More Stories from the Battleground
Struggling to maintain my identity in my own country, with a
Chinese spouse, can be a challenge at times.
I find my ability to maintain who I am….an American, difficult even in
America, when my wife is Chinese. This
is probably an individual problem. I’m
sure not every Chinese speaking husband has the same issues I find myself having. But it’s weird when I find myself wanting to
go back to China in order to eat more Western food..ie I cannot get any back
home.
I’m sure it’s all my fault.
My tolerance level is probably too high for my own piece of mind. An example:
The fish head
Typical Chinese, my wife will buy the whole fish, tail, head
and all, and bring it back to clean it, and eat. One of my daughters does not like fish with
bones. The younger one does. Lately, for some reason, I’ve seen her
saving the head, however, and to my chagrin, keeping it in our fridge for
extended periods of time.
Now, right here I’ll pause for a moment and mention what
every laowai that is married to a Chinese goes through; the “smell hunt”. How many,
many times have we opened the fridge in our house, only to detect a strange
odor, hidden somewhere within? If I only
had a penny….
Usually it’s some strange meat or shellfish she has
inside. The funny thing is once I bring
it up, she either knows right away what it is….or she has to herself spend
several seconds finding it as well.
The
same goes for fish head.
Why can’t my wife just eat the damn thing the day that’s
she’s bought it back from the market?
Why must she keep the fish head in the fridge? Eat the damn fish head!
Instead over the past several days as I look for normal
things like butter…..and cheese… I find myself again and again pulling out the
same fish head, in a Tupperware container…eyes and all. This pristine little fish head.
“Pls eat your fish head, dear”, I ask gently.
My wife cooks fish
once or twice a week. She and I are
different. She wants to be like her dad
and live to a 100. Yet I know
better. I know damn well I won’t have a
single happy day after 70.
No more sex.
No more walks.
God only knows how many ailments I’ll have by then. I figure I’ll see my grandkids as
children. That’s fine by me. But I don’t want to spend the last years of
my life going to the doctor every week either.
The invitations have ceased.
The wife finally hinted to me that she’s missing out on
activities with other Chinese families because of yours truly. I don’t get it. Yes, I ‘m gone quite a bit, but I’ve been a
good sport when I’m around. We took a
big multi Chinese family skiing holiday last year….great fun. She hints I’m a hassle. WTF?
Me? I guess I just don’t “fit in”…
For one thing I lack the appropriate religious fervor. I don’t go to Church, nor will I ever go to
Church. And that’s held against me. Her friends are all a bit heavy into that. True, last time we went to a Chinese friends’
house for dinner, they had an impromptu Service that kept me in the basement
for an hour and a half with the kids.
Still, to have China’s most talented, sophisticated and
hardest working generation act such a way is a bit surprising. Do the Chinese just “stress” when in my
presence? I dunno….
I continue to lose weight
Even in America, the Chinese food is taking it’s toll. Doufu and Shrimp, Sauteed green beans…..Soup
“this” and Soup “that”….healthy though it is, my body breaks down and I need to
eat proper “American” food promptly or I go into withdrawals…..and this is in
America!
So we went for “Italian” the next day.
Another house paid in cash
The real estate mkt in America is notoriously cheap
everywhere but maybe California and NY.
Another one of my wife’s friends bought a 10,000 sq foot house, with 9
bathrooms and 2 acres of land for the “princely sum” of $700,000. In cash.
(can you say tax audit?) The
Chinese continue to do wonders for housing in America. Though the husband has a very good job, they
are keeping their original house all the same.
The new house is cheap because it is both a foreclosure and a in a
subpar school district. Still, we all
continue to wonder “where the money comes from”….?
