Chinese men don't usually celebrate birthdays. But a Western woman may never see her Chinese friend again, and wants to give him something to remember her by. (Photo by Zsuzsanna Kilian)
foreign friend asks:
My 哥哥‘s birthday is coming up in the first week of March, and I want to give him a gift…. And he’s actually leaving soon, to China…next month as well and I want to give him something that he will remember me by. (I’m just kind of worried that in the future, he’ll forget about me…and just move on with our friendship, because he’s not coming back to our city where we attend school at.)
When my friend Peter already announced a baby boy, within a year of getting married, it made me wonder about the rush to have babies sooner in China (Photo by Erik Araujo)
This evening, I was so excited to find an e-mail from Peter, one of my closest Chinese friends. I expected to hear something about his work life, or perhaps his wife. But instead, I read this:
“We have some happy news to share with you. My wife just had a baby boy on February 15, 7 jin 3 liang. The mother is fine.”
Of course I was happy for him too, and I couldn’t wait to tell my Chinese husband about it. But then it hit me. Peter had only been married to his wife for about a year. And within that year, he and his wife had already turned double happiness into triple happiness. Fast. Continue reading “The China Baby Race”
A Chinese husband lets Valentine's Day go without the kind of romantic surprise his Western wife hoped for. How can she get through it? (Photo by Muris Kuloglija Kula)
romantic asks:
I’ve been married now to my husband (Chinese) for almost 7 years, the past four here in China.
Basically, as Valentine’s Day passed without a hint of romance…..I’ve been pouring over whether or not my western conditioning has been detrimental to my marriage. I know I certainly can not expect my husband to prepare breakfast in bed (a habit he detests, as it leaves crumbs in the sheets), or carry me to the unromantic crowds of youngsters fulfilling the newest western trend of Valentine’s rituals (he’s pretty stubborn to trends, which I also appreciate), but couldn’t he have at least bought flowers or something? I can’t help feeling that my negative reactions are more my problem. I feel flat out silly in wishing he had “bought” me something. And I feel this is directly related to hallmark campaigns I grew up with in the U.S. BUT, despite the western consumerism marketing campaigns, I do feel I truly need a little spark or spirit of romance every once in awhile. How do we get through this???? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Chinese Husband Forgot Valentine’s Day”
When someone asked me why I wanted to go back to China, I couldn’t help wondering if it was curiosity, or something else. (Photo by Ben Earwicker, www.garrisonphoto.org/sxc)
“Why would you want to go to China?”
I didn’t come to that pioneer museum in America’s West to lay my own future out before the public, like the covered wagons, shotguns and washboards on display. But all of a sudden, this elderly woman started talking to me, and couldn’t help notice that my Chinese husband didn’t look or speak likew an American. So then came the questions about where he was from — and, of course, where we would live after he finished his work in the US.
I said that China’s developing economy meant extraordinary opportunities for his career, as well as mine. I told her I had lived there before, and enjoyed it. But when she continued to give me a puzzled look, I couldn’t shake the feeling that her words were some kind of veiled suggestion — that going to China was a bad idea. When I left, how I wished I had shot the question back at her and her own home state. (Why would you want to live in Pennsylvania?)
I know my choice isn’t for everyone. Sometimes, it’s better to stay in your home country, or even your hometown. But the very mention of China made that simple conversation in the museum feel anything but simple to me.
But maybe that’s not because she disliked China, or was a curious busybody. Maybe, in fact, we had two different questions in mind all along. While she wanted to know why I would go to China, I thought of it more like this: why not go to China? 😉
Have people ever questioned you about going to China?
In "Stuck Between Jun and Taiwan," I tell my story of how I learned that international love doesn’t come easy.
I just had another piece published in Matador, for their “Love in the Time of Matador” series. Stuck Between Taiwan and Jun (yes, “Jun” is my husband’s real Chinese name — long story why I use “John” instead. Ask me later. 😉 ) chronicles some of the hardships we experienced as an international couple:
It was a rainy Tuesday in a Taiwanese cafe in Shanghai, and Jun and I were having fried rice with a generous side of tears. To the patrons around us, the whole scene had “breakup” written all over it. But it wasn’t that kind of breakup. Leaving melodrama aside, this was the US government breaking up our trip back to my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.
To me, Jun was the guy who first kissed me to the tune of cicadas, next to Hangzhou’s West Lake. The man who loved to pick me up from the metro station late at night, and ferry me home on the back of his bicycle. But to the visa officer at the US Consulate in Shanghai, Jun was just another immigration risk from China with no apartment or car, let alone a wife or children. “You’re too young,” the officer declared in Mandarin, stamping a denial in permanent red ink into the passport.
