Adventures in Asia

When you fall in love with someone from a different country, you soon realize that other cultures have different ways of showing romantic interest and love. Their flirting can feel strange or even be a turn off at first, but the deeper you dive into another’s culture, the more you acclimate to and appreciate it. A random Asian guy, courtesy of the public domain. The first thing that struck me when I was dating my now-husband (as I’ve mentioned previously on this blog), was the NAGGING. Or what I perceived to be nagging. Such as: Have you eaten yet? Did you take a nap? Wear more clothes, it’s cold out. Drink more hot water. Don’t drink that! Cold drinks are bad for your health! Go to bed earlier. Exercise more. No ice cream when you’re on your period!! And on and on… As you might notice, most of these statements are related to Chinese standards of health and wellness. I had a quite negative reaction to this form of attention, because 1)...

When I started dating a Chinese guy, and then got serious with that guy, some friends and family back home asked, usually in a hushed tone, “But how do you communicate ?” What does that mean, "someone who speaks your language"? With my dismal Chinese and his intermediate English, it was a legitimate question. The first few times we hung out, my now-husband kept a dictionary app open on his phone (despite having studied English in school for many years… but the effectiveness of language education is a different topic). We recently discussed the issue of the language barrier with some of our friends who are also in cross-cultural relationships. Some of the other couples are like us, where one partner uses their native language which is the other’s second (or third or fourth or fifth) language. This gives one person a natural advantage in communication. For some of the other couples, neither partner can speak the other’s first language, so they u...

I hate exercise. I had heard about the traumas of working-out-in-front-of-an-audience from fellow expats. I was not interested in going to the gym in China. But I love my husband and he wanted to and it’s healthy so I went anyway. Here’s what it was like for us! One of the signs in our gym - gotta love the English, lol. We visited three different gyms before committing. The first one was super small, technically a sports club, located in a hotel. The price was a little steep, but there wasn’t a membership fee. The owner made us tea and kindly answered all our questions. The second one was big, hot, and loud. Unintelligible club music thumped through the whole place. Rows and rows of machines were occupied by young adults who, of course, stared at the weird foreigner (me). My husband and I started sweating during the tour. I was not impressed. The third gym was on the tenth, top floor of a building. They had a lot of space and were more affordable. I liked the yog...