For my mom, its a plate of tempura, and for my dad, a simple tuna roll.
Its the cut fruit, sharing dishes, and sending you off with containers of leftovers.
What Are Love Languages?
Verywell / Madelyn Goodnight
And thats been my own experience as well.
Ivy Kwong, LMFT
Food is the Asian love language.
Its the cut fruit, sharing dishes, and sending you off with containers of leftovers.
As a child, my mom was constantly cooking.
Have You Eaten Yet?
And thats a common theme throughout Asian families, experts say.
Parents dont tend to show their love through words or hugs.
Its the physical actions that mean the most.
In Chinese, theres this saying, Actions over words, the words mean nothing, Kwong explains.
So my parents would always say, Why do we need to say, I love you?
Why do we need to do that?
The words fall flat if they aren’t proven through action.
We pass on what we have been taught and what we know.
Cheuk Kwan, an author and documentarian whose forthcoming book, Have You Eaten Yet?
My parents never said, I love you to my face, Kwan says.
I think its a cultural thing.
Theres no Chinese word for romance and the Japanese dont have it either.
Its a borrowed word from English.
In Chinese, theres this saying, Actions over words, the words mean nothing.'
So my parents would always say, Why do we need to say, I love you?
Why do we need to do that?
The words fall flat if they aren’t proven through action.
Kwong says she has experienced the scarcity of these words in her own life.
She shares a time when she began practicing Cantonese and told her parents she loved them.
My mom shook her whole body and walked away.
In the Japanese language, there are two ways to express your affinity for someone.
First, theresaishiteru,which is the romantic way of saying, I love you.
Why Food?
or Are you hungry?
And thats where the title of his book comes from, Kwan explains.
Its an expression that Chinese used to greet each other 50 or 100 years ago, Kwan adds.
When they saw each other on the streets they would say, Hey, have you eaten yet?
and basically, it means, How are you?
It ties into the holistic way of how Asians treat food.
Its not just feeding the stomach, its feeding the soul.
A lot of mental health aspects go into a meal.
Cheuk Kwan, author of “Have You Eaten Yet?”
It ties into the holistic way of how Asians treat food.
Its not just feeding the stomach, its feeding the soul.
A lot of mental health aspects go into a meal.
For Jennifer Leung, 48, everything about her relationship with her parents ties back to food.
Thats where Jennifer spent most of her life as a child.
Food was an extension of love for her, Jennifer says about her mother.
Everybody needs food, everybody needs nourishment.
Even if you didnt have money, she would feed you.
Jennifer says that running the restaurant was her parents love language.
Jennifer Leung
Everybody needs food, everybody needs nourishment.
Even if you didnt have money, she would feed you.
And thats now how she shows love, too.
Im a doer; I show up, she says.
I dont necessarily say, I love you, but I pay attention.
I put in the time, the energy and the thoughtfulness.
Theres so much of, Why am I not getting hugs?
Why am I not getting I love you or ‘I’m proud of you’?
and ‘Why are they so critical?
Why isn’t what I am enough?’
Theres a lot of anger and grief that so many carry."
Thats also an act of love.
Sometimes it shows up as being extra strict and thinking they know whats best for you.
But you might translate what they are offering into your love language.
If we do that, the love languages Asian families use might change over time too.
I think over the course of generations its possible, Kwong says.
Not spoke their love, not hugged their love, but showed their love.
Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention.
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.Web Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS).
NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness.How Asian Shame and Stigma Contribute to Suicide.