What’s in a name? I may be Jocelyn, but I prefer my Chinese husband to call me “Laopo” or wife in Chinese. (photo by Josep Altarriba)
There’s nothing I love more than when my Chinese husband comes bursts into our apartment after a long day, and calls my name.
“Laopo!” he’ll sing out, as he stomps his feet on the mat by the door.
Well, Laopo (老婆, [lǎopó]), which is another word for “wife” in Chinese, isn’t really my name. But the sound of it is as soothing as a cup of Jasmine-scented green tea.
I never thought that I would rather be called “wife” over Jocelyn.
When I was young, my parents never called each other “wife” or “husband,” instead peppering their evening adult conversations with their real names, “Claudia” and “Bob.” The whole idea of using “wife” or “husband” between a wife and husband was the verbal equivalent of turning a marriage into a form letter.
Feeling all alone in celebrating Chinese New Year, because you're living abroad, and you're busy? Try these ideas to get into the holiday spirit, for the person on the go.
Saturday night, the rum-ta-da-rum-tum-tum drumbeats echoed out of the ballroom on campus, as that red lion — looking lavish as a Liberace suit — bust through the doors, bobbing up and down, and wagging its tail all the way to the stage. This was the beginning of Chinese Night at our campus, the local version of Chinese New Year. And my Chinese husband John and I, exiled to the tables in the food court area outside the door, could only imagine what was really going on.
Of course, we didn’t get a chance to see that kickoff to that great show for a very simple reason. We arrived late, finding a “people mountain, people sea” of a ballroom, with no seats at the tables, nor the overflow rows of seating added to the back.
Yet, in a way, it’s almost a metaphor to the millions of Chinese — and their loved ones — who pass Chinese New Year in a foreign country. Once you squeezed your way into China’s ballroom, and watched the holiday explode before you in all of its red firecracker excitement. But now you’re seated so far away, you don’t even notice the stage. Continue reading “How to Spend Chinese New Year Overseas, For Busy People”
Despite what you might have seen Samantha doing in "Sex and the City," all Western women are not sluts.
[This is an excerpt from a series of e-mails from a Chinese man. He met a British woman, who he ended up having dinner with, and later spending an afternoon with her and her friends.]
For a while, I have gone crazy with western girls [in the past]. It’s like I blindly go after any western girls that are pretty, and forget what a relationship is really meant to be. So I calm down and thought for a while. Actually I don’t know this girl Tracy enough yet, so going too fast might actually hurt our future possibility, unless I just want something like fast sex or what. I think I have watched too much US drama [or got that impression from the bars and clubs]…
I found out that I just have a better understanding about Tracy, and I now know that she’s the kind of person who doesn’t like things go too fast. (For example, she mentioned to me that she met a girl yesterday the first time, and then the girl kept asking her to hangout to this place, that place, and then Tracy said she doesn’t like that, as it’s the first time, she doesn’t even know her yet, so she doesn’t feel comfortable, she said she prefers to take some time and get to know the person) When I heard that, I thought, Äre you telling me as well? :)….
When I asked my Chinese friend, Caroline, about her "personal problem," it wasn't a problem to her, but my way of showing I cared.
Last night, I asked my Chinese friend Caroline about her “personal problem” (个人问题 or, gèrénwèntí).
This wasn’t some euphemism for her latest gynecological issue, or a death in the family, or some neurosis that sent her running to the counseling center.
Caroline bust out in an embarrassed laughter. “No, I haven’t solved my personal problem yet,” she sighed. This “personal problem” was about solving the “problem” of being single.
When my Chinese husband was born, the neighbors wanted to swap him for their baby daughter (photo by Onclebob)
When someone gives birth to a baby boy, you wouldn’t say “can we switch babies?” Unless, of course, you happened to be neighbors to my Chinese husband’s family.
As the third son in the family, John dashed his mother’s hopes of finally giving birth to a girl. Their neighbors had the opposite problem — they had just birthed another girl, the third in their family. So the neighbors came to John’s parents, with a different kind of indecent proposal.
The way my mother-in-law and father-in-law tell it, there was no question what they would do. “He’s our son, we could never give him away,” my mother-in-law declared emphatically at lunch one day, as my father-in-law nodded his head, adding how the neighbors “had a crazy idea.”
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