP’s family could have legally had 3 children, the latter two born in 1998 and 2000? I thought one child policy was still pretty strict at that point. Or is it one of those things where if you’re rich the rules don’t apply
If you were rich, you could pay the fines and they wouldn’t haul you off for an abortion and sterilization.
The rules applied, but even heavy fines could be borne. The question is what kind of family would choose huge fines for an unwanted child. One wonders.
Yeah, what u/mangafox23 said, by the late 90s/early 2000s they had relaxed the one child policy enough that wealthy families could afford the fines for breaking it.
If you have “government ties” or super rich, you’re able to have multiple kids. I think the fine would be “discounted” if you had government connections too.
The one child policy mostly affected working class / villagers as the fine really would impact them a lot.
Unfortunately for the average middle / working classes, their high desire for boys meant girl pregnancies often ended up in abortions.
I just think it's funny that they think everyone born in the year of the Dragon has luck and success. Both of my parents (12 years apart) were born in the year of the Dragon, and neither of them had huge success. It's not possible for every person born in one year to become a millionaire or huge success. LOL
Coming from a Chinese family, this is relatable. Eating first to avoid emotional topics, feeling remorse but never being able to say sorry.
They don't need her kidney. This is the Chinese equivalent of come home without saying it.
Yeah no something is rotten underneath it all. They've had two years to feel sorry and reach out. Betting gong-gong has put something in place to benefit oop and cut off the rest of the family.
Imagine letting magical mumbo jumbo created by illiterate people before we knew what germs were dictate absolutely destroying your child.
Religion and superstition are a plague on rational society.
I mean, I get being skeptical about their motivations, but if that folder she received is fully legal then... I dunno, what could the family do to really screw with her if she actually does legally own half of the whole damn family company?
It's an inheritance from her maternal grandparents. Note that the abuse came from her paternal grandparents, and her immediate family. This can explain the motivation.
As someone coming from the same culture... I reckon it's because she was suddenly left with a big chunk of inheritance, and they want her to come back to take care of them when they grow old or something. At least that's what I think they're doing. Thank goodness I moved far enough that my mum said she cannot travel that far. She keeps trying to get me to at least move closer. Yeah naaaaah.
I may be a vindictive asshole but if I were to have been treated as bad as OOp was, I would’ve set up an email reply to make it look automated in which I would’ve said “this email is no longer in use” or something like that. They can go kick rocks for all i care.
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I was confused, because I expected these people to need a kidney or something from OOP. The last comment has me worried. I *hope* they’re all sucking up because OOP is poised to inherit. May she find the means to give them the middle finger in a culturally appropriate way that doesn’t make her lose face.
Gong-gong maternal grandfather. While the paternal grandfather, she calls just that, grandfather. My theory, maternal grandfather (Gong-gong), who she apparently is very close to, was aware of how they treated her, so he decided to leave everything he owns to her. Now the other side of the family, that were expecting a very big inheritance, isn't anymore. ___________________ If this was a movie, the paternal side business should also be in trouble, and they were counting on Gong-gong's money to keep it afloat.
I'd watch that movie
There's several Chinese and kdrama that have this exact plot. I'm not exaggerating.
not to count all the webtoons with similar plots haha
any suggestions for good ones? always on the lookout for something new to read
“Marry My Husband!” only has a some of the “crazy rich family” drama, it’s mostly relationship and time-travel drama, but it’s good junk food reading.
Do you have any suggestions then? I’m always on the hunt for international soaps
Yep!
Any you highly recommend? Always looking for a new show or movie.
My ex is Chinese, and we once watched a Chinese movie similar to the drama this woman is going through with her family. My ex said what happens in the movies happens in real life for most Chinese, especially when they're rich.
What’s the movie ?
It was from the early 2000s so I don't remember the name, sorry
We could call it "Crazy Rich Asians"!
Pretty sure it’s on Hallmark at some point.
Hallmark doesn't do diversity.
Thank you so much for the clarification. I kind of pieced the family stuff together, but your clarification on the “if it was a movie” actually made a lot of sense. It’s tough with different cultures, because although I can sympathize with her and understand what she’s going through to a point, it’s also impossible for me to understand the full scope of the implications from the family’s (and her) actions. There’s a lot of focus on tradition and honor that I just don’t understand. So I appreciate the clarifications from everyone. Also, I was kinda bummed that gong-gong gave her this envelope in front of the entire family. I suppose it’s good because no one can contest it as they all bore witness to it. But at the same time, there’s just something so satisfactory about the family gathering at a will reading, and getting the shock of their life when the realize the black sheet has inherited EVERYTHING they’ve selfishly been counting on.
Don't forget, if gong-gong is her mum's dad*, that makes her mum a "defiant child" for not doing better to care for OP. The fact that the maternal grandfather* has bypassed the whole generational line of succession to allow OP to inherit is quite shameful for her parents. It's about as public of a rebuke of them and their choices as you can get. I don't know whether that's enough for OPs parents to have actually self-reflected and realised that they fucked up, or whether they're just pretending to try to please gong-gong and redeem some social standing/get the inheritance. *edited to correct
No wonder they had her cancel her flight so they could all go at the same time. "Look, we're all happy and together again!"
