Chinese Female Advice to Another Chinese Femal On Coming to America

[SinoTexas]

My fiancee and I were talking this morning and she brought up an interesting subject. It seems that she was chatting to a friend of hers who is married to a USC and has been living in Oregon the past three years. Her friend was passing on advice in anticipation of my fiancee's long awaited move to the USA. Her friend told my fiancee that she should be telling me to get things ready for my fiancee's arrival. So my fiancee asked what it is that she should be asking me to do, Her friend stated to her that I should be ordering Chinese language TV, a couple of Chinese language magazines, stocking the refrigerator and pantry with Chinese food products, supply the kitchen with Chinese cooking utensils and a few other things of which I already forgot. She also mentioned that my fiancee should inform me the in about seven or eight months that she would be going back to China, on an annual basis, for two or three months to visit with family and I should prepare myself for her absence. My fiancee asked her friend if she had all those things in her house after three years of living in the US. She said most definitely and was keeping it that way. My fiancee then told her friend that she did not want any of those things in her new American home. She further stated that if she wanted those things, then she would have just stayed in China and married a Chinese husband. Apparently this started a bitter argument between the two of which I just listened to my fiancee as she told me the details. My fiancee told her friend that she had no intention of going back to China anytime soon and certainly not for any extended period of time and certainly not without her husband. My fiancee knows that I am not a big fan of Chinese food, though I do eat it now and then. She went on to tell her friend that Chinese cooking would probably appear in our house once or twice a week, which is fine with me (I'll take sushi anytime). My fiancee then went on to tell her friend that she (my fiancee) is a traditional Chinese woman and that she is moving into her husband's "house" and will adapt to her husbands lifestyle because that's the way it is traditionally done in China (this I'm not familiar with, so I kept my mouth shut). We have had many looooooong discussions on our interchangeable roles living together when she's here, but that is another story. For a highly educated women, my fiancee has some very traditional ideas about her role in our marriage and that is sometimes a source of contention between us. Anyway, my fiancee chided her friend for not being willing to adapt to aspects of American culture after three years. I guess we'll see how it goes when she is here on the ranch. She said she is ready for rope and leather, and I don't think she was talking about BDSM, but then again......hmmmmmm. I better hide that cattle whip.

 

As aye,

 

Jim

[David&Wendy]

While this may or may not be part of the topic here's my two cents

 

Chinese language TV http://kylintv.com/index.asp? would be useful in helping our Chinese women adjust to her new home.

 

When I lived in China I did pretty well dealing with the culture shock.

I had plenty of MP3s of music and audio books and watched American TV off the Internet. Even with the aforementioned items as a safety blanket I still found it nice that after an entire day of Chinese speaking friends or a weekend day out shopping it was very nice to retreat to my bedroom so I could watch TV or a movie in English.

 

No matter how fluent your Chinese girl is there will be times when she will just want to relax, not "think English" and revert to her native language. Preparing Chinese language TV, books, and possibly ItalkBB will prevent a culture shock meltdown.

[tsap seui]

Interesting reading Jim.

 

My fiancee tells me "no need, no like" when I talk about getting Advanced Parole so we can visit China anytime soon after she arrives in the US. She has surprised me in our long conversations by being so hardcore about not needing to visit China anytime soon after she gets here. Heck, she's more interested in visiting my friends in Australia and New Zealand than she is about going anywhere close to China.

 

And when I talk about how I've looked for other Chinese people for her to talk to in our rural area she again tells me "no need, no like".

 

But the Chinese food, now that there is gonna be a mandatory investment...for both of us. If I tried to get her to eat the stuff we American's call food she'd take a leather whip to my ass...so to speak.

 

I was truly surprised to see her react like this about China when I try and discuss any adjustment problems that may occur, time will tell.

 

tsap seui

Edited August 16, 2007 by tsap seui (see edit history)

[BillV 8-16-2004]

My wife told me to cancel Chinese TV when she got here, that if she was going to live here she would learn English. At her job at a private college they actually are paying for her to have a private tutor who is teaching her speaking, reading and writing English, one on one after work for 1 hour a day. She still calls her family and friends almost daily and when we go to the Chinese market once a week she will buy a newspaper mainly for the cooking section and converse with staff. After she arrived we bought whatever we needed together and have done all of our redecorating together. I love Chinese food which is nothing like what is the typical American-Chinese food, she is a wonderful cook and is now preparing many Italian, Spanish, Russian etc. dishes. We travel together I enjoy visiting China to see her friends and family we just got back in April, so if we go every year that is great, next year we plan on going to Taiwan before arriving in China.

