The reporter interviewed a group of American men who had married Chinese women and divorced, and they frankly and seriously recalled and analyzed the unfortunate ending of this foreign marriage, including background factors of cultural differences between the East and the West, and also caused by conflicts of personality.
American men want to marry Chinese women, most of them from literary works, hearsay believe that Oriental women from the end, docile, simple, can endure hardships, so many American men who love oriental culture want a Chinese wife, easy to get close to Chinese culture.
In fact, it is very difficult for a very oriental and traditional Chinese woman to take the step of marrying a foreigner. Only those very Westernized women would dare to run to the other side of the earth and marry the "American devil" with a high nose, blue eyes, and thick sweat. This is a very different marriage. One by one, they married and broke up one by one.
STEVEN - Engineer Chinese Peking Opera lover
My wife and I were married for three years and divorced. In fact, we only have a few months of happy time together, and when I think about it, those months were also illusioned by my own vision of love, not to give each other a reflection. At that time, I really liked this Chinese girl, she was very simple. When I studied in China, she was a teacher at my school, and I liked her small stature, especially the lack of the thick hair of an American woman on her legs and arms.
The biggest difference I had with this Chinese woman's life was sex. She doesn't value the most important part of a couple's life, which is especially different from her friends. She was always blunt when she refused her husband's sexual requests, "Don't bother me", "I'm too tired"!
She never accepts and dislikes the Western way of human life, so she can't have fun in sex; talking during sex is the most unbearable for me. The left hemisphere of the human brain dominates language, the right hemisphere dominates vision, women can work in the left and right hemispheres at the same time, both visual effects and speech, while men can only rely on visual stimulation, and talking when making love is the most disappointing. This is the main reason we are divorced.
Most Chinese women do not attach great importance to building their own love. For example, husband and wife hug and kiss every day, this is love, she does not take the initiative herself, her husband hugs her, she feels redundant, she does not cherish, she never says thank you and sorry to her husband, this is also what I can't stand, I reminded her many times, she said that there is no need between husband and wife. I think it is possible to use it, and even the most intimate couple is two separate lives. The other party's giving should be cherished, and their own mistakes should be apologized.
MACK – Photographer Travels all over China
I have been to many cities in China, I like Chinese food, I have made many Chinese friends, and I have married a Chinese wife through the introduction of friends. Before she got married, she was so kind, peaceful, and gentle. But as soon as I got married, she immediately had a very strong desire to turn me into her, to control me and interfere with me at every turn. Two people married, living together until the end of their lives is also the harmony of two lives, she does not allow me to have any private space, it is said that most Chinese women are like this.
For example, if someone calls, even if I am at home, she will ask "Who are you"? This is the most unacceptable thing about Western civilization. A Woman of Western Civilization should say "Wait a minute". If I'm not in her I should say "Would you like to leave a message to him?" "If the other person is going to leave a message, that's another matter. She casually opened my letter, which made me unhappy, even angry, and it was also illegal in the United States. How many times have I told her that instead of accepting it, she cried very sadly: "What are you hiding from me?" She couldn't understand human rights, the meaning of private space for an individual's life.
In particular, she does not like to make the money clear, in the United States husband and wife have their own bank deposit accounts, all kinds of consumption clearly say who should pay how much, she does not accept, she is willing to calculate in her heart. If friends eat together and each pays half, she says people are ruthless. She always had the idea that "living is your person, dead is your ghost".
In fact, our marriage has long since broken down, she still brags among friends about how I can't live without her, and she has consulted with me many times, as long as I give her face, don't divorce her, this is what I can't understand, when we have a conflict, it is not to sit down and two people to solve it, but to ask for help from the outside world, to find friends everywhere, to find my family.
I never refused to talk to her, when we couldn't reach an agreement on certain issues, she didn't give in but threatened, took my tax return to find loopholes, I didn't want to live with such a woman, she thought that divorcing her was destroying her, didn't have the courage to issue a death certificate for a dead marriage, she didn't realize that life should start all over again at any time.
HEYWARD – Laboratory Experimenter at the University of Berkeley
The reason my wife and I couldn't get by was because of the problem of eating. Chinese like to stir-fry, fried food, American houses have sensors, as soon as there is oil smoke to call the police, the whole community can hear, the police will send a rescue train, and the fried vegetables are full of oil smell. She doesn't eat stir-fry, I remind her not to eat too much salted vegetables, she retorted that our ancestors have been like this, breakfast should also be fried and stewed, all life revolves around eating, happy to eat a meal, angry also a big meal.
I told her that China is poor, always expressing all feelings by eating, and there are many other ways to express happiness in the United States, and she said that I am condescending. She doesn't eat soy sauce, I don't eat cheese, it's hard to mediate at dinner, I drink coffee and she drinks tea, I'm afraid of oil and salt, she can't swallow without oil and salt, eating together is the joy of couple life, but we can't enjoy this pleasure.