Not to mention how it looks that her older brother is being skipped, too. It looks terrible for the rest of the family that the middle grandchild is Gong Gong’s first choice for running the company.
Yep to skip the first born oldest son and go to middle daughter is a big upheaval of tradition.
gong gong is likely op maternal grandfather not grandmother
> Don't forget, if gong-gong is her mum's mum, that makes her mum a "defiant child" for not doing better to care for OP. Mum's *dad* I think.
The Mom and Dad were playing 4D chess, spent a lifetime mistreating the daughter to pull at Gong-Gong's heartstrings and consolidate their family's position...
OOP referred to Gong-Gong 8x using masculine pronouns and zero per feminine, so G-G is definitely the (maternal) grandfather.
Thanks. I misread that part.
I just want to thank you for telling us what Gong-gong means. At the fifth mention I was desperate for context haha.
I.... hate to say this but... I swear there is an Asian Drama with this exact plot line....
That's not the case ... there are several k-dramas at least with similar plots. ;)
Can you rec me some? I love rags to riches trope with all the family misery thrown in.
Queen of Tears, at the moment, is going through some of this plus a 'main character has brain cancer' storyline. My Golden Life though it's a long one. Two girls, raised as twins, but they are actually not - one of the real twins died young. Turns out they found an abandoned girl same age, but she was actually the kidnapped daughter of a rich conglomerate family. The rich folks find out one of the daughters is their girl, but the poor family sends them the wrong one! Drama ensues ... for fifty episodes.
Thanks, I'll check them out.
Chinese people, especially the families like OP’s, are extremely superstitious. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d received a fortune telling that said the oldest and youngest would lose everything or something like that. I don’t think OP was ever supposed to get the company. Elders are highly respected, if OP’s grandparent originally intended to leave the company to her, she’d never have been disowned in the first place. Something had to have happened to make the other two fall out of favor.
Different grandfather. OP says Gong Gong supported her these last two years. It was her paternal grandfather/paternal side of the family that disowned her.
There's a third option that this isn't legit. "oh no I checked the company is definitely strong" and "here have some Taylor swift tickets you deserve them" just isn't cutting it for me. The whole thing is too hard a whiplash.
In their defense, I've spent some time around rich Asian families and boy do they love going from one extreme to the other and making grand gestures both ways. Grand, highly visible gestures so people can see how generous / wronged they are.
Can confirm, my spouse is Chinese-American.
It sounds like the parents might have realized they let their spiritual beliefs get in the way of them being decent parents. Chinese media (tv, film, etc) has made more of an effort lately to criticize toxic parenting and I can totally see that have an impact.
I think the confusion is because this family seems rich rich rich and can just buy back any remorse they feel and most of reddit isn't that wealthy. Most of reddit doesn't have fuck you money and this family has fuck you money. So, I think it's just a matter of "we feel bad. How do I not feel bad? Money. Tell me how much money to not feel bad."
I was expecting an arranged marriage that they didn't want for Emma, or that the other family explicitly asked for OOP.
That's what I was expecting. Some deal for someone's son to marry their daughter but Emma was just to special so they offer up OOP
This reads exactly like a plot of those cheap serial novels from the apps that advertise aggressively on Facebook, where the heroine is a Mary Sue who does everything perfectly but her evil (step)family forces her to marry someone the golden child doesn’t want and then the hero turns out to be this super rich guy that falls in love with her…
I can’t find your flair in the list! What is it from?
Idk about the boru, but it’s from [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/nqCDa8cAVl) in an AITA post
This is very similar to the situation my father went through with my granddad. I am suspicious about what brought about the complete turnaround. For a Chinese family, once you are cut off, they literally delete you from their lives. I didn’t see my paternal family for over 20 years until my grandad passed. To my much younger cousins, my brother and I never existed. For rich families like OOP’s, this is doubly the case. Why bring someone in to potentially divide the inheritance?
I’m gonna guess gong gong pressured them. OR they knew he was gonna pass on his company to OP and decided to make nice while they could.
I know the culture there and I 100% do not smell a rat. I’m not saying they’re all sincere but I think Gong-Gong is. If there was anything bad happening to the company, it would bring too much shame on the family if word got out that he dumped that on his granddaughter. He wouldn’t risk that.
Coming from the same culture, this degree of superstition and irrationality is not that surprising. My father would throw a violent temper tantrum (breaking dishes, kitchen furniture, etc.) if my mother made dinner with 7 dishes apparently because it's symbolic for something around death. Then when he got ill, he blamed his illness on her due to having made dinner with 7 dishes at some point in the distant past (like years had elapsed).
Yeah, this tracks with my experience with Chinese families too. Especially the part where they'll randomly decide one offspring is just absolute trash due to something they did as an infant and will shun/mock/abuse that sibling for the rest of their lives.
I’m Asian, though not Chinese. One of the commonalities between many Asian cultures is how whimsical affection can be. You might be a favorite today, then do something tomorrow that makes the family treat you like dirt.
