[quote=“Wookiee”]What Sandman said.
Plus…
Pay for another flight–the prices eill go down after CNY–and come back and sit down with the “depressed” mom and tell her in no uncertain terms that you are going to marry and have a life with her daughter, regardless. Family ties are strong here. Even modern “western educated” people still get pulled into doing things they might not necessarily want, just to be filial. If your lady means that much to you, come back and get her. If not, wish her good luck.[/quote]
I agree. Come back and get her. That’s what I would’ve done. My future wife’s father (we’re getting married tomorrow) was opposed to us getting married. I tried to create a supportive environment for her by getting a bigger place and having her move in with me. I encouraged her to see her mom and didn’t allow her father to “bully” her into a decision.
If you really want her, let her know, and let her know you will do what you can to support her and make things easier for her. Even in situations where the family is opposed to a marriage (and this even happens between Taiwanese) things usually sort themselves out when it becomes inevitable, when the couple gets married or when a child is born.
firstly CONGRATS to bismarck. May you two be blessed. (you are getting married tomorrow , but you are on the net today) haha. Get off the net and do something? haha.
and now to the OP. YES ITS difficult your situation but not entirely uncommon. What would happen in a HOllywood movie with this plot?? Would we see our “hero” (you) abandoning his lady (her) to the dragons (her parents), or do we see our “hero” (you) going in to the land of the dragons to save his true love (her) or what??? ARe you a hero or a wuss???
If i truly loved a woman , I wont give her up for anything. The only way I would give her up is if SHE didnt love me. There would be no hell or high water I wouldnt go thru to get her and keep her!!
So you gotta man up. If you abandon her, her parents would say to her “we told you so, he is no good, he wont fight for you and he will leave when the going gets tough, just like we told you”
IF her parents are salt of the earth types, they will understand and appreciate courage and devotion and would grudgingly accept you and later even be very proud of you if you fight the hard fight to prove your love for their daughter. If it was my daughter, I would want her man to prove that he loves her and wont abandon her when the going gets tough and he would be there for her no matter what !! And that even when I am gone she will have someone to take care of her.
man up or chicken out is what i say.
her father is the old lion of his pride. YOu gotta go in there and fight him if you have to and you have to win their admiration with your devotion.
Would you let some other dude snatch your woman??? Draw your sword (not literally) and FIGHT !!
If she goes abroad how will she deal with having no Chinese family around her, foreign food and foreign customs. These things can put more strain on a marriage than perhaps you realise.
Most westerners can deal with being isolated and in a strange country. Chinese are very family orientated and in my experience don’t like living away from their parents sisters brothers etc.
But that depends on how traditional she is. If you marry her and lvie in Australia how will she deal with the huge change in culture. Not everyone likes to move away from Taiwan into western culture. If you want her then sure fight for her but also think of the long term, how will she adapt to her new culture. I beleive she is perhaps giving up more than you are. Unless of course you settle down in Taiwan and live near her family.
I read questions like the OP’s, and I wonder, why go through all this crap if there are other fish in the sea? There are always other fish in the sea!!! Always, always, always. People don’t fall in love–they decide what they and go for it. With all due respect, this is such a false problem. Instead, spend your time making money or volunteering for a good charity instead of worrying/trying to fix this problem/rescuing her/trying to settle a score with her parents or prove them wrong. Don’t marry down. I would never date anyone whose parents treated me like that–not worth it.
Thanks Ironlady for your words of wisdom. Please don’t take this the wrong way cos I mean it as a compliment but I get the feeling you would make a good marriage counsellor or psychologist.
Fenlander,
I do understand that it is very difficult for anyone to adapt to a new culture and completely change there way of life but my girlfriend has spent nearly 2 years in Australia and is pretty comfortable living here. I don’t know if you are familiar with Melbourne but it has one of the highest Asian and particularly Chinese populations in the Western world. There are also thousands of Asian students studying at our universities so Melbourne is not as difficult to adapt to as some less multicultural cities in the Western world.
There are hundreds of Chinese, Japanese,Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian, Vietnamese and other asian restaurants in Melbourne and we are always discovering interesting new places . Only a couple of months ago we found a really good new Taiwanese restaurant in Box Hill (an eastern suburb of Melbourne with a large Chinese population) which is owned by a young Taiwanese guy. The food’s great and has some unique Taiwanese dishes you would never find in more typical Melbourne chinese restaurants. My girlfriend actually thinks the food there is better than alot of restaurants in Taichung which make similar dishes. They actually make hot snack food I thought you could only find in nightmarkets like Shilin in Taipei or Tunghai or Fengjia in Taichung which I frequented so many times when I was living there.