Edited August 16, 2007 by BillV 8-16-2004 (see edit history)

[david_dawei]

Interesting reading Jim.

 

My fiancee tells me "no need, no like" when I talk about getting Advanced Parole so we can visit China anytime soon after she arrives in the US. She has surprised me in our long conversations by being so hardcore about not needing to visit China anytime soon after she gets here. Heck, she's more interested in visiting my friends in Australia and New Zealand than she is about going anywhere close to China.

 

And when I talk about how I've looked for other Chinese people for her to talk to in our rural area she again tells me "no need, no like".

 

But the Chinese food, now that there is gonna be a mandatory investment...for both of us. If I tried to get her to eat the stuff we American's call food she'd take a leather whip to my ass...so to speak.

 

I was truly surprised to see her react like this about China when I try and discuss any adjustment problems that may occur, time will tell.

 

tsap seui

but her attitude makes sense.. to 'discuss' it is to make it an issue.. If you really want to do something for her, just do it or set it up, etc. But my sense is that many will like to just come and 'figure it out themself' for certain issues..

 

Frankly, I did very, very, very little preparation for my SO. Why? Because on a certain level, it's presumptuous that what "I think is best for her is not what she will think is best for her. I let her come and then we started deciding things together or as we went...

 

But I can only repeat what I've said in other posts: I knew her enough to know this would work well with her... another person might feel their SO is sending them lots of signals to prepare this or that..the key is to meet their needs because they are saying these are needs, not just needs you feel she has.

 

In the end, I did "do" alot of things for her,but there was not alot of conversation about them... well... she couldn't speak english anyway, so maybe it was just a more ideal time!

[tywy_99]

It sounds like your fiancee has the right idea, Jim. I have read the stories you've posted about your fiancee in the past and it all sounded like she is a traditional Chinese lady who is very much in love with her husband to be. That's a woman that you will want to keep. Just don't take advantage of her traditional ways. Let her feel free to do as she please. My wife is a traditonal Chinese woman. They are faithful to their man.

I had Chinese channels but she didn't watch it much. She only watched the Chinese new year extravaganza every year and that was about it. I just cancelled my subscription to save a few dollars last month.

As far as the cooking utensils go, she will probably bring what she wants from China.

My wife doesn't care at all about going back to China. She is happy being here. Everybody is different. The main thing is to find the middle ground between you two. With a Chinese woman with traditional values, that isn't hard to do.

[tonado]

It is hard to predict how she would adjust to life in USA. What she said now might be totally opposite when she is here. My wife said she won't go back to China for at least two years after she arrived. But she went back twice for about 5 months each during her two years stay here.

[david_dawei]

What Jim points out is that he is in tune with his SO's "current" feelings... and Tony brings up a great point... change happens.. and quickly...

 

The key is not whether she will change or not.. change is natural.. but to stay in tune with your SOs "current" feelings each day, month, year.

[Urkidding]

Maggie didn't want to go back to China. She waited for 3.5 years before going back and only because she was having morning sickness with the arrival of our son, Alexander.

 

We decided that it was best for her because her mother would take care of her and I couldn¡¯t because I was working.

[Shenzhen K-1]

Many things you have all said are true, but a little comfort of home is not a bad thing. I have studied Chinese holidays and we will celebrate both and learn about each other's culture. Calling home she can use calling cards. also the Verizon international plan to China is $4.00 a month and 10 cents a minute. CCTV9 is on my dish and most cable packages, the additional Chinese channels are only $30.00 extra a month, I will add if she wants them. I promised her parents that she could come once a year to visit, it and a picture album of my city made her quite happy with me! She can e-mail her brother and sister and on occasion send a package home. Food, a bit of a challenge. We have 3-4 Chinese restaurants within a close driving distance, but I figure to shop in Chicago's China town for a wok and food. She is studying how to cook western food, but I said we will take turns cooking and work it out. She said a very weak OK!!

[sawadee]

Jim I think your fiancee has the right attitude towards the adjusting, which will do positive influence on your cross-cultural relationship.

 

In my opinion, though, I think it wont hurt to have some home town stuffs in her US new home. When I first came here, I have no Chinese magazines to read, no music to hear, no DVDs to watch(Becasue I pack all my Chinese magazines, DVDs and ship them thru post office by sea, usually takes 2 months), there is no Chinese TV programe booked(which I can do without), not much Chinese food in the fridge(my husband dont know where to get).

