Western girl and Chinese guy – Multicultural relationship challenges

Date: 2012.05.17 | Category: Chinese Culture, Chinese People, Finnish-Chinese Relationship, Me | Response: 2

Living in a multicultural relationship brings along a lot of challenges that are different comparing to dating someone from your own cultural circle. Recently a friend of mine asked: “But isn’t it quite hard sometimes to be in a relationship with a person whose culture is so different from you?” In this blog post I’ll do my best to answer.

From Finland, China is one of the farthest place you can go, that’s also true in a Finnish-Chinese relationship. We have grown up in such different cultures and having been used to one way of living for 20 years and changing a location isn’t an easy deal. It’s even harder when besides your location also all the communication you have change their settings.

Challenges in language

I’ve written about language difficulties in a relationship before (as a guest post on Speaking of China), but there are few things I would like to add.

First of all Mandarin Chinese is a third language for both of us. My native language is Finnish and second foreign language English. My boyfriend’s mother tongue is Yangjiang dialect and second language Cantonese. We have to use a language in our daily communication that isn’t a native language for either of us.

Besides not knowing all the required vocabulary, there’s also a problem that words have different meanings in different cultures. By communicating more we have to learn what words mean for us and what we mean by certain words or expressions. In some way we creat our own language.

Challenges in communication

Communication isn’t jut words and sentences, it’s also the way you express them. For my ears, Chinese, and especially Cantonese people, are always shouting or arguing. I’ve grown up in a culture when raising your voice means you’re angry, but in China people just use louder voice to begin with. Typical situation is when I’m discussing about something with my boyfriend and I think he is raising his voice. So I raise my voice too, but the difference is that he is just talking, but I’m getting into a fight!

Chinese people also think that complaining is a sign of caring. Family members can say anything that pops into their head without being too polite. Hey, it’s just family! But I’m not used to be criticized so directly and my boyfriend doesn’t always remember that I don’t know he is just caring. But step by step I learn to complain like a real Chinese girlfriend and my boyfriend learns to think before opening his mouth.

So why to get into a relationship with a Chinese guy?

Chinese people usually date to get married and many don’t see the point in having a relationships without future. Meeting the Chinese parents is a sign that it’s the real deal. (In many cases introducing you to the family means that the relationship don’t have to be questioned anymore, everyone knows that the reason to date is to get married, have children and continue the family line.)

So what’s so good about Chinese guys? A lot of women could answer to this, just check out the list on Speaking of China of Western women dating Chinese men and blogging about it.

One thing that I really dislike in relationships is the game. A game where you can’t bring up certain topics because you’re afraid the guy would run away because you wanted commitment, or you wait for years and still don’t know what is the course of your relationship. We all have seen thousands of movies of a guy who freaks out when his girlfriend want’s to get married.

This is not the case with my boyfriend. We both know what we want from the future and can discuss about it together. We don’t have to play any guessing games. Like many Chinese people, my boyfriend likes kids and has a huge feeling (and pressure) to take care of his family and relatives.

My boyfriend cooks my favourite dishes, pours me water all the time and in a Chinese way lets me know what is or isn’t good for my health.

So yes, it can be very hard to be in a multicultural relationship when you are from opposite ends of the earth, like Finland and China. But you also learn so much along the way about another person and another culture that it’s well worth it. I also believe that the longer we are together the often we can forget where we are from. And how many of you have succeeded in not being in a relationship with someone you love?

p.s. Click here if you think my blog is your favourite language learning blog for 2012! And don’t forget to check out my posts about learning Chinese.

Visit to a Chinese orphanage

Date: 2012.05.06 | Category: Chinese Health Care, Chinese People | Response: 4

My fans on Facebook already know that I visited a Chinese orphanage yesterday. This trip to a orphanage in the outskirts of Guangzhou was organized by BEAN Guangzhou and I was lucky to be the one of the nine people who had the chance to attend.

Even going to the orphanage was an adventure. We met on a distant metro stop in Baiyun district and decided to take a taxi to the destination. Finding the right road was a bit tricky as the taxi drivers usually don’t know that orphanage. We had a small “sight-seeing tour” before founding the right spot.

There are more than 100 Chinese children in the orphanage and they all have different mental and/or physical disabilities. But despite their rough life, they are extremely cute and so excited about everything. We played with 15 kids on the small playground, make paper airplanes, sung songs and colored pictures. The smile on their face was the best kind of reward a volunteer can get.

I’m really happy that I decided to attend this event. It was a new experience for me and totally worth it. I hope I can go there again next time. I you’re interested in going too, follow the BEAN Guangzhou website.

