I was born in Hong Kong, China, and raised there for 18 years. There are a number of cultural similarities that I noticed when I came to America. When it comes to superstitions and gender roles, I found we have more in common than people think. Sometimes Americans think Chinese people are more superstitious, but Americans are superstitious too.

Both cultures attach meaning to numbers, but in their own way. For instance, Americans believe that bad luck comes in threes, but did you know that the number 3 symbolizes “liveliness” in Chinese? People even put this number in their license plates and phone numbers, and choose apartment numbers that contain a 3.

A 3 is good, but a 3 with an 8, which together symbolize both health and wealth, is even better. While the number 13 means bad luck in American culture, Chinese people actually think it brings them liveliness as well. The number that Chinese people try to avoid is 4, which means death.

Both Americans and Chinese believe in the bad luck of opening an umbrella indoors. According to myths I have heard from my grandmother in China, spirits live inside an umbrella, and if a person opens it up inside a house, the spirit gets released and will stay inside. The worst thing a person could do is pick up an umbrella on the side of a road on a rainy night and bring it home. A lot of Chinese horror movies start off with this cheesy opening.

The reason why I am bringing up these interesting cultural beliefs is to emphasize that we are all one and the same. We should respect each other’s culture, whether Chinese, American or from any other nationality. No one should ever tease anyone’s cultural beliefs or be prejudiced against them for their culture.

I remember one time someone mentioned the phrase “Asian persuasion” and I was completely clueless, until I looked it up on Urban Dictionary. This phrase means that some American men tend to think that Asian women are more easy to deal with. For example, they think that Asian women will cook, do laundry and take care of kids at home — basically, be a housewife.

This is the kind of misperception I would like to address. I want all of you to understand that we are, again, the same. Asian women are women. They will not cook more often than an American woman. In fact, I know a lot of families back in Hong Kong in which the fathers cook for the family or even stay at home to look after children.

There are a lot of things that people are not familiar with about Chinese culture, and that is something that will stay mysterious until they live in China. The same applies to Chinese students; we are still not as familiar with American culture as Americans are. But what we can do is be respectful to one another. That way, we can not only live together peacefully, but also learn from each other’s cultures.