 

I remembered how much I craved for a piece of Chinese local newspaper, or some Chinese magazine then. (I forgot to mention that I had 2 with them, which I spend 1 month to finish, one article each time, want to save the pleasure)

 

When I first came here, end August of 2006, I spend days laying on couch doing nothing, the craving for hometown stuffs almost killed me. One year later, after my 22 boxes of personal effects made they way home here, I feel much comfortable. I told my mom, everything shipped here is useful, even I piece of raincoat. I am not saying that in US you can get nothing, but hometown stuffs always seems sweet to me, like a momento of past happiness.

 

I bought 2 piece of newspaper in Shanghai this May, and brought them to my US home, they are laying in my basement now, I have never read them, but keeping them unread there makes me very comfortable--at least I have something new to read from hometown, when I feel like.

 

And we want to go home at least every 2 year--my parents miss me, and I miss my city, but I wont stay long, 2 weeks is enough for me each time. So I can get some fresh tee, new books and magazine.

 

My point it that there will be moments one feels homesick, missing the parts that make a happy and easy hometown stlye life, the stuffs from ones hometown, the hometown way of preparing hometown style food, the hometown entertaining stuffs, news, books, songs will help one feel like home, even though the home could be 8 thousands miles away.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[jim_julian]

Two points:

 

1. Too much Chinese TV can lead to the cocoon ... she/you/whatever create a small China in the US ... bu hao! The goal to to integrate. We get LA channel 18 as part of the baseline cable package. Eighteen does the LA news in Mandarin for about 20 minutes each night and then samples Taiwan and PRC news. This is all the Chinese TV Lao Po and Er Mei normally watch. We compare and contrast with the news in English.

 

2. Don't go overboard on Chinese food. She goes to the Chinese market once a week. Our breakfast is American, lunch mixed, and dinner mostly Chinese. She's starting to learn how to cook western from "The Joy of Cooking", not particularly easy to read, but a very good cookbook. I like Chinese food and Lao Po, who owned a restaurant in China, is a great cook. We are now seeking a little more balance.

[warpedbored]

Too much advice. She will tell you what she wants.

[mchina34]

My fiancee and I were talking this morning and she brought up an interesting subject. It seems that she was chatting to a friend of hers who is married to a USC and has been living in Oregon the past three years. Her friend was passing on advice in anticipation of my fiancee's long awaited move to the USA. Her friend told my fiancee that she should be telling me to get things ready for my fiancee's arrival. So my fiancee asked what it is that she should be asking me to do, Her friend stated to her that I should be ordering Chinese language TV, a couple of Chinese language magazines, stocking the refrigerator and pantry with Chinese food products, supply the kitchen with Chinese cooking utensils and a few other things of which I already forgot. She also mentioned that my fiancee should inform me the in about seven or eight months that she would be going back to China, on an annual basis, for two or three months to visit with family and I should prepare myself for her absence. My fiancee asked her friend if she had all those things in her house after three years of living in the US. She said most definitely and was keeping it that way. My fiancee then told her friend that she did not want any of those things in her new American home. She further stated that if she wanted those things, then she would have just stayed in China and married a Chinese husband. Apparently this started a bitter argument between the two of which I just listened to my fiancee as she told me the details. My fiancee told her friend that she had no intention of going back to China anytime soon and certainly not for any extended period of time and certainly not without her husband. My fiancee knows that I am not a big fan of Chinese food, though I do eat it now and then. She went on to tell her friend that Chinese cooking would probably appear in our house once or twice a week, which is fine with me (I'll take sushi anytime). My fiancee then went on to tell her friend that she (my fiancee) is a traditional Chinese woman and that she is moving into her husband's "house" and will adapt to her husbands lifestyle because that's the way it is traditionally done in China (this I'm not familiar with, so I kept my mouth shut). We have had many looooooong discussions on our interchangeable roles living together when she's here, but that is another story. For a highly educated women, my fiancee has some very traditional ideas about her role in our marriage and that is sometimes a source of contention between us. Anyway, my fiancee chided her friend for not being willing to adapt to aspects of American culture after three years. I guess we'll see how it goes when she is here on the ranch. She said she is ready for rope and leather, and I don't think she was talking about BDSM, but then again......hmmmmmm. I better hide that cattle whip.

 

As aye,

 

Jim

 

 

sushi is japanese (at least currently), not chinese.

 

 

about her 'adapting'...i will be in shock if she eats rice only twice a week. it'd be like you going to china and eating american food only twice a week, and chinese food the other 15 meals of the week.

[SirLancelot]

Too much advice. She will tell you what she wants.

 

Did this come from Carl? Why does it sound like exactly what DavidZ would say?

 

For those who actually have their wives/fiancees in the US, I will accept their posts at face value. Some have been quite lucky to have Chinese women who have adapted relatively quickly and easily.