So are Chinese people polite or not?

Date: 2012.04.27 | Category: Chinese Culture, Chinese People, Expats, Right and Wrong in China | Response: 29

Three weeks ago a new Finn arrived to Guangzhou and started his few months in China. He said that it’s nice here because people are so polite and helpful. But I’m guessing that at some point he will get to the bottom of the culture shock and have not so nice things to say about Chinese. At least that’s how it usually happens with newcomers.

I can understand very well why he said that Chinese people are polite. They compliment your Chinese after hearing you say “Ni hao”, everyone wants to be your friend and get to know you.

Are these the same people who don’t bother to open their mouth behind the cash register and throw your change to the counter? Are these the same people who laugh at your bad tones? Or are these the same people who rush to take the last seat on the metro?

Chinese people can be very polite and extremely impolite at the same time. They ask about your private matters from finances to marital status. They will let you know if you are too fat for their clothes. But if you’re lucky, you can be treated to a nice cup of tea at the tea shop while brushing up your Mandarin.

A well known truth comes to my mind:

After spending a week in China, you can write a whole book about the country. After spending a month in China, you can write a really nice magazine article about it. After a few months, a blog post. And after a year, you can’t write anything, because you discover how little you actually know.

I could add that it becomes impossible to answer questions about China with a simple yes or no.

What do you think? Are Chinese people polite?

The Chinese mother-in-law

Date: 2012.04.20 | Category: Chinese Culture, Chinese People, Finnish-Chinese Relationship, Me | Response: 22

Last weekend my boyfriend’s mother visited our home for the first time. I’ve met her for a couple of times, but this was the first time she came to Guangzhou to see us. In most of the cultures the relationship between a daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law seems tricky so how could it be when it’s and international one?

Mothers and especially Chinese mothers make taking care of their children their first priority. When a Finnish mother might not be as direct, a Chinese mother will say what is on her mind. In China you don’t have to be too polite between family members. And based on our communication I’m counted as family already.

The first thing she said to me when I came back from the university and she was already at home with my boyfriend? She asked why there was a pile of clothes on the chair and why they weren’t put were clothes are supposed to be in the bedroom. She also reminded me that I should probably do laundry a bit more often. Those comments sound very direct to my Finnish ears, but I also know that it’st just the way of communication here. And my mom probably agrees that I’ve never been the most organized or tidies person out there.

Besides all these comment about my housekeeping skills, my Chinese (future) mother-in-law cleaned, washed and cooked all those three days she spent with us. She said how we have such a big fridge but nothing in there! She asked from my boyfriend which dishes I liked and make those. We went to buy vegetables together and asked constantly if I liked this or that.

Even though she is younger than my own mother and looks younger than she really is, she is also a traditional Chinese mother in that sense that complaining is caring. In Chinese it could be called as 关心话, you might not want to hear it, but it’s all for your best.

And finally, you might be interested in how she calls me. My boyfriend usually calls me by my Chinese name Xuefang 雪芳, but his mother has picked a more Cantonese way of calling me, A Fang 阿芳. The only other person who uses that name of me is my Cantonese teacher and in Cantonese it’s pronounced A Fong.

And now it’s your turn to share your story and let me know if you’re a part of a Chinese family. How do you get along with your (future) mother-in-law? What does she call you?

In China I’m both fat and beautiful

Date: 2012.04.13 | Category: Chinese Culture, Chinese People | Response: 46

As a white female foreigner there are two things Chinese people seem to think about me. One of them is that I’m extremely beautiful with my Western look and white skin. Other is that I’m fat because I weight more than 100斤 (50kg).

In China 100 seems to be a magical number for girls and women. It comes up in TV series I watch once in a while. You should absolutely never weight more than 100斤 (50kg). And if you do, well there’s no clothes you can buy, there’s no man who wants you and so on.

Not looking like a 10 year-old school girl makes me huge in China. I might be size M in Finland, but that’s like XXXL in China. When I leave the house I still look good, but then I go outside and suddenly I’m a giant. Not tall and skinny like Russian girls (then why everyone thinks I’m Russian then?), not short and skinny like Chinese girls. In Finland I’m called average, in China it’s fat.

But then again I hear constantly how beautiful I am. People can’t get their eyes off me and I hear “wow”  being whispered (or shouted) every week. People comment how white my skin is (white=beautiful). A classmate’s mom (Vietnamese) told me over and over how beautiful I look when we had dinner with friends.

It’s like Chinese (and other East-Asian) people can’t really decide if I’m more fat or more beautiful. Just to give you a hint, other if a compliment, another one is asking for a nose bleed.