intercultural marriage | Speaking of China

Highlights from study into mixed relationships/marriages with a Chinese partner

Small porcelain dolls showing a Chinese husband and wife in traditional red clothing — (photo from rickz Flickr)

Many of you might remember about a year ago, when I posted an ad: UK Chinese Studies Student Seeks Chinese/Non-Chinese Couples for Dissertation Survey. Some of you participated in her survey, including myself. Ultimately, she surveyed 33 couples in her research, 18 with a Chinese female partner and 15 with a Chinese male partner.

Laura Banks just successfully defended her dissertation a few weeks ago and sent me a copy. I’m excerpting the abstract and quoting some of her findings, which you can scroll down to read.

In addition, some of you who participated asked Laura for a copy of the dissertation. I’ll be glad to send a copy to anyone who e-mails me (jocelyn (at) speakingofchina.com), with the understanding that the dissertation is meant for your personal use only and not to be posted publicly online.

And now, onto the highlights… Continue reading “Highlights from study into mixed relationships/marriages with a Chinese partner”

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A Story of Sexism, Chinese Men and Who Should Wash the Dishes

Washing the dishes — (photo by peapod labs)

“Washing dishes? That’s women’s work.”

That’s how Yao, my first Chinese boyfriend, ended one late Saturday night dinner at his apartment.

Up until that moment, he romanced me the entire day like any real gentleman — from running to the hospital for my medicine, to regaling me with a delicious homemade dinner of fried rice. All afternoon he told me to rest, relax, take it easy — I still felt exhausted from my recent illness, and had only just regained my appetite. Didn’t anyone ever tell him that sexist slurs are hard for girlfriends to swallow?

“What do mean, ‘women’s work?’ Are you telling me you won’t do the dishes, ever?” I asked.

“It’s not my job.”

I glowered at him. “So who’s going to do the dishes then?”

“Just leave them for my mom,” he said. He immediately jumped up from his seat and wandered over to the bedroom to start watching Saturday night football games.

How could he say that? Didn’t he realize he was dating a feminist who grew up in a household where both mom and dad were breadwinners, and didn’t believe in things like “women’s work”? I wrestled with these, and many more, questions about the man I was dating, and the future we might face ahead of us. But never, ever did I hold the one thought that all too often gets slapped on a guy like Yao — that he was just another sexist Chinese man I should never have dated in the first place. Continue reading “A Story of Sexism, Chinese Men and Who Should Wash the Dishes”

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Double Happiness: A Brazilian-Chinese Love Story That Started With Football

A bride topper made for a cake that was a gift from a bride-to-be to her soccer lover fiance on his birthday. — (photo by Ban Tell)

I’ll be honest, it’s been a challenging summer for us. Moving across country, getting settled in, even my husband’s whole internship thing (he still faces uncertainty in some respects, but that’s another story…sigh).

But then, days before, I found this little postcard of a love story in my inbox — in Portuguese. Well, I don’t know Portuguese. But between my Spanish minor from college and a little help from Google Translate, I worked the story out — and was touched. In the midst of all of the difficulties, I found a little something that made me smile, and restored my faith in the world.

Thank you for this story, Diandra, you saved me from my summer blues. Muito obrigado. Continue reading “Double Happiness: A Brazilian-Chinese Love Story That Started With Football”

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The Couple That Wordplays Together, Stays Together?

A shot of traditional Chinese characters — (photo by am y)

You might call it “lust in translation.” This Chinese-English online quiz, one I agreed to do complete well before I met John, turned into a perfect excuse to visit John a little more often at work. I translated the English words into Chinese, and then brought my work over to him for proofreading. Sure, in between our “how do you say”s and “zenme shuo”s, we flirted a little. But we also learned something too, more than just the right way to say rainjacket or maozi. We made a pretty awesome translation team.

Nearly eight years later, we still help one another with language and translations. John’s my go-to guy for Chinese when I’m stuck on translating a word, and I’m the one he calls on to give his English writing a final check. One week, he tells me about a new Chinese idiom; the next, I’m explaining a new saying in English. You might say we’ve re-written that old cliche — now, the couple that wordplays together, stays together. Continue reading “The Couple That Wordplays Together, Stays Together?”

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Ask the Yangxifu: Big Fat Chinese Weddings Revisited

John and I standing before the "Double Happiness" banner at our wedding — (John and I at our wedding in China)

M asks:

I’m 27 and I was born and raised in Europe but my fiancee is Shanghainese so we’re gonna have one of those Chinese super expensive weddings in a 5 stars hotel in Shanghai and I really dont know what to do. I really do not like the Chinese wedding style made up of performances, games and speech. Besides relatives, I invited around 20-30 friends to the wedding here and I’m gettin more and more nervous about what is going to happen during the feast. We have an MC that will entertain the guests and lead the night but both with him and the wedding planner I had a really hard time to plan everything and trying to make as nice and simple as possible but unfortunately there are some things such as exchange of vows and rings on the stage in front of everybody and organize some games for the guests, apparently Chinese people really appreciate and enjoy them. You went through this already so can you or anyone else who went through this and can give me some advises? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Big Fat Chinese Weddings Revisited”

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A “Guess Who’s” Perspective on My Marriage, Effort, and What It’s Worth

Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton from Guess Who's Coming To Dinner — In "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner," the Monsignor cites the effort put into interracial relationships as a reason they work out more. But a reader's e-mail cited that extra effort as a reason to proceed with caution -- or not at all. (Image from ticketstubz.blogspot.com)

Last night, I saw the movie Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. I expected a relaxing evening with some of my favorite actors of all time — Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier — but ended up with more than I bargained. Especially when I heard these words from Monsignor Ryan:

I’ve known a good many cases of marriages between the races in my time, and strangely enough, they usually work out quite well. I don’t know why. Maybe because it requires some special quality of effort, more consideration and compassion than most marriages seem to generate these days, could that be it?

I just wanted to hug the Monsignor after he said this, and couldn’t help but agree with the character Christina Drayton, that they were “beautiful thoughts.”

But the more I thought about this, the more I was reminded of an e-mail I received in January, which read: Continue reading “A “Guess Who’s” Perspective on My Marriage, Effort, and What It’s Worth”

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