And maybe that describes in a nutshell the problem with
America…ie as a family unit, most of us just don’t have that much cash to
spare. We’re saving for our
retirements. (we think) Who in his right mind is gonna pay for a
house in cash? (answer: either a
“flipper” or a Chinese)
Yet it gets worse when your wife’s “friend” wants to show it
off. Here we tread a narrow line; the jealousy in us comes out. We don’t want to go “gawk” at a house that
was so obviously bought with “ill gotten gains” from China…..do we? An American would feign indifference. We’d play it cool. We wouldn’t want “those people” to think
their better than us. So we punish them, and temper their wholly
imagined “arrogance” by simply pretending to be just too busy to go take a
look.
The particular wife of this Chinese couple is a crazy
woman. Nary a friend. She threatened to sue the local Chinese
community when her young son was bullied in Chinese school. (a weekend cultural program) He’s two years
ahead of his actual junior high class and is now in high school. A big fat Chinese kid that can barely stand
up, two years ahead of his class, ie 2 years younger than everyone else in his
current class, he is constantly bullied in school. Suspended.
Made fun of. ( I’m sure he will
look back on his school years fondly.)
Meanwhile his mom brags about her
kids intelligence. (The bullying is
worth it as long as he stays 2 years ahead of everybody else and she can keep
on bragging..)
It’s easy to tell the mom herself has no friends
either. And one can already see the
future emotional problems this poor kid will have, thx to mom’s pride. However, should she come to her senses and
focus on the child’s emotional development, and maybe bring him down a year, is
she’ll lose face. And well, quite
frankly, her FACE is just more important than that of her own child’s emotional
well- being.
So no, I don’t want to go see your house. I don’t like you and I can care less how big
your damn house is. And I will express
my disdain for you, by not visiting
your new house. But my wife is
different….or should I say normal? The
curiosity gets the best of her. And she
has this nasty trait of getting along with everyone. People that can’t find a friend cling to
her. She’s that type of person.
So my wife goes and sees that house, and
comes back in her usual damn bubbly voice about “how big their house is!”, and
I can’t help but feel she’s insinuating our house isn’t big enough, and well
quite frankly, I need to pick up the pace.(she want’s a million dollar hse,
remember?)
Than my studied indifference is all blown to hell because
this crazy Chinese Mom, with only one friend, is determined to invite us over
for dinner sometime to show off her new house!
That means I’ll have to go (and paste a smile on my face before I walk
in), and as earnestly as I can, give Face to Crazy Woman by telling her how
damn big and pretty and impressive her house is. Because my wife wouldn’t have it any other
way.
The grill
My wife likes to clean.
She cleans for relaxation. She
cleans to get away from me. She cleans
to contemplate. She cleans to make me
feel guilty.
And now she’s cleaned my grill.
While away in Shenzhen for 3 weeks I came home to a clean
grill. I don’t know how to react.
Is she playing mind games with me?
Is she playing the guilt card?
Is this her way of telling me I’m lazy and
slovenly?(partially)
I’ve no problems when my wife cleans the dishes…..but I
almost feel she is playing mind games with me when she cleaned the grill. I must say I’m not at all happy about
it. I think she’s crossed the line. Yeah, I know what you are thinking…..(lucky
you! What are you complaining about!)
I now know that if I could have a wife with two
qualities,(beyond the obvious gents) I would choose the following:
A wife that likes to watch movies.
A wife that likes to watch football.
I can say with a straight face I do not place great emphasis
on a wife that cleans until 10pm at night.
I just don’t. I want a wife that
will let me fold the clothes once in a while.
Let me even put the laundry in the washer(I was banned from even doing
that years ago)
Selfish me doesn’t want a wife that cleans my grill. Or folds my underwear.
I have a friend with a younger Chinese gf. She’s terrible at housecleaning. And you know what? He loves it!
She’s great in bed and has multiple orgasms. He can’t get enough. They take long walks. They frequently go out and watch movies
together. But she can’t wash a damn
dish, and he’s never seen her do laundry, and he can care less.
But the older generation is different. The contract is clear to them; they will wash, and fold and cook, and follow
up with the children’s homework. I will
work and bring in money. Simple. But this unwritten agreement is maybe a
little too black and white for me.
