“Chinese people don’t talk about these things.”
That’s what my mother said when I asked if she would translate a conversation with my grandmother—who was, unmistakably, on her deathbed.
I wanted to know: did she realize she was dying? Was she afraid? Did she feel regret, longing, peace? Was she fulfilled? Now that the end was near, surely there were reflections she might want to share.
My grandmother didn’t speak fluent English. I don’t speak fluent Cantonese. A conversation like that—layered with nuance, emotion, and finality—would have needed a translator.
But: Chinese people don’t talk about these things.
Was my mother right? Would my grandmother have held fast to a cultural norm, even in her final days? Or might she have broken free of it—unburdened by propriety, released into that strange clarity that can come when there’s nothing left to lose? Would she have welcomed the chance to say something she’d never dared say before?
It seems strange not to talk about something so human. Death. Dying. Passing. Transition. We’re told not to bring these things up—as if they’re impolite. As if they belong in the same category as sneezing, defecating, or aging. Unavoidable and universal, but off-limits in polite company.
But when we don’t talk about death, we’re left guessing. We fill in the blanks. We try to honor someone’s wishes without ever knowing what those wishes were.
What we lose in silence isn’t just practical—it’s emotional. We lose honesty. Clarity. Connection. Empowerment.
And maybe it’s not just Chinese people who don’t talk about these things. Maybe it’s everyone. Maybe every culture has its silences.
Victorian England, for example, was famously obsessed with death—yet rigid in how grief was allowed to be expressed. Mourning had rules. Dress codes. Time limits. Widows were expected to refrain from public laughter. Behind the formality was the same kind of silence: an attempt to control what can’t be controlled.
Modern America, by contrast, tries to outsource death. We speak in euphemisms—passed away, gone to a better place. We move quickly. The body is handled. The memorial is brief. We do our crying in private and call it strength.
Even in medicine—a field where death is part of the job—doctors often struggle to talk about it directly. A 2016 JAMA study found that many physicians avoid honest conversations about end-of-life care for fear of extinguishing hope. But maybe truth isn’t the enemy of hope. Maybe it’s the beginning of peace.
In most societies, death is either hidden, dramatized, or sanitized. Rarely is it spoken of plainly. Rarely is it allowed to be just… human.
But what if we changed that?
What if we asked our elders what they want? What they remember? What they regret? What they know now that they didn’t know before?
What if we allowed those final conversations to happen—not just for the dying, but for the living?
Because when we begin to talk about death, something interesting happens: we begin to talk about life. With more tenderness. More clarity. More intention.
That’s not just cultural evolution. That’s emotional intelligence.
So yes—Chinese people, and all people—we need to talk about these things.
Not because it’s easy.
But because it’s time.