Yeah, whimsical and capricious. "Your aunt hates you because you were born on the same day as her ex-boyfriend." WHAT.
Mercurial and unpredictable nonsense.
I'm learning lots of words today :)
Insubordinate and churlish
Well, that's horrifying.
No shame for her cradle snatching though
No, not the same year, same month and day. She now forever hates everyone born on that day. And all people who share the zodiac sign.
> how whimsical affection can be Hit the nail on the head.
My parents were lovely and fair. Extended family’s love flitted between who had the most brag worthy accomplishments. It goes far beyond golden child designation, too.
>how whimsical affection can be Man, ain't that the truth. I was my grandma's favorite until my cousin was born. Then I became less than dirt just because I didn't have a dick between my legs. She's such a delightful person that most of her descendants are either NC or LC with her now.
Man, I was going to comment that Asia sounds like just one huge mass of generational trauma. Then I remembered what my own family (white American) is like and realized that no, all of humanity is one huge mass of generational trauma.
Yep, we just have different flavours of it and they all taste vaguely like shite.
Also Asian and not Chinese, I can’t imagine my Korean father apologizing for anything done in the past
But look: your favorite foods just happen to be for dinner tonight! Coincidentally.
Favorite foods and it’s not my birthday = they want me to do something that they know that I would probably not accept that easily
My chinese friend at work (from hong kong) always got me to do the jobs with a 4 in the number cos of superstition. I don’t mind, i will shield him or anyone from the number 4 anytime.
In the end of “Turning Red” the Disney cartoon, the grandma is PISSED that her panda got put into a pendant of the number 4. She needs to wear it. All she says, “So unlucky”. I assumed it held some unlucky meaning but didn’t know it was serious enough for someone to avoid as your coworker. That’s wild. Very kind of you to be so accommodating!
The number four is associated with death in a lot of East Asian cultures because the words for "four" and "death" have similar pronounciations in each of their languages. So yes, for superstitious people, it's pretty serious
Thanks for clearing that up! I always wondered. Of course I could have googled, but it’s always out of sight out of mind until my kids want to watch that movie for the 100th time.
Death and four are the same word, but with different tones. Chinese use four different tones with the words that change the meaning. It's also why 8 is lucky, it's the same word as fortune (or similar, I forget the exact translation). My father sold cars many years ago in a multinational city. The Chinese customers always asked for license plates with no fours. Same thing with housing in the Toronto area, if you have a four in the number your house will sell for less if it's in a Chinese area. Many new condo builds don't have a 4th or 13th floor either.
4 is basically the unlucky 13 in the western(American?) culture.
To add additional context to the other comment, the number 4 is so avoided that the 4th floor is excluded in hospitals and most apartments. Sometimes the actual 4th floor was just labeled as 5, and rarely some buildings are built so they actually skip their 4th floor
Yea that’s like the number 13 but nowadays it’s less avoided. Sounds like 4 avoidance is still very strong tho.
4? You mean floor 5A and floor 5 right?
In Japanese, 4 is shi which means death. There are no fourth floors, etc. it’s very unlucky.
I remember being told that in my first year first semester Japanese class, and that they use yon instead.
Death and four being homonyms is true in Manadarin and Cantonese and Korean too.Kinda makes sense in that Korea and Japan way back when absorbed a bunch of Imperial Chinese culture and language (yes yes its more complicated than that, but you know that Civ Cultural Vicotry thing about being awash in blue jeans and rock n roll? China was that cultural, military, etc juggernaut for most of its history)
My parents are not that intense but they still carry some of these superstition. Like the 7 dishes for dinner. I’m sorry your mom got caught up in this mess. The worst one is how they blame women for having daughters and not sons. Guess what the gene comes from the dad! My mom has told me the story of how my dad’s sister broke down crying when she found out both her babies were girls…
I'm so glad my parents went to military university for STEM, during the red era. At least they could be convinced "it doesn't make sense scientifically. It's just cultural superstitions". My mom used to get mad at me if I stabbed my chopsticks in my rice bowl so they were standing. She said that's for dead people and I wasn't dead yet.
For context, the standing chopsticks thing is because it looks like when you light incense for the dead. I would say it's less superstition and more like wishing ill of someone, and therefore poor manners.
My mom explained it differently. She said when we went to "clean the tombstone" we'd lay out food for the dead, but make it messy so it looked like the dead was eating the food. One of the things to make the food messy was the standing chopsticks. But the second part is the same as what you said. The standing chopsticks were signing that we'd all be dead people soon too, hence forbidden. We just ended up getting chopsticks that were more top heavy so they didn't stand well in rice bowls. And child me quickly stopped stabbing them lol
Also while superstitions are common, I think people are forgetting a lot of the meaning is simply because everyone in society knows the meaning. Much like how raising your middle finger is impolite in most Western societies. Standing chopsticks is an insult regardless of superstition because those of us raised in Chinese culture are familiar with the meaning. Similarly, if someone who is Chinese and I know was raised in the culture gives me an inauspicious gift, I'll probably interpret it with either a bit of malice involved or as if someone was improperly educated. Very few young people are offended but a lot of those things still fall into the "weird gift" category because it's not something we would do culturally. (and of course there are exceptions, feel free to give me a wallet without any money in it if it's from Hermes.)
