Friday, December 26, 2003
okay, frankly, I didn't know that mixed marriages could bring about so much trouble. especially for the mixed-race kids (as depicted by Rebecca Woo). actually, i don't think such a scenario is happening in singapore so i agree with Bill Lowe's argument. the mixed-race kids (or eurasian kids) are stereotyped to be good-looking people who have the best of both worlds. ain't it? *shrugs*
Mixed Marriage. Cross-culturally miserable?
With today's society becoming much more liberal, mixed marriages are much more common than they used to be about fifty years ago. Couples of different races are often seen on the streets, walking hand in hand. But no matter how acceptable they appear today, mixed marriages do cause heads to turn and eyebrows to raise. They are still not whole-heartedly accepted as normal occurrences, especially in some of the more conservative and exclusive communities. This cultural mix can cause many problems, both for the couple involved and their immediate family. Before any kind of major involvement, one should always consider one's duties to the family, to the children and also to oneself.
These considerations are especially true for the Chinese race. Historically, the Chinese have never been open or particularly enthusiastic about foreigners. They have always considered themselves a superior and exclusive race calling their own country the 'Central Kingdom" and themselves "the People of the Central Kingdom". Foreigners have always been scoffed at and colloquially are called the "ghosts" or the "sub-humans".
Even today, many Chinese people bear this attitude and it is still indoctrinated in many families. The majority of Hong Kong's population is still Oriental and any foreigner will stick out in a crowd. A mixed couple will create even more of a spectacle and cause more talk and remarks. People can be very cruel and judgmental, and make a lot of sarcastic and disdainful comments about that "girl or boy who was not good enough to find a Chinese spouse and had to resort to those subhuman." And while the comments of others may seem trivial, in today's society, the importance of one's reputation should not be taken lightly. It affects one's social opportunities, employment and even happiness knowing that gossip centres around oneself is not exactly a pleasant feeling.
The children are the ones who eventually suffer the most, yet they are the most innocent. Is it their fault that they look rather strange, not quite Caucasian but definitely not Chinese either? Should they have to bear the brunt of scorn and prejudice? Ultimately, they end up with the greatest insecurity. Due to the fault of their selfish parents', these poor children have no idea which group they should join, or where they belong. Should they go about playing Frisbee and football with the Western children, or stay inside and play Ping-Pong and jump-rope with the Chinese? Should they speak in English, or listen to the scornful reception of their foreign accented Chinese? These problems, seemingly trivial to adults, are actually traumatic decisions in the eyes of a child, as are all types of rejection and hurt. The jeers of other children, yelling rude comments of "mixed!" and "half-ghost!" can cause great damage to a child's self-esteem.
Not only do these children have to face the disdain of outsiders, but of the family as well older generations of the family think of them as half ghost and a symbol of disgrace someone who has deliberately broken the homogeneity of their Chinese heritage. Consequently they tend to give this child less rare and attention which only hurts the child even more.
Not only does the marriage cause tension and difficulties within the lives of the children and family, there exists the very basic difference in tradition and customs. The first and most obvious thing: should the wedding ceremony be a Chinese or a European one? Also, which should have the bigger celebration? Christmas or Chinese New Year? The family, vital in Chinese society, is a lot less significant in Western culture.
It is hard for Westerners to understand the importance the Chinese place on family meetings and family dinners. Often, three generations of grandparents, parents and children assemble each week for a meal. How would the foreigner feel in such a situation -- a very intimate and personal gathering -- when the conversation centres around relatives and family life?
Mixed marriages, therefore, can only result in more unhappiness than happiness. I am not advocating blind submission to all social prejudices. Rather, I believe that one should always be aware of the consequences of going against the social norm. In this case, the suffering of many innocent people appears to be the overwhelming result. The couple themselves, too, do not exactly have an easy marriage of total bliss. Perhaps it is time to stop being so idealistic and come all barriers.
The world we live in is a practical one, and those who are different and stick out will only create problems for themselves and other innocent people. Life is a lot easier if as long as we face up to reality of society today.
