Love, trust and understanding help people from different cultural
backgrounds get to know each other better, and sometimes help pave
the way for happy marriages.
Exactly what would make people marry a foreigner? It seems to that
question, everybody has his or her own answer.
"I
didn't realize that he was a foreigner," said Xiong Lin, a
25-year-old Chinese woman. "I think he is just a handsome and
interesting guy."
She is married to Siegfried Verheijke who has been trade
commissioner with the Belgian Embassy to China since 1999.
To
Lisa Carducci, a Canadian working as an editor for a Beijing-based
magazine, what attracted her to Lao Du, a Chinese cartoonist, was
his personality.
"I
think he is an average-looking man," she said.
Before she met Lao Du, she met some Chinese men who showed interest
in her because of her citizenship. When she met Lao Du at an
exhibition of her paintings in January 1995, she thought he was
just another of them.
"He had a passport already," said Carducci. "When he learned of my
thoughts, he tore it up in front of me. I was ashamed of what I had
thought of him. Then I agreed to see him more."
For Wang Xiaoyan, a 30-year-old Chinese teacher at the China
Traditional Opera's University, the deciding factor was trust. Last
year she married Yoon Dongjun, a Korean student of her own age
studying Peking Opera in the university.
"He is very honest and reliable," she said. "I was attracted by the
word 'trust' in his letters to me. I think marriages fail because
of a lack of trust. That's why I chose him."
Different concepts of marriage and family, though, did make
marrying a difficult decision.
"In my country, it's fine for people to live together without
getting married," said Siegfried Verheijke. "I was against the
concept of marriage, which to me was being together with a sheet of
paper."
He
met his wife when he taught English in 1993 at a school in Wuhan in
Central China's Hubei Province. It took him a week to decide to
propose in 1998.
"I
tried to image myself with her in 20 years' time," he said. "And I
decided that I could accept the idea."
His Chinese wife had different ideas.
"I
think if a man and woman want to live together, they should marry,"
said Xiong Lin. "If you have children and you tell them you are not
married, I think it is not right."
As
an artist and writer, Lisa Carducci wanted a free schedule instead
of regular life routines.
"I
always thought that I'd like to have a man in my life, but not in
my house," she said.
She and Lao Du agreed before marriage that they each would maintain
their sphere of working and circle of friends.
As
time passes, couples in international marriages seem to learn from
each other.
Siegfried thinks that he has learned to be more traditional over
the years.
"What you get from love is so gratifying that it pushes away your
individual needs," he said. "For me it is the biggest
revelation."
Well-known Chinese pop singer Wei Wei is in a particularly high
profile international marriage.
"I've learned from my husband not to worry about the past and the
future," she said. "And I've learned to show care to my
friends."
She married Michael J. Smith, a Swedish-American pianist, in
1994.
The ability to speak a second language is definitely a benefit in
international marriages.
Otherwise, in the beginning, communication might be a problem.
"If I speak Chinese, he (her husband) needs to talk in baby
Chinese," said Carducci. "And my Chinese is too simple to express
my ideas."
It
would be the same if she speaks French or Italian, her native
languages.
But they have found solutions.
"He (Lao Du) used to teach me Chinese very patiently," said
Carducci.
The situation has improved a lot, though, as Carducci's Chinese and
Lao Du's English have both improved.
"One of the best chances for me to practice speaking English is
when I want to argue with my husband," said Wei Wei with a smile.
"Because I had to think of clever things to say!"
Xiong Lin speaks good English and her husband Verheijke speaks
fluent Chinese. But still, she has started to study Dutch, her
husband's native language.
A
common problem for these couples is getting stared at when they
walk down the streets in China.
"Even if you become a Chinese citizen, they look at you as a
foreigner," said Carducci. "But situations have been improving and
now it is quite different from 1992."
Verheijke thinks it has to do with education.
"We got used to it," he said. "It has become more accepted in
China. As China becomes more a part of the international community,
more and more people would think it doesn't matter to have
international marriages."
Actually the couple has learned to look at the matter from another
angle.
"If we meet other international couples on the street, I like to
check out what the foreigner and the Chinese look like," said
Verheijke.
But some couples claim they haven't experienced the problem.
"People are really warm to me," said Michael J. Smith. "Although we
do look a little special, as I'm so tall, I never felt
uncomfortable having people looking at us.
"You must look for the beauty and the warmth in the people. And
then maybe you'll even love a woman from that country," he
explained.
(China
Daily January 25, 2002)