The group blog WWAM BAM recently featured a collaborative post titled Unexpected Commonalities between 6 Western Women and their Asian Husbands (inspired by an idea from Monica of Learning to Love Anywhere). In case you missed it, here’s my contribution to the piece:
On our first date, which was also my birthday, Jun gifted me with a CD from his favorite group, Yu Quan (羽泉). I had never heard of this Chinese singer-songwriter duo and wondered, would I really like them? While I always kept an open mind when it came to music, I had very particular tastes — and overproduced pop wasn’t my thing.
Still, I decided we could listen on the bus to the restaurant. At least, it would help us pass the time.
Little did I know, that CD would become the soundtrack to our burgeoning romance. One song in particular stole my heart — Rainbow (彩虹), an acoustic love ballad about the beauty of two people coming together. The song’s folk-rock sensibility reminded me of the American and European folk music I loved. It could have easily played on the folk music shows I used to hear back in Cleveland, Ohio.
So that night I came away with two loves — first Jun and then Yu Quan.
Over the years, we would come to discover many other surprising commonalities you wouldn’t necessarily expect between a guy from rural China and a girl from the Midwestern suburbs in America.
For example, my husband loves the fact that I’m a vegan; he likes to say he was raised on an “80 percent vegetarian diet” and doesn’t care for dairy products. As children, we both used to creekwalk and catch “critters” in the streams nearby our homes. We’re both awed by the vast cosmos and delight in stargazing whenever we have the chance. And when it comes to personality, we’re both idealists (according to the Kinsey Temperment Sorter).
That doesn’t mean we don’t have our differences. I have to admire my husband for being able to identify the make and model of almost every military plane we’ve ever seen fly above us, but I’ll probably never share his deep fascination. Meanwhile, most of my guilty pleasure movies — especially romantic comedies from America — are definitely not favorites with Jun, though he’s gentleman enough to give me space to watch them.
One thing hasn’t changed about us, though. We’re still huge fans of Yu Quan, and “Rainbow” will always be our song.
Like this? Head on over to WWAM BAM to read five other heartwarming stories from our contributors. And thank you for reading!