Another question from the comments from Janna who is dating a Chinese guy:
I was wondering if you might talk about how your and A’s families first reacted to your relationship?
From what I remember, my parents were (justifiably) more confused about what was going on the first few years we were dating. Mr. A and I only dated for a few weeks before he left for China to teach english for a year. I was feeling pretty cocky after spending a month or so backpacking in Europe, and Mr. A wrote some really great letters, so I figured, why not go visit Mr. A in CHina? When would I get the chance to go to China with someone who spoke Chinese and who had a free place where I could stay?
Anyway, I decided to go to China in November and spent my three week Christmas break there. I kind of dropped the news on my parents with no warning. They had never met A and were a little concerned about me traveling to the other side of the planet with a complete stranger. When I was there, they realized they didn’t even know A’s last name or the name of the city we were in. Oops! They did speak to A on the phone during this debacle (also part 2 and part 3 of the same story) and they thought he was handled my hysterical phone call situation very well.
Since I have never been one to discuss my personal life with my parents, the next time they heard anything about A was when he picked me up at thier house to ride with him on his drive to California for law school. He gave them a box of moon cakes and they were very impressed with his politeness. Then, the next time they really heard about Mr. A again was when I decided to go to Cambodia which nearly gave my dad a heart attack (he actually cried, begged me to go anywhere else in the world, offered to pay for any alternative destination etc, after someone at the US State Department told him not to let me go because there had been an armed coup the year before and the whole country was under some sort of travel warning.) The Cambodia trip did not make my parents big fans of Mr. A. Once we were safely home, they got over it.
Anyway, I suppose the real question is whether or not my parents cared that Mr. A was Asian. They didn’t ever mention it, that I can remember. My mom did occasionally cut articles about Thailand out of the paper because she kept forgetting that A’s family is Taiwanese, not Thai. But over all, I think they don’t care. They don’t really get it when I talk about the cultural issues that go on (mostly with the inlaws) but they are happy that I am happy and that is good enough for them. My extended family seems a little confused about the whole interracial thing, but they are pretty polite and haven’t ever said much about it (I got the feeling they just thought it was onother one of my weird phases…kind of like the pink hair). Once they found out that Mr. A really likes football, they seemed to be a bit more accepting.
As for Mr. A’s family, I don’t remember much discussion about it either. When Mr. A was in China, his mom told him he should date a nice Chinese girl and keep me on the side back home without telling me, but he declined. (He did date a Korean girl while he was in China, but I doubt he told his mom about that for reasons you will see in the next paragraph). A had only had serious relationships with white girls previously, so I think the white girl freak-out ship had already sailed back when he was in high school.
I also think that the drama about who the kids dated had already peaked with Mr. A’s older sister. She dated a Korean American guy in college which made MIL go absolutely CRAZY. Apparently, there is some kind of animosity between the Taiwanese and Koreans dating back to the Japanese occupation of both countries (or maybe just hostility between MIL and Koreans, who knows?) so when SIL moved in with her Korean boyfriend (now husband) MIL *disowned* her. They didn’t speak for years, MIL cut off all college funding, it was a big mess. There is still some hostility between MIL and BIL, but it is relatively civil now.
I guess in A’s family the equation for who is an acceptable mate would go like this: (“>” equals better than)
Taiwanese > Chinese > White or anybody else > Korean
Thank goodness for the Korean brother-in-law, eh?
Neither of our families objected either, although my inlaws did expect me to learn the language/ adapt to Korean culture. (Neither of which happened, of course.) It’s funny what you say about your SIL, because one of my husband’s cousins married a Chinese woman and his parents FLIPPED OUT.
Another white girl married to a Chinese boy here. Neither of our families objected at all. I have tried to pick up as much Cantonese as I can, and signed up for a Mandarin course that was cancelled. His parents don’t expect it of me (which is nice) but I would like to be able to communicate with them better (their english isn’t great–but it is much better than my cantonese or mandarin–they speak both).
My parents were skeptical for completely other reasons, but I am lucky to have grown up in a diverse, integrated part of the country (well, integrated by most american city comparisons…) so race wasn’t a huge issue for them.
LOVE the equation.
I know what you mean about the family freaking out on international travel – in 1993, I went to Pakistan with a then-boyfriend. My mom cried when she took us to the airport. She was sure she would never see me again. The trip went fine, no problems at all, but my family was NOT happy for the 6 weeks that I was gone.
Also, I totally related to the “football” part. It really helps my Indian husband fit in with the extended family on holidays – usually, he knows more about what is going on in the NFL than THEY do because he doesn’t root for a particular team and watches all the games equally.