Sure I understand it must be hard for my girlfriend to adapt to living in Australia as it was for me in Taiwan. However, I think the much larger number of Mandarin speakers here in Melbourne compared to English speakers in Taichung makes it a bit easier for her to feel at ‘home’ here compared to me feeling at ‘home’ there.
Melburnians don’t stare at Asian faces because every second person in this city is Asian whereas in Taichung Taiwanese people tend to stare at foreigners much more because they don’t see so many of them. Anyway I think I am getting a bit sidetracked but I do think it is bit easier for my girlfriend to adapt to my city and its culture as opposed to me adapting to her city and its culture. Her English language skills are also much more advanced than my Mandarin skills which makes it much easier for her to exist in Australia than for me survive in Taiwan.
Of course I understand it takes more than just familiar food and faces to make someone feel at home. I know that her being so far away from her family for such long periods would be the biggest issue. I can live away from my family for long periods of time without any problems as I did when I lived in Japan, England and Taiwan. However, I know her family does not want her to live overseas with a foreigner and her mother’s current condition concerns me.
[quote=“Erick Morillo”]However, I know her family does not want her to live overseas with a foreigner and her mother’s current condition concerns me.[/quote]My girl–the Pixie (I’ll have to sign her up under that name one day)–is closer to her grandmother than anyone else in her family, and for a long while, her condition wasn’t good. It concerned me too, but at the same time, it wasn’t my concern.
There will always be a good reason not to be far from home.
The question is, can she make a life for herself away from home? It sounds like she can, and wants to.
So what’s the problem?
For crying out loud man, you’ve got it easy. The Pixie wants to stay here, and I don’t. For us to be together, there’s got to be a major compromise at the beginning before any of these other considerations come into play.
Buck up, tell her you want her with you. Keep enough cash in the drawer for an emergency flight home if it becomes necessary, and let everyone get on with living in the aftermath.
some people dont think of the male/female situation as a mathematical equation !! People love from the HEART , not from the MIND. If it was all sensible? Then why would we have all the hollywood movies and books and stories of passion , etc etc.
I guess you are saying that the Chinese had it right in the first place with arranged marriages? Now those are all very convenient?? And then the husband can go on flings and get mistresses?? Hmm, maybe that wasnt such a bad idea??
I do understand that it is very difficult for anyone to adapt to a new culture and completely change there way of life but my girlfriend has spent nearly 2 years in Australia and is pretty comfortable living here. I don’t know if you are familiar with Melbourne but it has one of the highest Asian and particularly Chinese populations in the Western world. There are also thousands of Asian students studying at our universities so Melbourne is not as difficult to adapt to as some less multicultural cities in the Western world.
There are hundreds of Chinese, Japanese,Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian, Vietnamese and other asian restaurants in Melbourne and we are always discovering interesting new places . Only a couple of months ago we found a really good new Taiwanese restaurant in Box Hill (an eastern suburb of Melbourne with a large Chinese population) which is owned by a young Taiwanese guy. The food’s great and has some unique Taiwanese dishes you would never find in more typical Melbourne chinese restaurants. My girlfriend actually thinks the food there is better than alot of restaurants in Taichung which make similar dishes. They actually make hot snack food I thought you could only find in nightmarkets like Shilin in Taipei or Tunghai or Fengjia in Taichung which I frequented so many times when I was living there.
Sure I understand it must be hard for my girlfriend to adapt to living in Australia as it was for me in Taiwan. However, I think the much larger number of Mandarin speakers here in Melbourne compared to English speakers in Taichung makes it a bit easier for her to feel at ‘home’ here compared to me feeling at ‘home’ there.
Melburnians don’t stare at Asian faces because every second person in this city is Asian whereas in Taichung Taiwanese people tend to stare at foreigners much more because they don’t see so many of them. Anyway I think I am getting a bit sidetracked but I do think it is bit easier for my girlfriend to adapt to my city and its culture as opposed to me adapting to her city and its culture. Her English language skills are also much more advanced than my Mandarin skills which makes it much easier for her to exist in Australia than for me survive in Taiwan.
Of course I understand it takes more than just familiar food and faces to make someone feel at home. I know that her being so far away from her family for such long periods would be the biggest issue. I can live away from my family for long periods of time without any problems as I did when I lived in Japan, England and Taiwan. However, I know her family does not want her to live overseas with a foreigner and her mother’s current condition concerns me.
Erick[/quote]
I agree Australia is easier by the sound of things. Much different to some parts of Europe. Where i was livng in England there were maybe 30 Chinese (cantonese) living. Out of about 100,000 people. It may not even as been as many as 30. It is cold and the food is very not Chinese. Anyway it sounds like that is not a big issue where you were. Any chinese could get and feel vry isolated, and the locals hated foreigners. (spitting at foreigners was not unheard of)
:fume:
[quote=“tommy525”]
some people dont think of the male/female situation as a mathematical equation !! People love from the HEART , not from the MIND. If it was all sensible? Then why would we have all the hollywood movies and books and stories of passion , etc etc. [/quote]
Movies and stories are entertainment. I would hope that a grown adult would not rely on a Hollywood movie for love advice.