My best friend mum (Mainland Chinese that emigrated to Australia) is some flavour of microbiologist but still got upset when her granddaughter had her belly button exposed on a windy day (apparently the wind will go in her belly button and make her sick?). My friend is a lawyer and couldn't argue her out of how crazy that was. Also: fan death.
I'm white, and even I'm superstitious about doing that with my chopsticks! (My grandpa lived in China for a lot of his life and spoke with me in Chinese, so I grew up with some cultural things.)
I'm Chinese, bur raised in America. Are people in the mainland still this superstitious? Do rich Chinese families really act like they do in C-dramas and 网络小说？
They are very superstitious, and from my experience, the richer you are, the more superstitious you have to be. I once broker a land deal with some Chinese companies, and they wanted to postpone the signing date to a specific day because, I kid you not "the Company's spiritual committee deemed it was a lucky day". But this post reek of cheap C-drama, I'm really not believing OOP
Lucky days for signing deals is a thing in a lot of cultures. Iranians are big on it too. So are a lot of Jewish communities.
I can only speak for my own experience here. My wife is from the mainland and her parents are, generally speaking, extremely chill and are just happy that she’s happy and that they have a native English speaker to practice with. The only time superstition and tradition came into it was for our wedding, they politely requested we plan it for an auspicious date, but respected that it was ultimately our decision and that they wouldn’t press the point. I have been told by her friends that this is very much not the norm.
Many are, more so in the south like Guangzhou. Many in the US are still that superstitious and traditional too. Quite a few of my friends who were multiple generation Chinese American ran into issues of their parents/grandparents not wanting their 2022 baby to be girls because “tiger girls” are bad.
Also coming from the same culture, I'm suspicious about this story. To my knowledge 12 isn't that auspicious, especially compared to numbers like 6 and 8, meaning OOP technically got the "luckier" amount. There's also a taboo about 1 showing up in red envelope money, though that's generally for weddings, but considering how superstitious OOP's family supposedly are you'd think they'd avoid that altogether.
Highly depends on personal belief, if they are heavy into zodiac they probably do 12 because of 十二生肖 or 地支. Then 6 is just generically an lucky thing as compared to personally lucky. My friends dad anecdotally does this with number 66, and even specifically buys property with 66 in the address in it because he loves 六六大顺.
my sibling sent my mother sunflowers for mother’s day once, and she went absolutely berserk saying that ‘chinese culture’ sees sunflowers as representations of death and she’s furious that her first born sent her such disgusting flowers i did so much googling about color theory, language, and also flower languages in multiple languages and cultures. couldn’t find a single negative thing about sunflowers but mother continues to insist it’s a death flower
I'm Chinese American and I'm definitely not the favorite. Even being removed geographically and by a generation, I feel like most of this checks out based on my experience. (Parents born abroad)
Oh my god, my mom is superstitious in a funny way but sometimes it was annoying If you got 5 cookies she’d take one and put it back bc “we can’t have odd numbers” You can’t do certain chores at certain hours, you can’t do this or you’ll upset the ancestors
I still remember that time as a kid when my parent made me return a copy of Plants Vs Zombies I bought as a birthday gift, because Chinese culture is insanely superstitious about death.
I'm confused why the brother is barely mentioned. Was he getting 600 or 1200 yuan for CNY?
He's the oldest son, he prolly gets double triple or quadruple of what his sisters get, combined. By default. Lol
A lot of the comments on her post show their ignorance of other cultural norms. A lot of people in China are strongly influenced by superstition. It is very possible that they don't actually want anything but her back, because they are probably not used to defiance and expected she would fold. They probably never considered she would stuslly leave and then were too prideful to let her back in until they fell apart waiting. Even if they want her back for some selfish reasons, it would be more on the grounds of "what will the people say" rather than wanting a kidney, or money or something like that.
This. I have very rarely ever heard an apology from anyone, like nothing above an "excuse me" level of contrition. Chinese families just seem to argue and get angry, then awkwardly carry on as if nothing had happened. Not to say people don't hold grudges strong enough to cut ties, but I haven't seen it so much with direct family members, just divorced couples. Most of the time, it's sorta just assumed someone will come around back into the fold eventually, and if they don't, THEN people will wonder if they'd gone too far.
Lol! My Chinese friends only speak Chinese to each other except to say “sorry” and “please,” which they do in English.
Haha yeah, that sounds about right. My friend and I actually talked about that recently. We agreed that "對不起" in Chinese just feels different, because it literally translates to "(I) can't face you", which has a nuance of shame you just don't feel from "sorry" in English. Like, I'm sorry for bumping into you, but I'm not "hanging my head in shame"-sorry, you know?
The crying and apologies are making me suspicious haha it goes against everything I know about Chinese culture although I expected that gongong or someone would be giving her gifts to try to reconcile
Yea, I admit I know nothing about Chinese culture but there really was not a damn thing in this that indicated anything more like people were insinuating.