 

For the rest who still have their wives/fiancees in China, I would strongly urge you NOT to believe everything that is said over the phone or webcam and take that to be set in stone. Or try to set into stone what you heard over the phone/webcam. I believe you'll be very disappointed if you do.

 

As Tony pointed out, people change. It's a given. I believe 100% that most of the Chinese SOs have no idea what life will really be like in the US. No matter if they've seen 1000 photos of your home town and hundreds of videos of life in the US, they'll have no idea until they've actually lived it. Especially for the folks who live in more rural areas in the US where there's little to no Asians, there is no way you can or should believe your SO that it won't bother them not to see other Asian people. That's just ridiculous. For a race of people who are not use to seeing any laoweis and seeing 100% Chinese all day every day to suddenly be dropped into a strange place where there are no Asians, that will be bewildering to say the least.

 

America will be as strange to your SOs as China was strange to you the first time you went there.

 

I rarely talk about my wife because I like to keep our personal lives private but on this issue, I will disclose somethings, to use as a personal example.

 

My wife is from Shanghai, born and bred. She's relatively cosmopolitan compared with the rest of China. She lived with me for a while when I was in China and I had exposed her to a lot of western food. She worked at an education company which recruited foreigners to teach English in Shanghai. She was exposed to (and in fact managed) a group of loweis on a day to day basis. She was plenty exposed to the behavior of Americans. She embraced most things Western like so many of the urban youths in China today. She thought she would have no adjustment period to the US at all. She told me plenty of times in China not to be concerned and that she'd embrace the US easily and quickly.

 

Well, that was then, and this is now. After having been here 5 months, she's really starting to miss SH. We eat Chinese a lot at home, but she is still extremely hungry for real street food from SH. She's always talking about food from China. Even though she loves pizza, filet mignon and green salads, she's always talking about real Chinese food lately. I can sense how she's missing SH/China more and more. Additionally, she's talking more and more about going home for a visit sooner, rather than later. She's really starting to miss her parents--and her twin nieces. This has even surprised herself. She never thought she'd miss her parents as much as she does now. Speaking with her nieces on the phone can bring tears to her eyes. All of this is hitting her like she'd never have imagined. She admits she never thought she'd feel like this, but she does now.

 

I've disclosed all this for no other reason than to convey that Chinese people have no idea what life will be like prior to getting here. No matter how much you try to tell them, they really have no idea. It's only after they get here and have been here a month or two when reality will really sink in.

 

Too many CFL members have complained on here "But that's not what she told me when she was in China." "That's not what she said she wanted before." I've always hated reading those posts because how can you expect the Chinese ladies to foretell how their lives will be in the US when they really have no conception of what life will be like in the US. Even if she believes she knows, she really doesn't. It's like asking an American if he really understands what living in China for several years would be like if he's never been to China before. He can't! One can't sincerely expect our SOs to 100% keep to what they said back in China. If you do, you do at your own peril.

 

We've read stories such as Rak's and Jim's. I don't dispute their happy stories. Their ladies seem to have had a very easy adjustment, but there are plenty of stories which are either not told, or are only told on 001/002, where the adjustments have been miserable.

 

For all the folks advocating aggressive integration into the US culture, just imagine if you were to go live in China and had to always watch Chinese TV, always eat Chinese food, only befriend Chinese friends, and always conduct yourself with Chinese mannerism and etiquette. I think everyone, including myself, will utterly fail. So don't try to push this onto your SOs.

 

While I respect Jim_J very much and I hold his posts in high regards, I don't think his success with his wife will directly translate to everyone else. I support what he suggests in moderation, but I honestly believe the Chinese SO will be much happier to see a lot of Chinese things at home. Sawadee, being a Chinese SO, so eloquently described what it meant to her, even to have one Chinese newspaper or magazine. These kinds of small connections with the home country are truly priceless. They mean a great deal more than their actual cost in dollar amounts.

 

With all due respect to Sino and his lovely fiancee, I do find it very ironic that a Chinese lady who has been living in the US for three years being disregarded for giving--what I believe to be--wise advice. While it may indeed turn out that Sino's lovely fiancee won't need any of the things suggested by her friend in OR, I think what the friend suggested was very apropos. I would urge many of you to seriously consider what that Chinese lady said.

 

Yes, people are all different. But with all due respect, I certainly would take the advice of someone whose been living here for three years over someone who has not lived in the US for one day.

 

Just my two cents. Y'all are free to disagree.

Edited August 17, 2007 by SirLancelot (see edit history)