[quote=“tommy525”]
I guess you are saying that the Chinese had it right in the first place with arranged marriages? Now those are all very convenient?? And then the husband can go on flings and get mistresses?? Hmm, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea??[/quote]
I never said that. I would never recommend an arranged marriage. I would recommend, however, explaining clearly at the start of the relationship that if the other person’s parents treat you like crap or if you are going to be their dirty little secret, than they can expect to be dumped. Problems like the OPs arise from not getting things like this taken care of at the start of the relationship.
I fail to see how this is a Westerner vs Taiwaner thing. I find that that conversation gets caught up in the Azn values BS, though I recognize there are differences between Taiwanese and AU or US culture. The fact that it is a cross-cultural relationship merely adds one more layer of complexity.
I know several Taiwanese who’ve told their parents to get stuffed because the parents opposed their marriage to another Taiwanese. I also know of a couple of Taiwanese couples who gave up on eachother due to parental interference.
In both cases there were some successes and some dramatic failures. Several moved on without looking back, some got stuck in unhappy ‘approved’ marriages. Several ‘fought the law’ and are now breaking the rock of divorce in the hot sun.
Ironically, one of the most spectacular failures I know of was an officially sanctioned marriage where the wife was hiding out in our spare bedroom and the husband would dissapear for a week of two into the KTVs.
My observation is that whether the outcome was ‘acceptable’ or not was driven more by the strength of the relationship than anything else. When both parties felt it was ‘worth it’ and approached it with patience and persistence (more than me) it worked. If you have a doubt, then that is telling you something.
I think the OP has the right track. He needs to be firm but give his lass some latitude to determine who she loves.
Of course if the OP accidently impregnates his girl and they are ready for it the marriage celebrations will come quickly.
Don’t waste all your money flying back to Taiwan. Give her a choice. Marriage and life in Australia or trying to to work her parents into accepting her marrying and living abroad.
The OP should not throw away a good education and career and move back to Taiwan. Giver her 6 - 12 months and see what happens.
She has to know wether or not she really loves tje OP and is willing to marry him. If she can’t do that then her love isnt strong enough. There are thousand of young people who are pressured into not marrying the people they love.
Yep, and there are plenty of folks pressured by outsiders into marrying the people they believe they love, and giving up family, or living in a situation with considerable familial pressure and unhappiness. I know quite a few of THOSE who regret it the rest of their lives, too.
Are you talking about yourself with your first marriage? Divorce left a bitter taste no doubt.
I’m sure the lass will make up her own mind. It’s not like the OP has us all calling her telling her to marry him There are plenty of people who fought battles to be able to marry their spouses and have stayed married notwitstanding their relatives attempts to prevent or ruin the marriage.
Love… wasted emotional chemical imbalance in humans. Thankfully I have the emtional abilities of a preying mantis.
I married once where all the outlaws approved of everything. One divorce later - no not happy outcome.
Secondly, i got together with a woman, wher ethe family took a fair bit of work before they accepted the bit nose.
We are still together.
All in all I think it’s hard to make up any hard and fast rules on this one. Therefore, our friend must do what he thinks right. Nothing more and nothing less. Only future can tell if he made the right choice.
What is this, “Oh my god! I have to get married! What will people think of me?” crap. And then you get married and it’s, “Oh my god! I have bills and kids! So much responsiblity! But I’m a good person and my wife wears the pants in the family! What will people think of me!” crap.
She goes to Taiwan and it should be, “Ok. You do whatever you have to do then. I’ll be here. Hope everything works out for ya. See ya next time. Can’t work in Taiwan. Sorry.”
Common misconception #1 in life (usually held much more by the young than by the old): “There is only one person I could possibly marry in the world and be happy with.”
still i think that marriage becoming like a business is good and bad.
good in that its like having a honda, sensible and workable
bad in that you missed out on the alfa romeo , with its passion, hotheadedness, loud noises, great purring sound (not all mechanical)
i donno, the “honda” wife is better overall, but maybe can keep a “alfa” wife type as a GF??? Nah, that wont work either. Better mess around with an Alfa and marry the Honda.
and of course you could always “tune” that honda, make her into an Alfa, but one that actually works
one thing bout love, there are NO RULES that work for everyone. its an UNKNOWN. Just gotta decide if you want to ride it or not? And go for it and HANG ON.
girls/women are like horses , they can be tuff to ride but they will take u places (sometimes to places you dont wanna go but…)
(you are getting married tomorrow , but you are on the net today) haha. Get off the net and do something? haha.