Customary/Ritual

Chinese 18th Birthday

EC

Massachusetts

November 9th, 2020

Informant Data:

EC is a senior at Dartmouth College majoring in chemistry and on the pre-med track. She was born and raised in Massachusetts, though her parents both immigrated to the U.S. from China and most of her relatives live there. She grew up with a younger sister who is also applying to Dartmouth, and plans to be a doctor after med-school.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: In China, the 18th birthday represents a coming-of-age. It marks the year an individual can legally drink and is considered a legal adult. Similar to India, the 21st birthday is not very significant in China, as the 18th birthday takes its place.

Social Context: For the 18th birthday in China, the celebration revolves around family, drinking, and food. One common Chinese ritual is eating enough eggs to count one’s age, though this usually is impossible to actually accomplish.

Item:

This information is paraphrased from notes taken during EC’s Zoom interview.

EC celebrated her 18th birthday twice, in both the U.S. and China. In the U.S., she celebrated with her family at home. Food is a very important part of the celebration, and her parents made soup, noodles, eggs, dumplings, and sticky rice with bean paste. After dinner there was a break period before a cake celebration. For a Chinese birthday, fruit cakes are traditional.

In China, EC’s relatives threw a large party with many of her extended family, including very distant cousins. The festivities occur at night, and there’s a lot of food and drinking, with an emphasis on local dishes. Though EC didn’t do this herself, there’s also sometimes a religious element related to Buddhist traditions, in which the birthday person visits a few temples in the area to pray for good fortune.

Gift from relatives use include traditional red packets with money inside, or jewelry that’s related to EC’s Chinese birth year, like a rabbit jade necklaces.

Allison Hufford, 21

Dartmouth College

RUSS 13

Fall 2020