She wears clothes as long as she likes to wear any occasion, Americans are indeed very casual, but casual on casual occasions, in formal occasions is very serious, what scares me is that she often wears skirts to ride a bicycle, the wind blows to expose shorts, very hurtful, I told her not to do this, she said that Chinese women wear this way.
She spoke loudly on the subway, people around her looked back at her, she didn't think so, I said that no one in the American subway spoke loudly, they all used this time to read, she said this is my mouth, can't control, these life details have accumulated more, contradictions have been revealed, the moral education that Americans completed before the age of two, do not spit, do not throw fruit peels casually, I also have to remind her from time to time, living with her is too tired.
Rav – Professor in the Department of Anthropology
The Chinese lady and I exchanged letters for more than half a year before meeting, and the first time we met chose to be in Thailand, we spent 18 days happily. She is an English teacher at a university and has a master's degree. I was surprised that her knowledge was so narrow, she didn't know anything about the Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Mozi I loved, and her entire business level was Xu Guozhang's six volumes of English.
When I talked to her about the I Ching, she hadn't even heard of it. Originally I wanted to marry a Chinese wife to help me do some research work, she should have the ability to help me grasp some problems, but she disappointed me so much, not only her knowledge is narrow, and her thinking seems to have not been trained, she refused to check the physical examination, originally the American medical insurance is to check the body every six months, early detection and early treatment, she does not check the body. For a cultured person, the attitude towards one's own body is also a civilization.
Because of the differences in culture and civilization between the two countries, what seems to her to be very common is rude and barbaric in my eyes. She was willing to help others, it was a virtue, and I praised her, but she pushed me a lot of things that she couldn't do and couldn't do. She asked me to write a fake invitation letter for her friend to come to The United States, which was a crime and I despised it. She didn't realize me because these details related to civilization negated her place in my heart, and when I proposed to divorce her to leave her, she said very wrongly: I have neither with other men nor lived a good life, why did you change your mind?
Life should have the impulse to start again at any time, and the essence of freedom lies in being able to control one's own destiny. In her opinion, the main thing about my life with her is that she does not mess with other men, and her rhetorical questions are also her philosophy of love, which once again demeans her height in my heart, which is also a different measure of our Eastern and Western cultures.
And she likes to lie too much, like she's at home, someone calls her and she asks me to say she's not there. I was surprised, she was at home this is an ironclad fact, why should she say no, she can refuse others to talk, can talk again another day, this is not good? She said it wasn't a lie, Chinese was so polite to say goodbye to friends, I measured it by my culture, if she was at home, it was an ironclad fact, she could deny it, so how could I trust her for other things? She said That China has white lies that can protect itself from harming others, and that China needs to lie, and that if china rejects others as bluntly as the United States does, people will get angry.
The biggest rift between me and her was legal awareness. At the peak of our relationship before marriage, on the day of the engagement, I gave her a ring, and it was a sunny morning, and I sat with her in the back garden of my house, the yellow lemon knotted on the branches, like a string of small lanterns, looking around the front room, her face full of joyful smiles. We plucked roses of various colors from the yard and put them on the desk, I took out a legal document notarized of the property, and I explained to her that before we went to the court to register the marriage, she was required to fill out this document and sign it, and that all the property before the marriage, whether after my death or any disagreement in our marriage, had nothing to do with her.
All my property was entrusted to a lawyer and handed over to the trustee in accordance with the will. She turned her face at that time, she thought that I married her, all this belongs to her, husband and wife should not distinguish between property, otherwise I do not have a heart, in fact, I dare to say that no rich American will marry a woman and give her all the property.
Many Americans donate most of their wealth to the cause they love, leaving a small part for their wives who live together. She reluctantly signed it, and the days to come were grumpy, and whenever she was unhappy, she would bring it up, and I could tell that she was not a materialistic woman who coveted property, but her culture made her unhappy, and she used whether I gave her all of me as the standard of love. In fact, two people who love each other should exchange your love for the love of another person, love will always be alive, and no one can want everything from others.
Someone asked me, you"China Pass" married a Chinese wife and broke up so quickly, where can't you get along? My answer startled her, not because it didn't fit anywhere, but everywhere.
▼ It is not easy to do the number, and the tip is arbitrary▼
My wife once proposed that we each give in half, and I have thought carefully about this formulation, that is, I want to pass the time in half the time of grievance, unhappiness, unhappiness; she also has to pass the time in half the time of grievance, unhappiness, adding up to half of a person's life, is there any need? Whether the meaning of life was too cruel, she understood in repeated discussions. When we broke up, there was no emotional quarrel, and her later calmness made me see the self-esteem of oriental intellectual women, but I deeply sympathized with the hypocrisy of oriental love culture.