Culture Clash already...

[SmilingAsia]

Tastes like...chicken.

Cooked chicken, flying chicken or the chicken walking on the streets?

[chinesewoman]

yeah, i understand that. i have the same problem as your fiancee too. so my husband choose not to kiss his dog in front of me...:-)

 

I am having the most difficult disagreement with my fiancee that I have ever had:

 

She saw me kiss my cat on the back of the neck the other night on video conference, and told me, "You kiss cat?! If you kiss your cat, you can NEVER kiss me!!"

 

I though she was joking, but we are now on day two of this.

 

She says that in China, no one kisses their pets.

 

She says in China everyone knows how dirty these animals are.

 

This is seemingly not a jealousy issue.

 

She claims it is a cultural one.

 

 

I just don't know what to do now. I wish to make her happy, but being affectionate with my pets is a deep part of who I am. I am an animal lover. I come from a family of animal lovers.

 

I even offered to always wash my face and mouth after kissing the cat and before kissing her, which is ridiculous, but I told her I was willing to do this if it would make her happy.

 

No go.

 

She still says, "You kiss cat, you never kiss me!"

 

Any ideas here people?

 

Is this a serious cultural taboo I don't know of?

 

Anyone have any experience with this situation?

[sawadee]

Me and hubby are cat-lovers, fortunately, we adopted a cat this year. He is a stray cat and just showed up on the patio.

 

He is a sweatheart and very very well-behaved and very very cute. He likes sticking out his tongue which makes him very goofy looking. I always like lifting up his forelegs and kissing him on his shoulder. As a response, he would purr. Both of us enjoy the moment of affection.

 

 

OP, you might want to tell your SO that according to scientific research, having pets help to lessen the stress and people having pets tend to have a longer life expectancy.

 

Personally, I dont think it is a cultural issue, it is a personal taste issue. We Chinese people also do a lot of petting and treat them with affection. Yes there are places in Asia that people eat dogs and cats, but those people treat them as food(thats their personal choice). No one would be so brutal and inhuman to eat Pets.

[Dennis143]

Fuss....how much to talk to my wife?

 

She would accept a dog if I didn't have any cats. Dogs protect a family, cats just eat (expensive) food and sleep. Because one of my cats gets fed on the patio, she thinks she or me can get fleas just by touching the inside handle on the sliding door - even if the cat isn't in sight.

Exactly!

 

That is exactly the reaction I get from every Chinese woman I know who come to our home while Theo and Simon come running out to greet them. They act as if both cats are the same as two rats that might scurry up to greet us and how we would react to them.

[NUWORLD]

put shoes on the bed (maybe you can't get in bed anymore)...

 

Oh my gawd. This one was HUGE and absolutely unbearable to my SO. I seriously thought she was Carrie from the Stephen King movie when she caught me doing this.

 

I got yelled at a few weeks ago for this one!

run your hand over handrails

[SheLikesME?]

I am having the most difficult disagreement with my fiancee that I have ever had:

 

She saw me kiss my cat on the back of the neck the other night on video conference, and told me, "You kiss cat?! If you kiss your cat, you can NEVER kiss me!!"

 

I though she was joking, but we are now on day two of this.

 

She says that in China, no one kisses their pets.

 

She says in China everyone knows how dirty these animals are.

 

This is seemingly not a jealousy issue.

 

She claims it is a cultural one.

 

 

I just don't know what to do now. I wish to make her happy, but being affectionate with my pets is a deep part of who I am. I am an animal lover. I come from a family of animal lovers.

 

I even offered to always wash my face and mouth after kissing the cat and before kissing her, which is ridiculous, but I told her I was willing to do this if it would make her happy.

 

No go.

 

She still says, "You kiss cat, you never kiss me!"

 

Any ideas here people?

 

Is this a serious cultural taboo I don't know of?

 

Anyone have any experience with this situation?

Sir, with all due respect to you and your cat, ....... get rid of the cat.

 

Or lie, and yes just kiss it when she is not looking, like Stacato said.

 

I was told to LIE to my wife to make her feel better. She gave me examples of when and what I should have lied about during her 6 week visit. She then pointed out how she never asks for proof. LIE to her when you cheat with your cat.

 

Be glad your not into goats.

Edited June 23, 2007 by SheLikesME? (see edit history)

[SmilingAsia]

As a kid, I took care of our precious buffalos who plowed the fields which fed hungry mouths. Buffalos like cabbages. I wrapped peppers with the green leaves of cabbages and fed it to the buffalo. I saw tears came to the eyes of the buffalos and thought it's fun.

