I didn't understand why my Chinese mother-in-law always argued with my Chinese father-in-law. But, according to my husband, maybe that's their way of showing love (photo by kamil kantarcıoğlu).
My Chinese father-in-law isn’t just a husband and parent in our home. He’s also a punchline, and a virtual punching bag.
I’ll never forget that day in May when I watched my Chinese mother-in-law storm out into the yard and holler up to my Chinese father-in-law. “You’re just like a Bodhisattva! Always staying up and never coming down!”
I don’t know what he did to deserve that Buddhist curse. But after spending more than two months here – where almost a day wouldn’t pass without my Chinese mother-in-law naming my father-in-law’s stupidity du jour – I can guess why. Continue reading “For My Chinese In-laws, Scolding is Love”
A Western woman in a long-distance relationship with a married Chinese man faces a lot of trouble ahead in their relationship. Is it worth it?
White Lotus asks:
i have a long distance relationship with a married chinese man ..he has never been in love with his wife, they married because she was pregnant. He is a great man, a loving father. he wants to marry me after the divorce . I ‘m afraid i’d be a burden for him since it would be hard for me to get a job in China. I’m not a native speaker of English and despite being an English teacher in my country .. i think i won’t be able to get a teaching position ( i don’t have an internationally recognised degree in my cv). i don’t have other skills and i’m just starting to learn chinese. Sometimes i think i should set his heart free before he gets the divorce and spare him the pain we might inflict to his daughter. He doesn’t earn a lot of money so it would be hard for him to support us while i’m looking for a job. He doens’t live in a big city so i think opportunities will be scarce. it’s difficult for me cause i love him a lot… he is more confident than me saying that i can do it, that i will be able to find a job ..we have only one shot at love cause it’s taking me half a year to save the moneyi need to fly to china.
When my Chinese inlaws married in 1971, the marriage must-haves were a bicycle, sewing machine, radio and wristwatch. (image from www.soufun.com)
My Chinese in-laws married in 1971. Back then, marriage wasn’t house, car and money — it was bicycle, sewing machine, wristwatch and radio, the si dajian (四大件, four big items).
My Chinese father-in-law grinned as he recalled that time. “These were the kinds of things that gave you ‘face’ in your wedding. They were considered hard for people to afford then. Not everyone had them. If you couldn’t afford them, you would even borrow money to get them! Nowadays, it’s silly to imagine this. Everyone wants a home and a car and money for their wedding.”
So I asked if he borrowed money to buy his si dajian. “Eh! I had to borrow from another teacher at my school. It took me two to three years just to pay him back. The sewing machine cost 145 RMB or so. The bicycle 100 or so. The wristwatch 50 RMB, radio maybe 20, maybe 50. But back then I only earned 20 RMB a month! It look me more than half a year just to get one sewing machine!”
My Chinese mother-in-law, lounging on a cot in the corner of our dining room as she played with sister-in-law’s baby, bust out in laughter the entire time he told me all of this.
My Chinese father-in-law insisted that the new China included free choice in marriages. But it seemed like an illusion when he admitted he didn't freely choose his bride. (photo by miguel ugalde)
The other day, while talking about weddings in China with my Chinese father-in-law, we happened on the idea of parental involvement (or should I say, pressure) since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
“It seems to me that parents still have a say in marriages today,” I said.
My Chinese father-in-law shook his head. “No, no, that’s the past,” he disagreed, referring to how Chinese parents used to arrange marriages for their children. “Now people have the freedom to marry whoever they want.”
But I bit my tongue. “What I mean is, Chinese parents have ideas about their children’s marriages. The parent will tell the child if they like the person or not. The child has free choice, but may want to be filial and not go against their parents.”
Ruzhui -- where Chinese men "marry into" the wife's family and have the child take on her name -- turns Chinese marriage tradition upside down. (photo by Charlie Balch)
Before I even entered his apartment with John, my Chinese husband, I knew O’Neil – a close Chinese friend of John’s from middle school – had marital distress. But I never imagined that – among other things — it would have anything to do with a struggle over the next generation’s name. “At first, her parents demanded ruzhui,” he shared late Friday, May 27, as John and I sat side by side on a sofa in his apartment for one on Hangzhou’s West Side.
I raised an eyebrow at this strange Chinese word. “What’s ruzhui?
“You marry into her family, and your children have her name,” explained O’Neil. Unlike O’Neil, who came from the countryside, his wife was the only child of a proud Hangzhou family – a family that didn’t want their name extinguished in the next generation, just because they happened to have a daughter. It turned Chinese tradition — the woman marrying into her husband’s family and giving her child his name — upside down.
