Old habits hard to kick in new land

"Children!" We were in the arrivals hall in Hong Kong. He was two football-field lengths away, yet we could hear him clear as day. Typical teens. My sister and I inwardly and outwardly shrunk from the embarrassment.

My father is a good guy. He takes care of his family, goes out and buys "real" Christmas tree every year, even though the rest of us are entranced by the no-dry-pine-needles-stabbing-in-our feet artificial ones.

But his greatest shortcoming, for teenage girls anyways, was his foghorn volume voice. Yes, this is a man who in normal conversation can be rated in decibels as comparable to a jet fighter breaking Mach 1 or an Ozzy Osbourne concert before he became a vegan. This quality my father possessed was, to me, his signature mark. As I tried to inconspicuously walk back to him, another equally loud voice came up beside me - then another, and another. I suddenly realized that my father wasn't unique. He was just Chinese, and speaking at ear shatteringly levels is something Chinese people do.

There's a push-pull when one moves to a new place or country. How much of the old do you hang onto and how much of the new do you adopt? Even when you try to adapt, there are forces around that keep you from the mainstream, especially if you are a visible minority.

Growing up in Canada, it didn't matter that my family landed in the country in the late 1800s. It was a regular occurrence for store clerks or new acquaintances to remark how well I spoke English.

There were more than a few times when a lost-looking soul would come up to me and ask, very slowly and extra loud, "Do you speak English?" Which, being a typically nice Canadian, I would answer quite politely, "No", and walk away. Let's see them get directions from the Indian guy over by the gas station.

In the United States, there's an age-old debate on whether English proficiency should be the official language and a requirement for citizenship. Why, some people say, do immigrants stick to their own enclaves and not assimilate with the general population? Why can't they be more like us?

As an expat in China I have experienced it from the immigrant side. It's simply that I like being with others who are in the same situation as me. There are more common touchstones that we share. As for language, scientists have discovered the optimum time for acquiring a new language is at 5 years of age. I have salad dressing in my refrigerator that's older than that.

It's not that immigrants don't want to communicate fluently in the new language, but for the most part, between being with your family and a couple of friends, it's just a lot easier not to do.

Even though my father kept his home-country habit of speaking at ear-shattering volume, he learned to love Shakespeare, hunting and power boating because assimilation is the way ahead. Language, customs, traditions - we as new arrivals needed to do as the Romans do.

When I moved to Shanghai, I was at first amused with the locals' love of pajamas. Day or night, inside or out, they didn't just throw them on like old sweatshirts. There were ensembles, such as his and her matching sets, even outerwear pajamas for the chilly evenings.

Then one night, finding we were out of milk, I rushed out to the convenience store, in pajamas, and no one noticed. All hail Caesar! Assimilation rocks!