 

I just took two Cantonese friends to a HuNan Restaurant (xiang cai guan) and it reminded me how I had abused the buffalos.

[SmilingAsia]

Sir, with all due respect to you and your cat, ....... get rid of the cat.

 

Or lie, and yes just kiss it when she is not looking, like Stacato said.

 

I was told to LIE to my wife to make her feel better. She gave me examples of when and what I should have lied about during her 6 week visit. She then pointed out how she never asks for proof. LIE to her when you cheat with your cat.

 

Be glad your not into goats.

I never thought American men would keep a cat for a concubine. Anyway, the situation seems better than keeping a human concubine

[SheLikesME?]

As a kid, I took care of our precious buffalos who plowed the fields which fed hungry mouths. Buffalos like cabbages. I wrapped peppers with the green leaves of cabbages and fed it to the buffalo. I saw tears came to the eyes of the buffalos and thought it's fun.

 

I just took two Cantonese friends to a HuNan Restaurant (xiang cai guan) and it reminded me how I had abused the buffalos.

Damn,

 

Woman

[JimandSarha]

Kissing dogs and cats???

 

Don't you guys ever watch them groom themselves? Would you kiss a woman who lifted her leg and lovingly licked her backside clean 25 times a day?

 

And its not like you have to kiss their mouths. When they get done with their butts, they lick the rest of themselves.

 

 

As for eating pets, I still remember when I was seven, the huge, huge fight I had with my father when it was time to butcher the runt pig I raised to be a 300 pounder. Oh did we have it out. Nobody but nobody was going to shoot that pig but me. Right in the right eye with a .22 LR. Dropped like a ton of bricks and nobody had to wonder who was going to bite the bullet. Literally.

 

Animals are food or they are tools or they are companions. They aren't for necking with. They are literally, filthy beasts. YUCK!

Edited June 24, 2007 by JimandSarha (see edit history)

[warpedbored]

I have had a dog from the time I was born until about 10 months ago. They have licked my face countless times. Never once have I had any negative consequences from it. Yes they have some disgusting habits but hey they do it because they can.

[zhen]

In order to not hear about this forever on, marry a lady from Mexico.

[JimandSarha]

I understand. I really do. I've got a Chihuahua and he's the greatest. I just wonder if people really think this stuff through.

 

Let's set aside the conventions of civilization a moment and use our imaginations just a bit more than we might normally. Just for fun.

 

Would you greet a new acquaintance by licking his or her face? Add 10 points if you can nail them in their open mouth.

 

Would you lick your dogs genitals? Why not? He does.

 

If you saw the hot new neighbor woman eating garbage out of torn open trash bags that had been in the sun for a few days with flies all over them, would you like to give her a little smooch? What if she ran her 6 inch tongue over her jowls? That clean it up for ya?

 

Your 6 year old daughter has been outside rolling around in dog poop this morning. But it seems to have dried and she's managed to knock all of it out of her hair that you can see, anyway. Want to kiss her on top of her head?

 

Ok, ok, my mind works in strange ways and my sense of how far is way, way too far isn't the societal norm. But all of the above are basically what you get into letting dogs and cats share their bodies with your mouth. If you're comfortable with that, so am I. 'Cause I don't meet new acquaintances with a good face licking

 

Jim

Edited June 24, 2007 by JimandSarha (see edit history)

[JimandSarha]

Time to get back on topic.

 

The point is that China is a developing country with most of its population living in a cesspool. 5% of the population has TB and the world waits for the next pandemic to come from here.

 

Most of Chinese streets are a minefield of gobs of spit that look for all the world like oyster on the half shell and many Chinese understand that their dogs and cats are walking in and eating everythng and anything they can find.

 

That the woman is paranoid about her mate kissing these disease carriers is no small wonder.

 

Besides that, half the cats and dogs never make it to adulthood due to disease and more than half of them have intestinal worms.

 

This is a full on sewer over here.

 

Do you like and respect the woman? Stop kissig the cat.

 

Jim

[notrevorich]

As a kid, I took care of our precious buffalos who plowed the fields which fed hungry mouths. Buffalos like cabbages. I wrapped peppers with the green leaves of cabbages and fed it to the buffalo. I saw tears came to the eyes of the buffalos and thought it's fun.

 

I just took two Cantonese friends to a HuNan Restaurant (xiang cai guan) and it reminded me how I had abused the buffalos.

Hey they may have developed a taste for those peppers ! We used to feed our cows onions , potatoes ,cabbage ,beets and peppers that were left over in the fields after a harvest

They would run to the feed bunk to get it .