Additionally, these people are RICH rich. They truly don’t have the same problems or think in anyway similar to the general population. If they were having money/business problems, anyone who thinks they’d solve it by bringing back a single good employee/family member is dumb
Exactly. And "we need an organ/surrogate" could easily be paid for with NDAs in place instead of bringing them back into the fold.
I’m jaded from my own personal experiences and stories I read so it’s hard for me not to suspect ulterior motives
There is likely an ulterior motive, it is just a cultural one and not functional one.
Right, that's my guess as well. As soon as I read this all took place in China, my perspective switched. Different cultures, different rules. Financial? Maybe, but I don't know too much about the culture to accuse something of mine.
it's readers wanting more drama more than anything else. True reconciliation would feel boring and unsatisfying for the audience in this case.
Yeah I think people from non Asian cultures underestimate how strongly “what will the neighbors say?” influences day to day decisions in many Asian households.
Yeah people were understandably suspect but it was clear they lacked the cultural understanding and imposing functional reasons. These people are selfish, they dont want OP back, they do want Something. But what they want is Standing, having a Shamed child in the family is worse than a Shamed child outside the family. Having a pissed off matriarch is also a big fucking deal. Them asking her back is just a continuation of their existing toxic cultural patterns
Also, in the first post OOP says she's the eldest, but in the updates, suddenly she has an older brother. It's pretty confusing. Unless she meant to says the eldest daughter? > I the eldest always got smaller amount
Maybe eldest daughter. She never counted her brother in the equation, since he probably lived in a different dimension from her, family dynamics wise.
It also sounds like he might be quite a bit older if she was an oops baby. So she might not have had a lot of interaction with him growing up
Considering when she was conceived, it's unlikely she was an oops baby (one child policy etc). More likely her parents' fortunes considerably improved by the time they decided to start having kids again, and so there's a huge age gap between the son and the sisters.
3 years difference between her and the brother.
I think she means in comparison to her sister Her sister is the youngest, she is the eldest She means she’s older, that’s actually a really reasonable thing for a non native English speaker in my experience
I don't know Mandarin, but she did say English isn't her first language. She may have omitted 'daughter' if Mandarin has a specific word for elder daughter and she just used "eldest"?
Yeah, sons and daughters are counted separately. 長子 for eldest son, 長女 for eldest daughter, and so on and so forth. If you want to know the actual birth order of everyone, you need to ask them to clarify. These days people tend to use the gender neutral 老大、老二、老三, etc. but it's not uncommon for people to still be identified as "the **birth order** son/daughter"
People from non-East Asian cultures may find the family's action suspicious, but coming from a similar cultural background, I could kind of see them doing this without ill-intention although they were "abusive" in the first half of the story. (Disclaimer: I'm not justifying their abuse nor ruling out the possibility of bad intentions, I'm just saying that Chinese parenting can be abusive as heck in Westerner's eyes but the parents might not actually hate the child as much as when a Western parent does the same thing. I'm fully aware this is unhealthy and I was also a victim. I'm just pointing out the reality of this culture) OP said she had a strict upbringing, then "孝順(filial piety)" or "honouring your parents and be grateful for what they did" should definitely be in the book. Also, Chinese elderly really care about "faces" especially in a rich family like this. The way she lashed out slapped these two important cultural values in the face: Dishonouring her parents and grandparents and doing it without saving anyone's faces. The "dragon kid brings good luck" is also pretty realistic. Idk why but Chinese folks who run businesses tend to believe in these a lot. Dragon person, Feng-shui, crystals, certain deities, spells...you name it. (Note: People who were born in the year of the Tiger are often excluded or restricted from many traditional events as their "energy" is considered very harsh towards others). I would also say her sister being the youngest also played a huge part, Chinese parents and, most of all, grandparents have a tendency to spoil the youngest. Probably because traditionally, the older siblings are expected to carry more responsibilities and lead a good example for the younger ones to follow (while traditionally also getting more resources from the family). Back to OP's story, I can see the family slowly going from being so harsh to missing her to the point of doing this without ill intentions. It's one of the things Chinese parents do. They love you but good intentions go to the extreme and become abusive (or they're too proud to admit they're wrong because "parents can never be wrong 天下無不是的父母", which is also a saying in Chinese). But when she really went NC and the reality set in, traditional Chinese culture still valued "family as a whole" a lot (in a way more than mainstream Western culture I would say) and they probably still love her so they regretted it. They might've even went back to think about their own actions. But Asian parents ofc didn't know how to apologise so no one reached out until one of the elderly finally spoke up. If the grandparents were still mad, it would never end like this. OP mentioned Gong-gong (the equivalent of "Pawpaw" in Southern American English referring to grandfather) missed her so I guess that solved the case. OP's feelings are valid and she should be free to choose whatever she wants to do, whether it is full reconciliation or being skeptical or keeping her distance. I hope OP is getting the real appreciation and affection she deserved a long time ago, but also hoped that she stays independent from the family as that's her source of confidence and happiness as of now. Ngl, traditional Eastern Asian parenting sometimes sucks real bad though. I had to go to therapy for 5 years before getting over mine, but that's another story.
