{"id":2429,"date":"2014-09-14T05:00:49","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=2429"},"modified":"2014-09-13T22:25:43","modified_gmt":"2014-09-14T05:25:43","slug":"how-i-met-my-chinese-husband-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/how-i-met-my-chinese-husband-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Met My Chinese Husband, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Eugene9<\/a>\"baby<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When people ask how I met my late husband, sometimes I simply give the short answer: \u201cWe were introduced by my parish priest.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then, invariably, the questioner will look at me, waiting for something more, disappointment written all over his face. And I have to decide how far back I should go in explaining how two people born on opposite sides of the world were able to find each other.<\/p>\n

My part of the story is easy. I was twenty-one years old, studying at Seattle University. When I came back to my parents\u2019 house for the summer, Eugene had moved to my hometown. All that remained was for the priest to introduce us.<\/p>\n

Eugene\u2019s story is more complicated. He started out so much farther away that without his chopstick-wielding technique, a civil war, a crash course in English, \u201cjungle rot,\u201d and Maidenform bras, I might never have met him.<\/p>\n

His chopstick-wielding technique.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Chopsticks,<\/a>Some people grasp their chopsticks near the tips; others hold them in the middle. Eugene always held his farther back, near the thick ends. For a child born in China during the hungry years of war and occupation, being able to reach the food was a crucial skill. And holding his chopsticks farther back gave him the best reach to the serving dishes.<\/p>\n

His mother didn\u2019t see it that way. \u201cIf you continue holding your chopsticks so far back,\u201d she scolded, \u201cyou\u2019ll end up marrying someone far from home.\u201d I guess she was right.<\/p>\n

A civil war.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eugene was born only months after the Japanese invaded his home in southeastern China<\/a>. When the war ended in 1945, he was seven years old. But the end of one war only opened the way for the intensification of another.<\/p>\n

After four more years of fighting, in 1949, the Communists had won the Chinese Civil War and Chiang Kai Shek<\/a>\u2019s forces were retreating to Taiwan, 150 miles across the Taiwan Strait from Eugene\u2019s home in Xiamen. He and his family escaped while they could on a leaky fishing boat. Later, he spoke of seeing his mother rip pieces of cloth from her slip and stuff them in cracks and knotholes that were spouting sea water.<\/p>\n

Taiwan was a few miles closer to me in the United States, but Eugene still had a long way to go.<\/p>\n

A crash course in English.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Eugene<\/a>After a couple years in Taiwan, a new job opportunity took the family to Yokohama Japan. Eugene’s father looked at the local Chinese school and decided it was too closely allied with the Communist government on the Mainland. Instead, he chose a K-12 international boys school for Eugene: St. Joseph\u2019s College<\/a>. The only hitch: Eugene didn\u2019t speak English, the language of instruction.<\/p>\n

Fine. He still had five months before the entrance exam. His father hired a tutor, and though Eugene had a knack for picking up languages, five months wasn\u2019t nearly enough to become proficient in a language so different from Chinese.<\/p>\n

He failed the entrance exam, and while he continued studying for the next test, his father gave him the silent treatment. A few months later, he passed. When he graduated from St. Joseph College, his English was so much improved that he won the top English prize for grade twelve students.<\/p>\n

\"St.<\/a>Still, he had many miles to travel before he arrived in my hometown of Sedro-Woolley, WA. Come back next week for the rest of the story.<\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              When people ask how I met my late husband, sometimes I simply give the short answer: \u201cWe were introduced by my parish priest.\u201d But then, invariably, the questioner will look at me, waiting for something more, disappointment written all over his face. And I have to decide how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,155,148,436],"tags":[520,519,522,516,518,231,541,517,523,21],"class_list":["post-2429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-family","category-philippines","category-second-sino-japanese-war-casualties","tag-chiang-kai-shek","tag-chinese-civil-war","tag-chinese-learning-english","tag-how-i-met-my-husband","tag-how-to-hold-chopsticks","tag-japanese-invasion-of-china","tag-saint-joseph-college-yokohama","tag-seattle-university","tag-sedro-woolley-wa","tag-xiamen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-Db","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1014,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/gulangyu-a-chinese-island-with-a-storied-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":2429,"position":0},"title":"Gulangyu, a Chinese Island with a Storied History","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"March 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Western-style houses on a Chinese island. 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