BEDID - Day 7 - Family

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It's sort of late, I know. Sorry. Tomorrow's will probably be a little late too.

But I have to disclose something: I’m Chinese-Canadian. Born and raised here in Vancouver, like my mom, which means I’m pretty white-washed. I haven’t mentioned it in the blog before because it only really becomes important once I talk about me drinking (which I don’t reeeeeallly want to blog about, but probably will at some point anyway =P) or family, like I will here. While I’m out to my immediate family, my extended family doesn’t know about my sexual orientation. Part of it is sort of my fault, and part of it, I’m relying on my parents due to the language barrier between my grandparents.

My mom’s side of the family I don’t really have a concern about, and in fact, I have some suspicions about two of my cousins (more about that later). All my aunts, uncles and cousins are all non-religious and liberal, so no concern there. In fact, this side of my family’s seen just about every sort of relationship curve-ball that could be thrown. Inter-racial couples? So 30 years ago. Cousin that reminds us younger cousins she’s paved the way by having kids out of wedlock with a dirty hippy? Yup. Divorce? Got that covered too. Unless someone in my family is trans or polyamorous, being gay is probably one of the last “non-traditional” relationships they’ll have to tackle. The reason why I’m not out to them is mostly because they’re all a pretty loud, outgoing bunch, whereas I’m a lot quieter and I find it easier just to slip into the background at family get-togethers, so it never really gets brought up.  It’s something I’m working on. As for my grandparents on this side of the family, they aren’t the hardcore traditional Chinese grandparents; while they probably won’t understand me being gay, they’ll accept it. This is also partly on my mom too, since I don’t speak Chinese and my grandparents don’t speak great English, so it’s partly up to her how and when she wants to do it, since she’ll have to deal with the aftermath.

My dad’s side of the family is the complete opposite of my mom’s family, it’s sort of weird. They’re much more stoic, don’t communicate very well, if at all and they’re a lot more traditional than my mom’s side of the family is. I’ve been asked in the past by my aunt if I have a girlfriend (sigh.). I know it sounds terrible, but if I were to come out and be disowned from that side of the family, I wouldn’t be too disappointed. The family dynamics on my dad’s side of the family are just too awkward and not very warm, and I just don’t feel all that close with them, so it wouldn’t be a huge loss in my mind, sadly. Despite all this, I don’t get the feeling I’ll be disowned, but I’m sort of prepping my self just in case.

Best case scenario coming out to both sides of the family would to have a boyfriend to bring along to family get-togethers. Sends a pretty clear message.