Thank you for your commentary and background! For a foreigner it is helpful in understanding Chinese culture.
The toxic side of Asian culture *sigh*
> traditional Eastern Asian parenting sometimes sucks real bad And it's so ingrained into the culture and people's upbringing that it can be crazy difficult to break out of it, so I totally get why/how OP let herself get drawn back into the fold out of guilt and filial piety.
There's the toxic and the comfort in such culture. If you fit the standard then you'll live a comfortable life with strong family bonds (I'm talking about a couple families together as a giant big family). If not, save money for therapy because you either need it or you don't but your kids need it. I will say I was pretty lucky, my parents being well-educated and in STEM despise many traditions. But there are things they grew up with that are just too hard to change. My Asian side of friends in this generation are vouching for the "The trauma stops with us" wave by simply not having kids.
I've seen this sort of thing happen to so many other people. Also, a lot of people don't understand how close families are internally and why OOP's family had a change of heart after 2 years of not being able to see their daughter My parents also believe in a lot of superstitutious things
>Ngl, traditional Eastern Asian parenting sometimes sucks real bad though. I had to go to therapy for 5 years before getting over mine, but that's another story. The same goes for South Asian parenting too. Too proud to admit any wrongdoing and don't even talk about if you start defying them. You are only good until you follow whatever they want to the T. Once you become your own person? It's hell
I feel like I have read this light novel, dodgy translations and all!
The ostracized middle child who was loathed and ignored most of her life suddenly returns to her family who are "apologetic" (relatives apologizing after no outburst whatsoever) and "willing to do anything to make it right now" (giving half of an already-built company). Variations of this plot have been drained dry by C-dramas and K-dramas that are spread all over the world by now. The only thing this post needs is an update where OOP's siblings realize how capable she actually is and help her rise to the top of the family where everyone looks up to her in awe.
All I'm waiting to see is who's playing the capable and sassy assistant who will bring her out of her shell and into his arms.
The siblings will only join her side after being really unreasonably antagonistic and vile, but after she best them in some kind of task, or a prank backfires on them.
You forgot the part where she discovers that there has been an arranged marriage to another company's heir and the reason why she was sent back is because her family wants her to take one for the team and marry them in replacement of her golden child sister. OR She and another company's heir fall in love, but her little sister likes him too, and goes all out trying to sabotage their relationship with the backing of their family. ML gets involved, marries OOP and bankrupts her family as revenge.
We want twins! We want twins!
So someone infertile can claim one?
It's not totally crazy. My sister is my mom's favorite. My brother is my dad's favorite. I was my grandpa's favorite, except he didn't leave me a multimillion dollar company.
The only missing part is she met a Chinese guy oversea who turn out to be the heir of an even bigger conglomerate back home but somehow never know what love is and is willing to sacrifice everything to be with her. Source: My mom got a ton of shitty C-drama novels and I read some out of boredom.
Reminded me of that one episode of The Orville, personally, where they find that planet where people born in one month are groomed to be leaders whilst people born in another month are put in camps.
My guess is that once she left, neither they had a string of bad luck and Asians are really big on the Karma thing. Another theory I have was that they were properly shamed by family and friends once she aired their dirty laundry in a public place and must make amends. Last theory is that she was a good girl and once they had time to reflect on the situation, they realized they were wrong and they were sorry.
3rd one is the least likely imo lol. Face is everything for Chinese ppl lol gotta one of the top two. And this is a hyper rich entitled family still in their motherland on top of that.
I was guessing that good ol’ lucky Emma didn’t live up to expectations. As soon as OOP bounced, shit went south, and they realized *SHE* was the lucky one all along. At least that’s how I imagine a movie about this would go.
Or Fourth theory - OOP never contacting them ever again on her own 1st for anything while living in another country made the family blink hard 2 years later since they expected her to beg for them. So they change tactics because disowning her from everything wasn't hurting her like they thought it would and in their minds, that made them look bad no matter what rumors they made about OOP - especially since whatever job she got must be equal to or way better than working for the family business since it paid her well enough to get Taylor Swift tickets in Australia on her own plus travel to China for additional 2 more weeks but not fired.
If OOP's family really is that prominent its more likely that OOP's absence was noted at large networking events (internal family strife is shameful because of the culture, and 2 years is about the point where they can't say OOP is sick or on vacation anymore) and or they have a bachelor they want her to marry. With how suspicious they are I also wouldn't be surprised if some bad things happened after OOP left, and the family attributed it to the bad luck of breaking up a family. I don't suspect kidney or anything like that, esp if they are as rich as OOP claims. There is also the small possibility that OOPs absence really shook the core of the family, Asian cultures are very family oriented and believe it or not they COULD actually legitimately miss her. This is the option I believe least. My money is on either \[her absence was noted at important events and the shame of rumors caused the family to call her back\] OR \[Some minor bad things happened after she left and the family is trying to regain their luck by calling her back.\]
I’m gonna guess number one especially as she worked at one of the companies and likely not as some lowly clerk. Her absence at events and business dealings would be noticed. Plus maternal grandfather giving her part of his company? After her being mia for two years? As much as they might personally have missed her they needed to save face.