Sometimes I think it’s all abt the housewife and her need to maintain her sense of self
worth, in the eyes of her foreign husband.
Sometimes it’s overboard.
I was scolded the other day for attempting to help my daughter with her
grammar homework. WTF? I asked my wife
tongue in cheek that maybe I should be the one assisting with that? I was waved away. When spelling review come though, I find my
daughter can’t even pronounce half the words correctly.
I must admit, upon marriage I was indeed prepared for the
Family. But I wasn’t prepared for such a
cut and dried division of labor. I find
they are all this way, however. The dad
plays the role of docile breadwinner, and pretty much shuts the fuck up when he
comes home. I think most Western Men
will agree that’s not something they are prepared to accept.
Marriage is always a double edged sword. But with a Chinese Wife it can become a soul
sucking experience. It’s become too much
about tangible metrics as opposed to intangible abilities.
“How big is your house?
Ahhh….your husband must have a good job!”
“Your car….aahhhhh”
As a result, I find that Chinese just don’t place much
emphasis on things such as emotional fulfillment.
Families do not compare themselves to each other, by how
often dad takes Little Boy Wang to the park. There seems to be very little focus on
emotional fulfillment in Chinese families.
The society is too goal oriented for my taste.
In the West, it’s
about the “journey”. In China, it’s all
about reaching the “destination”. The trip itself is a nonattentive blur.
When a society is as focused, as goal oriented as China’s
is, it says two things:
“We’ve been poor too damn long, and I want to live.” And…..
There has been very little social contemplation on a
national level(another future post). At
this time in Chinese History, China is recovering from 170 years of
decline. The time for real
contemplation just hasn’t come yet. There is no time for introspection.
But I would like a splash of gray in my marriage, if you
please.
The Network
My wife has little difficulty in America. And I’m relatively confident it is the same
in Australia, or Sweden, or wherever you may live. Including Japan.
We can all attest that our spouses, or girlfriends, simply
do not need to speak the host language, even when they live abroad. There are the supermarkets. The Chinese salesmen at the car lots, the
Chinese handyman, the Chinese Church.
We’ve already seen that Chinese like to vacation together. I’ve never been to a single Chinese Dinner
Party where One Laowai Family was invited.
Not one.
In short, my wife doesn’t need me.
When she first came to America, the first thing I did was
teach her to drive. Most Americans
drivers were pretty patient. One
motorcyclist did give her the finger once.
I thought that once she was on my turf though, she’d be more inclined to
listen to me, for a change. When we
lived in Hangzhou, and Hong Kong and Shanghai together, I usually just followed
along. She knew the area better than I
did, and that was that.
Boy was I wrong.
Once she arrived in America, and got her feet wet, she simply plugged
into the “Network”. That vast Chinese circle
of acquaintances. Soon she was telling
me where we should go on vacation.
Which local restaurants were popular, and which Malls were to be
frequented. One might think this a
godsend, but not always. Quite frankly,
I found her new “circle of friends”
“getting in the way”.
To my annoyance I found her friends were actually beginning
to dictate our schedules. It’s no fun to
explore a new city when you’ve already been told what to expect. They were even dictating our travel plans!
“Why are we going to Disney, our daughter is only 4?”
“My friends said it was fun”! (and of course, I don’t want
to look like an idiot by not being the only one who hasn’t gone yet, so my dear
husband, you will shut the fuck up and drive us there.)
Sometimes the influence of the Network bordered on cultural
bias alone: everyone on the Eastern
Seaboard knows the best time to visit the Smokies is in the fall, not the
Spring. Not the Chinese. For some reason, they prefer the Spring…..
The Network was now my competition. Indeed, living in my native country really
gave me no leverage at all. The Network
dictated our activities.
I must admit sometimes this is a good thing, though. Recently the temperature reached 5 degrees(13
below), and one of our pipes froze.
Only a Chinese plumber from the Network was handy on a timely basis.
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