<p>@ChocolateBanana - yeah, that’s true. </p>
<p>^ I’m not sure I agree with you. I think that the parents’ beliefs influence the children and if the parents want to impart the culture of the home country to the children, it’s very possible.</p>
<p>by the way i’d like to challenge the statement of learning a new language and never really being fully engaged to that language unless you’ve grown up with it as a young kid. it IS possible, it just takes time. my spanish teacher is not of any latin descent, and learned spanish in high school. she is perfectly fluent, has latin american friends whom she talks to perfectly fluently, gets all of the little connotations, etc. however with that being said she’s been involved in spanish for over a decade. </p>
<p>i think it’s a LOT easier to relate to certain languages if you already are bilingual because there are a lot of cultural idioms, grammar, words, that seem a lot less rigid once you learn them as a bilingual person. just my opinion, because i’m bilingual in korean/english and it’s so easy for me to understand a lot of spanish because it’s so similar to english and any little cultural gaps between the two languages i can automatically turn to korean and it makes perfect sense.
^ of course itwould take years and years to actually think in the language (which is my sign of being fluent) and it’s not possible for every language with every person. i’m just saying it is possible</p>
<p>teehee i like languages,as you can see.</p>
<p>^^ Parents can impart some beliefs onto their children but really it’s the children’s friends that have the greatest impact.</p>
<p>Some what, I mean even if you enter a brand new country, we still have to stay true to our old one and still have those beilfs. u know?</p>
<p>Hmm. I’m not sure that children of first generation parents or even first generation children themselves cannot possibly fully embrace their heritage. My situation is fairly complex. My parents are from Vietnam, but I spent the first 6 years of my life in Germany. I then moved to the States.</p>
<p>With respective to the argument about “thinking” in another language, I think in English, German, and Vietnamese. But my English is certainly much better than either my German or Vietnamese. </p>
<p>Rather than arguing that one has “no” culture or one has become “Americanized”, I find it more plausible to say that each and every person (especially persons coming from a mixed heritage background) has their individual culture. I don’t feel that I’m solely American, German, or Vietnamese. In fact, my “culture” is a mixing of the three. I am who am I, but who am I is a mix of everything I’ve thus far experienced.</p>
<p>^^^ True, but if the child has certain strong values, then that will impact who they make friends with as well.</p>
<p>@ yoursky - yeah, if you are already completely bilingual, your mental language structure is more flexible. </p>
<p>I think that new generations create their own culture. Like the Sindhis in HK have been here for generations, they have no homeland back in India, so they have created a new “Sindhi HK” culture. I suppose the same can be said of immigrants in the US.</p>
<p>^ Values =/= Culture, many people from across all cultures and creeds process (and in many cases lack) so called “values”.</p>
<p>but aren’t values a part of culture?</p>
<p>^ Yes, but instilling values and morals into children will not cause them to make friends with those with similar heritage. Values are not what makes an Englishman melt a little inside when he/she hears the hymn “Jerusalem,” that is culture at it’s purest. That feeling serives from being English.</p>
<p>I get what you are trying to say but I’ve seen with my own eyes (narrow-minded) parents who say “don’t make friends with someone from another culture” and that’s what they instil in their children. Frankly, it’s tragic.</p>
<p>^ That’s a lose-lose, if the “brainwashing” fails then it instills no culture at all (and in fact in many cases resentment), if it succeeds then the parents have instilled not culture but mild racism.</p>
<p>^ true, but the kids turned out quite ok, happily 
haha they certainly don’t have a problem interacting with me, altho I am from a different culture</p>
<p>^ Good for them, xenophobia is a horrible thing.</p>
<p>well, i think we do have a culture, it’s just blander than previous ones.</p>
<p>haha I’m sure Miley Cyrus could be categorized as “colourful”, especially in the light of her latest lap-dance</p>
<p>^ I’m sorry to all the Miley lovers out there, but i think she’s just a fad. lap-dance, though?</p>
<p>^ She is also talentless.</p>
<p>^ i think she’s quite a talented lap-dancer. But ugh I hate to see my cousins watching her show</p>
<p>^ Sorry I didn’t know you were a lap dancing conoisseur and critic… Lol…</p>
<p>^ lol sorry to be a spelling Nazi but the word is “connoisseur”</p>