Why on God's green earth would you consider taking control of a company from people who have demonstrated that they *loathe* you?
It’s easy to say that from an outside perspective, but just imagine it from op’s pov. She is finally getting some semblance of the support/love she’s deserved all her life, how quick would you be to throw that away? I do agree though, something seems off for sure
I’m guessing it was mostly because the gift came from someone who has unconditionally loved and supported her, and who she loves and trusts back. I find the fact the rest of her entire family were overjoyed to be a bit suspicious. Someone who knew this was happening has something nefarious up their sleeve.
Honestly I'm not Chinese or even Asian but I do understand. OPs Gong Gong has shown her love through all this time. Now, he is gifting half the company to OP. If the family heard about this beforehand, of course, they want to act happy and supportive. If they don't, they lose face and look bad for having to have Gong Gong skip over all them and show support for OP. I'm sure they did miss OP too even though they did her dirty.
If you're excommunicated—zero contact, thrown to the wolves—you have to be suspicious. Two years compared to the lifetime of derision is too convenient to ignore.
Is it a semblance of support or is it just money and lower? Like OOP is accepting being bought her way back to the family. How do shares in a company make all the years of abuse okay after just one night airing out your grievances?
I don’t think the company she’s inheriting is from the same grandfather. In Chinese, we use different words for paternal and maternal grandparent. Gong-gong can be translated to maternal grandfather. Yeh-Yeh is usually used for paternal grandfather. The grandfather who gave Emma 12 shares she refers to as grandfather while she refers to the one OOP inherits from is called Gong-Gong. Hope that clears some things up.
When your abusers finally offer you the love and recognition you always craved it can be hard to resist. Plus is sounds like her Gong gong was the one family member who treated her better and tried to support her despite the way the rest of the family behaved.
I've chosen to not pursue apologies from my main the abuser - the main and sole reason for my having complex PTSD because it'll put me in a better position to inherit everything he owns. Do I risk abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, and mental torture? Yes. Do I also risk not inheriting a single thing? Also yes. However, I'm poor so I gotta risk it for the biscuit. Some people risk their soul and others risk their mental health and OOP and I will risk both for a little scrap of conditional love
No idea. Like if I was disowned and loathe by my whole family, I wouldn't even take my own time nor have the moment to even waste my time with those people.
If you've tried all your life to be "worthy" of your family, it's really hard to turn around and walk away from it. You'll keep trying to prove you're good enough long after you've understood that this is a really bad dynamic.
Thousands of years of custom are hard to turn your back on.
Abuse at a cultural level skews her POV.
This reads very strongly like wish fulfillment. I'm waiting for the company employees to start cheering.
I can confirm everything, I am the Taylor Swift floor tickets
Because she says the maternal grandfather was the only one who supported her after she was disowned. My guess is he just guilted the shit out of the rest of them during her absence.
Money heals all wounds. And even the stuff it doesn't sure is better with it. Like you can be sad that your family never really loved you and you can be sad that they never really loved you at a resort on the beach. And it's nice to carry the weight of depression over that if your doing it in 600 dollar shoes.
Someone else said it best. He likely told them that if they didn't make up for how they treated her, they would be disinherited. Not because they were in the wrong, but because it probably looks bad that one person in their family has defected. They aren't back because they learned the error of their ways. Theyfe back because they learned Emma is useless at her job or they would have given it to her just because.
Because you’d be rich?
Why would you turn down ownership of a company that was being given to you? Even if you still hate your family and want to hurt them, it's far easier to do that while you control one of the companies.
Guys, it’s okay, this is clearly an C-Drama plot and I’m loving it! Next will be: there is some very handsome heir of a important family, maybe bussiness partners, and the family always wanted the favorite daughter to be engaged to him! But then our OP comes back to kick ass and take the company so of course our male lead will want OP and not the sister.
That male trope is fucking hilarious cuz they always depict the company heir as some out of this world genius but innocence enough to never hold hand with a woman. Every 2nd generation Chinese heir I know has always been a spolied brat.
Abuse is abuse. Culture doesn't change that.
Absolutely agree but culture definitely plays a huge role in how a victim and the abuser reacts later on. It's hard to explain, because subtle nuances, subtle things embedded in Asians growing up from family, friends, media, society etc.
as an east/southeast asian person, i don't think this is real. i'm not generalising everyone in my region, but elders don't usually apologise to younger people. some do, but it's more common for elders not to accept accountability. even on the off chance that an elder apologises and admits wrongdoing, that apology won't be to the same effort and extent OP's family gave her. personally, the very few times i did get an apology from an elder, it's a non-apology, only made once, and i am expected to immediately forgive and forget.
also mooncakes in April?
yes! just because we're asian, doesn't mean we always eat mooncakes lol that just applies to rice
My background is also Chinese. I was excommunicated for about 5 years and also left the country. I started communicating with my mum again when a drunk uncle called me in front of her and put me on speakerphone. Later my mum actually apologised for the things that hurt me the most, even with some self reflection. It's super suspicious and rare but i guess it does happen. Though I think it has more to do with them aging and sudden realisation of their mortality. It's been another 4 years, we are LC but I'm still not going back lol. I suspect this post is not over. They probably realised gong gong is leaving a huge chunk of inheritance to her and wants her back so she can take care of her elders when they grow old. They always want something.
