Third Culture Kid(s)

OTR Girl has a great post up about her marriage to Jrex, a Korean-American guy, and her experiences of cross-cultural marriage thus far. It got me to thinking about M. and our marriage, which is - obviously - also cross-cultural (although I guess you could argue that it’s all kind of muddled; but, then, we’re all complex creatures).

When I first met M., we were both living in Tokyo - he was working for Humongous European Technology Firm, and I was a lowly grad student living on the dime of the Ministry of Education, etc. Maybe it was just the contrast between M., the American, and the average Japanese people we saw and interacted with every day, but when I first met him I thought M. was American to a fault. He was very talkative (turned out to be nervousness; his natural state is fairly taciturn), toothy (as in, he smiled a lot - again, nervousness), and he wore this LOUD shirt that fairly screamed AMERICAN (I still hate the shirt. It’s not as loud as I remember it - in fact, it’s fairly monochromatic - but it’s got all these pictures and stuff on it, and it really, really does not suit him).

Even after we’d been dating for awhile in Japan, I still saw him as being pretty American. I think it comes from a few things; while he was in Japan, M. did a lot to recreate the comforts of his American upbringing: keeping a full supply of American-made Coke on hand; ordering bagels, muffins, toiletries, etc., from the Costco out in Saitama; dining at foreign-owned restaurants (Good Honest Grub in Ebisu, among others) - that kind of thing. He had a subscription to the English-language satellite channels (which I’d never seen before I met him), which meant a steady stream of CNN International, BBC World, AXN, FOX (entertainment, not news!), you name it. Put simply, he had the single most American household I’d ever experienced in Japan. Ever.

Oh, sure, there were hints of his Asian-Americanness. The fact that no meal is complete without rice on the side (inclusive of things like Hamburger Helper, which comes with its own starch). The fact that one of his perfect meals (it all comes back to food) involves Japanese sweet egg, seasoned seaweed, and shoyu. His never-ending search for the perfect bulgogi (there was a place up the road from his apartment, until it closed, that did a pretty mean one). But it all seemed, at the time, like stuff he might have picked up in Japan; I mean, I had some pretty Japanese quirks at the nine-year point, myself.

And the newness of our relationship translated into a kind of carefulness that masked other aspects of his Asian Americanness. He was very “romantic” (I, for the record, am not), and lavished affection and presents on me (he also was pretty liberal with his money at this point*). We seldom argued, and I felt like he was fairly complimentary of me, in general.

Fast forward a few years, one wedding, and 1.5 kids later. Turns out he’s MUCH more Asian American than I ever thought when we were living in Japan, and it’s taken some getting used to (for the record, I’m pretty sure I come with a pretty steep learning curve as well, but I think mine is less “whiteness” than stuff having to do with my sometimes nearly debilitating lack of self-confidence). His parents, actually, were the least of it; I pretty much expected them to be relatively traditional (they are), and since I’d been through de facto Asian daughter (in-law) training since I was 10, by virtue of all my Chinese aunties and uncles and Japanese mothers and fathers teaching me how “proper” women behaved, I’ve (so far) been able to pretty much glide through our visits. Mainly, I keep pretty quiet, make sure M. and MM are attended to (which is what I’m doing here at home too, only there I do it without bitching about it the whole time), surreptitiously clean when I get the chance, and do a lot of casino driving. Sure, they weren’t happy about me in the beginning - well, once they got over the shock of M. having a girlfriend in the first place - but they love MM, and that’s good enough for all of us.

The biggest challenges have been with M. himself. As OTR Girl wrote, compliments simply do not happen around here, unless I’ve been campaigning for them to the extent that M. remembers to throw one my way. As far as he’s concerned, they sound false and weird. Or, as he says, “the compliment is implied.” Since he attributes his oh-so-positive outlook on the world to his Koreanness, I’ll blame that for his constant nihilism, which gets old fast if you’re living with it all the time (case in point: this morning he tells me that we’re running short of money this month. I panic, since when I checked yesterday things looked fine. I go and look online at our bank account, and we’re still fine. If, for example, something says $689 (it didn’t - this is just an example), HE sees $500; I see $11 dollars short of $700). I don’t think I’ll ever break him of this, but I’d just as soon he didn’t pass it along, you know?

And then there’s the disability/eldest (”intellectual”) son equation. M. likes to have things done for him - never mind we live in a one-floor house, specially rented for his mobility needs (well, that and it’s nice not to have to deal with stairs with a toddler in the house). For the longest time, I was sure that it was more related to his disability, and it is to a certain extent. But I’ve noticed, on our visits to his parents’ place, that he sits around even more there - becomes immobile, if you will. Helping out around the house is pretty much unheard of - at least, from what I’ve seen. I’m just hypothesizing here, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that he was pretty much groomed to succeed in school - again, not sure if it’s because he’s the oldest son or because he’s disabled, or both. Of course, he tells stories of manual labor in childhood, so I can only go by what I see. Personally, I think it’s at least partly cultural. And it bumps right smack up against my own Protestant Work Ethic upbringing (not that I’m not lazy as sin - I am, believe me - but my parents value nothing so much as sweat and hard labor. I think my Dad, in particular, had an early hard time with seeing M. sit around, but this has been substantially diminished by seeing him, more recently, work his butt off in the office and for school; M. works hard, but it’s largely intellectual labor).

At the end of the day, the challenges are worth it (at least, for me; I’m not sure the challenges of living with me are worth it - especially these days, when I kind of float through the world on a cloud of seething hormones, seeking out husbands to henpeck). But there definitely have been challenges - more than I ever would have thought. I sometimes wonder, if he’d married some white chick who was completely clueless about things Asian, would she have had an easier (ignorance is bliss) or harder time? Conversely, I can definitely say that M. is infinitely - incalculably - better for me than the guy who asked me, once, if Japan was a part of China.

*Liberal with it - as opposed to now, where he’s constantly convinced we’re on the brink of financial ruin - because he was single, this might be his only relationship ever, and he was determined to get the most out of it before it inevitably ended.  And we’re all just going to die anyway.  It seemed romantic at the time; now that I know the thinking that went on behind the scenes, so to speak, it’s kind of weird.  Still have the presents, though; I’m not stupid.