{"id":373,"date":"2013-11-10T05:00:58","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/?p=373"},"modified":"2013-11-12T11:19:58","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T19:19:58","slug":"my-interracial-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/culture\/my-interracial-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"My Interracial Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"001<\/a><\/p>\n

Every marriage is an\u00a0intercultural <\/em>marriage.<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Think about it: the person you marry is bound to be from a different culture than the one you grew up in. His family likes barbecues and hydroplane races; yours goes to museums and book signings. Her mother cooks dinner every night; your mom always brought home take-out. His family hikes and runs marathons, they sail and ski and play Frisbee; your family doesn\u2019t even watch sports on TV. Her family shops for fun and runs up huge credit card bills; you grew up in a frugal family that believes in saving and investments. I could go on and on\u2014noisy families and quiet ones, Democrats and Republicans, Catholics, Baptists, Jews and atheists, small families and large, parents who are single, divorced or re-married.<\/span><\/p>\n

So with all these differences, how much could race matter?\u00a0And I mean only race, boiled down to that one essential difference.<\/p>\n

Not much. At least not in our marriage.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been trying to think of problems related to race that Eugene my Chinese husband of 31\u00a0years and I had, and the only thing I can come up with is food.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>

Not 5:00 in the morning<\/p><\/div>\n

Now don\u2019t get me wrong. I\u00a0love Chinese food. And my husband loved steak and fried chicken. \u00a0But (and I think I\u2019m not exaggerating here) food is simply more important to the Chinese. The Chinese women I knew in Manila went to the market at 5am to buy the freshest produce. They made steamed dumplings from scratch. They served eight or ten delicious courses at their dinner parties. I couldn\u2019t keep up; nor did I want to. Still, their examples left me feeling pressured to be more enthusiastic about cooking than I was.<\/p>\n

On the plus side, Eugene was an excellent cook, who also took pride in choosing great restaurants\u2014high-brow and low, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese \u2026 Yum!<\/p>\n

(Now that I think of it, even attitudes toward food are not a racial but a cultural difference.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not your partner; it\u2019s other people.<\/b><\/h4>\n

In an interracial marriage, the problem often comes from the attitudes of other people. I suppose there were some who disapproved of us. But if they did, I didn\u2019t notice. I tend to be oblivious to lots of things. In fact, until fairly recently, I had no idea that interracial marriage was against the law in many US states until 1967. Coincidentally, that was the very year Eugene and I were married.<\/p>\n

In ancient China they also had rules against intermarriage. But during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), they tried the opposite tack, requiring West and Central Asian males to intermarry with native Chinese women<\/a>. Assimilation. Swallow them up.<\/p>\n

In the early years of our marriage, Eugene was the only Asian in town (Sedro-Woolley, WA). Consequently, he may have been the target of discrimination and a number of dirty looks. Who knows? He never complained. He was proud of being Chinese. And if he wasn\u2019t welcome, for example, in the local tavern favored by the town\u2019s tar heels, it didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

Until one day it did.\"Skagit<\/a><\/p>\n

He was supervising a shock test for shipboard equipment for the Navy. His team, composed of several North Carolina transplants, had strapped the equipment to a barge on a small lake owned by the boss. They lit the dynamite. But something went wrong. In a flash, Eugene jumped in and saved his men\u2019s lives. When everything was over, they bandaged up his thumb and dragged him off to their favorite tavern. Guess which one. The bartender, true to form, refused to serve him. But the men insisted. \u201cHe\u2019s an honorary tar heel,\u201d they insisted. \u201cGive him a beer.\u201d And the bartender did.<\/p>\n

If the topic of interracial marriage interests you, check out Jocelyn Eichenburg’s blog, Speaking of China<\/a>. Her most popular post is “On the Rarity of Foreign Women and Chinese Boyfriends\/Chinese Husbands<\/a>.”\u00a0In the past four years, 440 people have commented on the story.<\/p>\n

And if you have a story to tell about your own interracial (or intercultural) marriage, I\u2019d love to hear it.<\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n

Next week’s post: Chinese Food Love<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every marriage is an\u00a0intercultural marriage. Think about it: the person you marry is bound to be from a different culture than the one you grew up in. His family likes barbecues and hydroplane races; yours goes to museums and book signings. Her mother cooks dinner every night; your mom always brought home take-out. His family […]<\/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":[29],"tags":[927,80,83,81,84,85],"class_list":["post-373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-chinese-food","tag-intercultural-marriage","tag-interracial-marriage-against-the-law-until-1967","tag-race","tag-sedro-woolley","tag-wa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-61","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5635,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/culture\/loving-the-movie-and-the-crime-of-interracial-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":373,"position":0},"title":"“Loving,” the Movie, and the Crime of Interracial Love.","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"November 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 I had no idea. 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That means that in a few weeks, we\u2019ll be sitting around the Thanksgiving table naming off some of the things we\u2019re thankful for\u2014food, friends, family, beauty and so forth. 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