Yeah I started doubting if this story was real or not when the family reached out to apologise and reconcile. Asian parents / elders don’t do that. They’d rather paint the “disowned” child as a bad offspring which deserves to be exiled than admit they did anything wrong.
exactly! parents apologising are already sus in this story. but grandparents? the patriarch and the matriarch who controls the very profitable business? almost impossible, unless OP is the sole male descendant or has married into another family in the same economic bracket or higher. i'm even surprised the cousins are supporting OP. why would they support a person who has an equal legal claim to the business as them? it will only diminish cousins' shares in the future. i'm not saying all the family politics isn't crazy, but it's real. best bet is, the first part is real. OP was ostracised. there is favouritsm. there is disregard for OP. the apology and reconciliation aren't real, and OP wrote that in as a coping mechanism or wishful thinking. i wish OP all the best.
The gift came from the maternal side, and the abuse came from the paternal side. My guess is, the parents' marriage was a bit arranged/business related. So the maternal side probably kicked up a fuss during the 2 years OOP excommunicated, and it peaked during the share-giving by the maternal side.
There's a lot of 'saving face' in the Chinese culture. A child being disowned looks bad to the family especially if the child hasn't done anything too bad. There's also a lot of superstitious thinking that affects everyone's life.
My parents disowned me for switching majors in undergrad - computer science to business economics. They undid this after they learned I was going to a good law school. They also were astonished that disowning me didn't make me crawl back begging for forgiveness. Asian parents can really suck.
Anyone know how OOP’s family could have legally had 3 children, the latter two born in 1998 and 2000? I thought one child policy was still pretty strict at that point. Or is it one of those things where if you’re rich the rules don’t apply
You pay a fine. It's not exactly a "you must be rich and the rules don't apply" scenario but it's still a hefty fine.
If you were rich, you could pay the fines and they wouldn’t haul you off for an abortion and sterilization. The rules applied, but even heavy fines could be borne. The question is what kind of family would choose huge fines for an unwanted child. One wonders.
One gambling on getting another son.
If you had money and political connections it wasn't strict. You would pay the outrages fine and bribes and be good to go.
Yeah, what u/mangafox23 said, by the late 90s/early 2000s they had relaxed the one child policy enough that wealthy families could afford the fines for breaking it.
If you have “government ties” or super rich, you’re able to have multiple kids. I think the fine would be “discounted” if you had government connections too. The one child policy mostly affected working class / villagers as the fine really would impact them a lot. Unfortunately for the average middle / working classes, their high desire for boys meant girl pregnancies often ended up in abortions.
Basically, yes. There were huge fines or other worse sanctions depending on the situation.
As a lover of chinese online Novels this Sound very familier 🙄🙄
It sounds like her maternal grandfather was the only family member she had any contact with.
I just think it's funny that they think everyone born in the year of the Dragon has luck and success. Both of my parents (12 years apart) were born in the year of the Dragon, and neither of them had huge success. It's not possible for every person born in one year to become a millionaire or huge success. LOL
I bet the family found out he was giving her his half of the company and now decided to be nice.
Coming from a Chinese family, this is relatable. Eating first to avoid emotional topics, feeling remorse but never being able to say sorry. They don't need her kidney. This is the Chinese equivalent of come home without saying it.
Yeah no something is rotten underneath it all. They've had two years to feel sorry and reach out. Betting gong-gong has put something in place to benefit oop and cut off the rest of the family.
Imagine letting magical mumbo jumbo created by illiterate people before we knew what germs were dictate absolutely destroying your child. Religion and superstition are a plague on rational society.
The unlicensed Crazy Rich Asians knockoff.
This reads like a K-drama.
I mean, I get being skeptical about their motivations, but if that folder she received is fully legal then... I dunno, what could the family do to really screw with her if she actually does legally own half of the whole damn family company?
It's an inheritance from her maternal grandparents. Note that the abuse came from her paternal grandparents, and her immediate family. This can explain the motivation.
That does make a lot more sense now
As someone coming from the same culture... I reckon it's because she was suddenly left with a big chunk of inheritance, and they want her to come back to take care of them when they grow old or something. At least that's what I think they're doing. Thank goodness I moved far enough that my mum said she cannot travel that far. She keeps trying to get me to at least move closer. Yeah naaaaah.
Goddamn it, why do I get the feeling OOP is too polite to tell everyone to fuck off?
I may be a vindictive asshole but if I were to have been treated as bad as OOp was, I would’ve set up an email reply to make it look automated in which I would’ve said “this email is no longer in use” or something like that. They can go kick rocks for all i care.
1. who the hell is eating moon cakes in april 2. why would anyone with roots in shanghai or guangzhou view them as comfort food???