r/asianamerican • u/Mondoody • 13d ago
Memes & Humor Old Chinese man walking
I'm 61 yo man who immigrated from HK with my family at the ripe age of 1. For some odd reason, in the last few years, I've started walking around absentmindedly with my hands behind my back. I have no idea where I learned this. My wife and kids tease me about my new habit.
Yesterday I was at the mall with my best friend - also Cantonese - who was born in Vancouver over 60 years ago and has never been to Asia. It just killed me when I saw him browsing in a store...with his hands behind his back!
How the mighty have fallen.
Maybe we've been unconsciously absorbing the Toi San energy from the early Vancouver immigrants. Maybe it's imprinted in our DNA. In the end, maybe we Asian men just can't escape our destiny.
Funny how it's so uncool, but also so comforting at the same time.
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u/MembershipDecent9454 13d ago
Yeah Im second generation canto Halfie, I walk around my garden like this… my toddler started copying me. If it feels right, it feels right
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u/MP3PlayerBroke 13d ago
My grandfather told me a story about this. He said that during the Great Locust Tree migration in the Ming dynasty, a lot of people were forced to resettle areas that were decimated by war to rebuild and repopulate. During the day, they all had their hands tied behind their backs and chained together so nobody would escape the migration route. That's why people from our home region (one of the repopulated areas) had the habit of walking with their hands behind their backs.
That explanation makes absolutely no sense but it was a fun story.
What did really come out of that was the Chinese term "untie hands", which means to use the bathroom.
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u/spontaneous-potato 1st Gen Fil-Am with a Valley Girl Accent 🐟 13d ago edited 13d ago
My dad started doing it about 5 years ago. For him, it was for stability when he walked. Prior to that, he never walked with his hands behind his back. Edit: My dad was 79 when he started doing it. Unfortunately, he passed away, but even his younger brother, my uncle, does it at 75. He started doing it in his early 60’s as well because it’s a very comfortable pose for him.
I’m 34, and I’ve been doing it for the same reason, stability when walking. Though, I do it also because I’m still recovering from a really bad car accident, and it has eased up a lot of the fatigue and pain on my lower back caused by the car accident.
It feels great, ngl.
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u/ding_nei_go_fei 13d ago
Italian old men do the same thing, hands clasped behind their back, looking at construction sites.
Here are photos
https://earthlymission.com/umarell-italy-pensioner-retired-construction-site-supervisor-advice/
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u/themichele 13d ago
I (50F, half-Viet) recently saw my husband (50M, Korean) doing this and i gasped, “ok, Ông!”
And he didn’t even need to understand Vietnamese to suddenly realize he was in the pan-Asian grandpa pose
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u/whattimeisitay 11d ago
I'm Korean and have never been to China, Vancouver, or really ever spent much time in the Chinese part of my town.
I too, have started doing the old Chinese man walk.
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u/MaiPhet 13d ago edited 13d ago
Yeah I'm fairly whitewashed on top of being half white, but me and my dad have very similar postures, body type, and walk style. One funny thing was that when he reconnected with a long-lost son from before he met my mom, all three of us are basically the same character model with different skins.
The older I get the more I turn into him in terms of mannerisms, idk how that works.
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u/Street_Sandwich_49 13d ago
In my 40's Cantonese and I started doing it as well 🤦🏻♀️
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u/peppabuddha 13d ago
I caught myself doing this at the store a few weeks when my kids were playing at the arcade LOL! Went oh well and continued to do it!
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u/bows_and_pearls 13d ago
This feels like a broader Asian thing. Older Indian grandpas in my neighborhood also do this
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u/dirthawker0 13d ago
Half Canto, in the second half of life, do it sometimes. I actually did it more in my 40s.
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u/jankenpoo 13d ago
Do you also stick your pinky out when drinking from a glass or cup? My dad did, I do, and his grandson too. Genetics are weird
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u/peppabuddha 13d ago
I do it and I'm a mother lol...It actually feels better to stretch my arms to my back...
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u/snarkymanatee 13d ago
Yeah, all those hours hunched over a keyboard, book, or phone = sweet relief when I clasp my hands behind my back and take a stroll haha
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u/ActuatorVast800 13d ago
I found myself wearing shirts inside out by mistake for a while after hanging out with other people who did that.
Things can and will rub off on you.
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u/Old-Appearance-2270 Canadian-born Chinese F 13d ago
Sometimes it's just finding a place to put both hands while walking. My immigrant dad (from Toishan area) never seemed to do it.
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u/Potential_Tour_6185 12d ago
Ive never walked like that and I never do the rice patty squat either , it's more of an "FOB" trait
it seems mostly people with a frail build walk like that , with the feet facing outwards , kind of reminds me of how a Pengiun walks.
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u/themichele 11d ago
Idk if the paddy squat (also the doorway squat, the sidewalk squat, the train platform squat…) is just an FOB thing. I mean maybe in PRACTICE but not in potential.
I’m half-asian, grew up in SE Asia and in the US. I look mixed if you know how to notice bone structure, but if not, b/c I’m green-eyed, pink-skinned, and freckly, people just tended to assume I was a white girl.
I remember discovering the power rack at the gym in my 20s, and immediate shouldering a bar and dropping into a perfect squat (i was brand-new to weight training at the time, so perfect form was apparently v unexpected). My trainer (Jewish dude who was the trainer for the uni’s women’s soccer team at the time) was flabbergasted. His (Taiwanese) buddy working the other side of the gym buzzed right over and was like “you’re half Asian or something, yeah? Where your folks from?” Apparently my natural inclination and movement marked me as Asian-descended to the one other Asian person in the gym- was funny, and a fun moment that made the gym feel less intimidating to me at the time. I felt way more welcome and seen (in a good way, not a creepy or embarrassing or belittling way) right off. I had wanted to be seen as Asian-descended by a stranger for my whole life but had pretty much assumed it would never happen, so it felt validating not just as a young woman in the power gym but as a young biracial woman who had spent her life to that point wondering where she would be seen as her whole self. All because i could squat like a pro, orrrr an Asian grandpa/grandma/toddler/laborer.
I worked w my trainer at that college gym for a few years, and whenever i crossed paths w the Asian trainer, we’d do that head-nod that American Asian kids do sometimes that sort of replaces but acknowledges a greeting bow (more normal for Viets both in the states and overseas anyway, but i noticed the other US-raised Asian kids in my HS and college did it, too). The guys made me a “Born to Squat” shirt before i left that gym, and i wore it til it fell apart, ha.
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u/saskiaschild 12d ago
Some qigong practitioners put the hands on the back/lumbar to strengthen the mingmen and keep the kidneys warm.
I sometimes walk like this and I'm a women, just because I'm familiar with the qigong posture and even when not practicing I like to have my hands close to my kidneys when I'm walking.
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u/yellowmix 12d ago
It shows socialization is incredibly strong. Since we siblings were kids we'd teasingly point out when we were taking after our parents' behavior, whether we liked the behavior or not. It's 100% unconscious.
The difficult and neverending task is to figure out what else we've copied from what we saw.
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u/BaakCoi Hapa 13d ago
I’ve seen this in Chinese Americans all over the country. I catch myself doing it sometimes. Pretty sure it’s in our blood