O’Neil documented far greater transgressions in their marriage (the parents bought them a car, but only gave their daughter a key; on an apartment deed, where they were required by law to write their son-in-law’s name and give him a share in the real estate, the parents gave him only one percent of the value). If anything, the suggestion to ruzhui was almost understandable in a Chinese sense – except that the parents hadn’t discussed it with him before the marriage. Continue reading “Ruzhui: When Chinese Men “Marry Into” Wife’s Family”
A British woman, living with her Chinese husband in his isolated village, feels as if she's missing some emotional support and more. (photo by Glenda Otero)
Hainangirl asks:
Im from england and im 25 i have been married for about a year and a half to a chinese guy who is a year older than me. I love him very very much and i trust him with all my heart but i can sometimes feel so frustrated with the way he shows his love. I know its a culture difference and his upbringing as he is from a very small village , and has lived a bit of a sheltered life. Like i read in some of your articles about sex and love i had to teach him. the lack of eduction is also an issue when making big decisions or planning for the future. I hate to feel like im unsatisfied with him but sometimes i need reassurance and comfort. I have found the biggest problem can be him recognising my feelings. He doesnt speak english but im fluent in chinese and i make it very clear how i feel and i try not to critise him as i dont want to affect his confidence. It probably sounds so horrible that im moaning about him. We are very happy together and he compliments me perfectly but sometimes i feel uneasy. I am alone in china and not only am I committing my life to him, but also his family and this island and if you have ever been here you will know that the people here are not used to foreigners and you feel a bit like an alien. I feel i need more emotional support and comfort and reassurance about our future and our plans for a family. How do i get that??? i also wants to know that he is happy with me, he very rarely talks about how he feels and this can sometimes make me insecure? do you have any suggestions that could open him up a little.Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: British Woman with Chinese Husband Lonely in Marriage”
Megan Millward and husband Zhang Lie -- one of the couples of Western women and Chinese men featured in this China Daily article (photo from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/)
In case you missed it (or, like me, you spent the weekend away — in my case, a wedding in Hangzhou — and are just catching up), the China Daily just published an article titled Western Women, Chinese Men — about the growing trend of marriages between Western women and Chinese men. It features me, as well as fellow bloggers Jo Gan of Life Behind the Wall and Melanie Parsons Gao from The Downtown Diner. Here’s an excerpt from the article with some quotes from me and my husband:
Jocelyn Eikenburg, a 33-year-old American who blogs on speakingofchina.com, had a similar experience [of having the relationship get serious fast] when she first began dating her husband, Jun Yu. “Immediately after we first started dating, he was calling me laopo.” That is Chinese for “wife”.
She was surprised by how quickly the relationship had gone from friend to potential spouse. Her blog focuses on cross-cultural relationships between Chinese men and Western women.
Family can also be another hurdle for many foreign women in relationships with Chinese men.
When Jun told his family about his relationship with Eikenburg, his father did not approve. “He cautioned me about dating a foreign girl and did not want me to get hurt,” Jun says.
His family’s attitude toward their son dating a foreign woman quickly changed when Eikenburg went home with Jun for Chinese New Year. When she showed his father pictures of her family at home, “it really opened him up”, she says. As filial piety is important to Chinese families, Eikenburg says that experience helped break down barriers….
"I just had a nightmare -- I got married." (photo by Cathy Kaplan)
It’s no secret that women in China worry about getting married. Sometimes it’s because she’s approaching 30 – China’s unofficial expiration date for single women. Sometimes it has to do with parents and relatives raining that “why don’t you have a boyfriend?” question on her over and over again like neverending debris from Chinese New Year fireworks. And sometimes, in the case of my 22-year-old cousin Mei, the problem isn’t age or being a chronic singleton, but marriage itself.
“I don’t really want to get married. I’m afraid!”
Moments before Mei confessed her fear of an institution as integral to Chinese life as chopsticks and rice, I had told her she looked beautiful. Her navy-striped ruffle-trimmed blouse and khaki mini shorts accentuated her lovely Pippi Longstocking freckles, and she had long, creamy legs that could have stopped even high speed trains, perched atop patent leather high heels. If she had told me she had a boyfriend, I would have started teasing her about some imaginary hot date she didn’t have that evening. But she had no boyfriend, and no desire to find one either.
“Everyone around me is getting divorced,” she sighed.
What happens when my Chinese husband works for the summer in Shanghai, while I'm parked at the Chinese family home in the countryside?
John, my Chinese husband, came to China this summer to work on his dissertation research. If I was working on a research question for this summer, it might be this — what happens when a foreign woman comes to China with her Chinese husband and then spends the majority of the summer apart from him?
Since the afternoon of May 8, 2011, John and I have lived in separate cities in China. He stays in Shanghai, as he prepares to do a clinical trial for his dissertation research. Meanwhile, I stay at the family home in rural Hangzhou, where I can read, write and do a little research for my writing.
On paper, it works perfectly. John and I both knew he would be far too busy in Shanghai, which meant if we stayed together I’d be on my own most of the time. It made sense for me to go back to the family home, because I needed a space to write and longed for the inspiration of our relatives there.
But in practice, I have to face that one thing every happily married couple grapples with when they’re apart — missing your loved one more than you imagined.
It’s not like ours is a new tale in China. Haven’t we all heard of those families – especially from the rural countryside – where often the husband goes to the big city for some job, and his wife stays at home? Or even where both the husband and the wife head to different cities for work? Continue reading “Living Apart from my Chinese Husband for the Summer in China”
Home. Car. Money. I first heard these words strung together — fangzi, chezi, piaozi — around 1am in July 2007, while loitering on the stairs outside a Holiday karaoke bar in Hangzhou with my Chinese husband and his friends.
The friend who spoke these words, a guy named Jiang, sighed almost immediately afterwards, before forcing up a grin to hide the frustration he felt about it. “That’s married life in China,” he shrugged.
I had just married John — for the second time, if you consider our ceremony at the Shanghai Marriage Registration Bureau a sort of wedding — and suddenly Jiang’s words seemed to be the fluorescent lights in the reception hall after hours, making an otherwise beautiful thing look cheap and ugly.
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