Written by: Rebecca Woo (University student studying in England)
(Asia Magazine April 6 1993)
Cross-culturally happy
Come August, my Chinese wife and I will celebrate 20 years of hilariously happy marriage. Like hundreds of Hong Kong couples who are partners in cross-cultural marriages, our marital success confounds the groundless prejudice of those who continue to predict disaster for unions such as our own. Fortunately there aren't many of them left, but the few remaining prophets of mixed-matrimonial doom utter warnings which are simply not supported by the facts. "The children are the ones who suffer most," they say.
At five years old, our son answered heavily loaded enquiry as to his origins by drawing a vertical line downwards from his head with a jam sticky forefinger. "Half Chinese, half English," he laughed. To him it was a silly question and his line drawing provided a silly answer. Today, at 18, he comments, "Being neither wholly Chinese nor wholly English just isn't significant. I'm myself!"
From different cultures come different customs, and each partner may enter marriage with a great deal to learn about the standards of the other. They may choose to add up the differences or to evaluate the many similarities; to concentrate on conflict or measure the mutuality of interests.
In our case there is a shared love of music that ranges from Mozart to Count Basie but which does not include Cantonese opera. We enjoy Chinese food, be it Cantonese, Shanghainese or Chiu Chow but wouldn't give a thank you for Western junk food.
Our tastes in food, music, literature and a thousand other things have undergone changes; we have learnt from each other. Twenty years ago she didn't know Mozart from muzak and I thought that preserved eggs really were 100 years old. Today our tastes take no account of our cultural origins. They are our choices, dictated by neither Chinese nor English traditions.
All this is probably disappointing to socio-racial bigots who -- in their narrow minds -- would have me don my barbarian bowler before singing a rousing chorus of Rule Britannia.
Would they have my wife discard her jeans and T-shirt to parade eternally in a cheongsam? Do they, I wonder, see our son confused and unloved because he does not receive surreptitious nudges from wholly Chinese friends who hiss a conspiratorial "We Chinese?" Unwanted by wholly English friends because he doesn't know a square-leg from a silly mid-on?
As it is for us, so it is for others. Writer Barry Parr speaks for himself and his Chinese wife: "Ours is a marriage of two individuals, not of two people defined by their respective cultures. It's just the same for newspaper editor Robin Hutcheon and his Eurasian wife:
"Being married to someone of an ethnic background different to my own has enriched my life. We didn't marry because of --or in spite of -- our different backgrounds, but simply because we fell in love."
Like Esther and I, these couples have no cause for regrets; nor have the MacAlpine family: Elinor Wai-ling, her husband Mark and sons Christopher and Richard. Elinor says that Mark is her father's favourite son-in law. So much for sadly misinformed opinion which suggests Chinese family rejection of Western in-laws. We visit our families -- hers and mine -- only on high days and holidays and we are always welcomed. By comparison. Barry Parr and his wife are in the company of her family two or three times a week; a family into which Barry is totally integrated.
The suggestion is made that Chinese people consider themselves "a superior and exclusive race" who look down on foreigners, designating them "ghosts" or "sub-humans." If this does occur, such silly notions are not exclusively Chinese, for every group has its share of biased bigots.
Today, thank heavens, such attitudes are confined to the closed-mind opinions of Victorian -- or Confucian died-in-the-wool dogmatists. There is simply no evidence to support the idea that more inter-racial marriages fail than those between people of like backgrounds. Upon enquiry, I found that Hong Kong's Divorce Registry does not even bother to record racial origins. Why should it? Race is not a failure factor. The talk of racial barriers, of' superiority and inferiority, of problems and outcast children, is dangerous and divisive nonsense. It should be dismissed with the contempt it invites from those many happy couples who are living, proof of its obnoxious falsity.
Written By: Bill Lowe (A writer and teacher who responds to Rebecca Woo's views on mixed marriages)
(Asia Magazine June 1, 1986)
&
hush pretty pink lady ;
at 10:18 am