My MIL cried for two weeks when we got engaged, but once I had two sons she got over it. Also, funny you mentioned your SIL because when my husband’s brother started dating a girl from Puerto Rico I looked better to my MIL and when his cousin started dating a black guy I looked really good! Her chart goes Chinese > white > Puerto Rican > black > Japanese. Re Japanese — she was a girl in CHina during the Japanese occupation.
DS-L
Thanks so much for answering my question! As I mentioned, my mom flipped out when I started dating my boyfriend, but I had expected his parents’ reaction to be much worse. It turns out that his mom didn’t really care, as long as I was smart, although she did tell my boyfriend once or twice that he should date a nice Taiwanese girl. They are Chinese, as I said, but she told him that Chinese girls have “bad attitudes” so he shouldn’t date them!
It seems like the “prior precedent” thing has been really helpful to people – if you’re not the first in your family in an inter-racial relationship then there’s less freaking out. It makes you realize that most people who object to these things are really objecting because the concept (and sometimes the significant other) is unfamiliar and not so much for any of the other reasons they may list.
Yah, you pretty much hit the “>” on the head.
My father had a fit when I start dated a GI, somebody from the occupation force! He asked if I couldn’t have waited for a nice German boy… My Honey showed up with chocolate, cigarettes and nylons the first time he visisted…the typical WWII present for the “German Fraulein”. He talked about wine with my father which totally softened my dad up!
Oh and as to the > list…
White American GI > Black American GI > Turk
My parents had no problem, but his parents….they stilol have not seen their grandaughter! And his mom actually cried when she found out I was pregnant!
Although when they do talk to him on the phone they will now ask how she is.
I went back and read your China Travel Adventure. Wow, what a story! I’d love to hear more about your travels to Cambodia, Europe, etc. if you ever want to write about them.
I have to laugh about my in-laws. They always told their children not to marry a Hakka (Chinese non-Han ethnic group) but never even thought to mention white people. Now they’ve got one Hakka daughter-in-law and two white children-in-law. Guess who has given them the most problems (not so much due to ethnicity).
Sadly, during our last trip to Taiwan, my husband’s grandfather did sit him down *right in front of me* and tell him not to marry a white person. Several of my husband’s friends have also gotten that speech from their grandfathers upon visiting Taiwan so it doesn’t mean much. However, that grandfather already had several hapa grandchildren and more hapa great-grandchildren so I felt badly for them if that was his attitude.
My parents were fine with us. In fact my white mother always thought Asian men were sexy. They met Jrex within a couple months of us dating and they all loved each other. I think he actually met my whole family before his mother let him even tell his father I existed. His parents had hissy fits for two years (they hadn’t met me at all). Every time he went home they set him up on dates with Korean women. On the other hand, having lived through the occupation, the equation for his parents was this:
Korean > Chinese > White > Black > Japanese.
After nine years of marriage I actually get along great with his parents. Though now that his father has retired, I think he’s losing his English, so that relationship may deteriorate…
for just one second i read this sentence and substituted “i” for “a”: “A had only had serious relationships with white girls previously” and thought, this is going to get really interesting! lol!
I’m late to the conversation (since my RSS feed didn’t pick this up – aaaaaagh!), but I LOVE the “>” equation.
As I’ve mentioned over on my blog, his parents tried to talk him out of staying with me (Japanese > Korean > White > Chinese > Black > Hispanic); my parents pretty much expected it (and my mom kept going on about wanting “her” Eurasian grandchild…but that’s another story).
After the falling-out that ensued over the “dump the white girl” conversation, M. wrote his parents a long letter saying he was happy, and wasn’t that what they always wanted for him? It seems to have worked; they’ve never been anything but pleasant and gracious to my face, and the adore their granddaughter. His dad and I talk sumo, his mom and I talk granddaughter, and we all make it through our visits pretty well.
And M. lived with my parents in the same house for seven months – since we all survived and we still get together as a group for dinner from time to time, I think that relationship is pretty much intact (the only one who was threatening to walk away from the whole debacle by the end was me).
My parents are unwilling to admit prejudice, but I was about 4 months pregnant when my dad suddenly realized that the baby was going to be half-Chinese. Since I’d been with a Chinese-Taiwanese woman for 10 years at that point, I can’t imagine the amount of denial it must have taken.
MIL, on the other hand, had been softened up by BIL, who at 18 announced that his white girlfriend (now his wife) was pregnant and they were keeping the baby but not getting married. MIL actually bought now-SIL a wedding / engagement ring set so that she could tell all her Chinese-speaking friends they were married. She was just excited about having another onoko grandbaby.
I am dating a Chinese guy and I was wondering if you could give me any advice about problems you encountered in your marriage… like cultural things. Especially being a western girl married to a chinese boy… not a typical thing…