|
|
You can ask more questions and find more answers on the International Couples' Mailing List!
Q. Were to live?
Is it better her country, his country or a third one?
A. We decided to live in California because Dina speaks English better than Craig speaks Italian, and Craig has a more stable income. It was very easy for Dina to find work in the U.S., but it would have been difficult for Craig to get good work in Italy.
From Dina (Italy) & Craig (U.S.A.)
A. Because Dina studied many years of English, we speak this mainly. When we do not want other people to understand us, or for fun, we speak Italian (which Craig has learned "abastanza bene"). Dina wishes Craig would learn more Italian and he is trying.
From Dina (Italy) & Craig (U.S.A.)
A. At first Dina's parents and the people of their small village [San Benedetto in Perillis (AQ)] did not approve of the marriage ("uno scandalo" said the priest!). But when Dina's mother and father met Craig, they liked him and his values. Craig's parents agreed right away and they were excited about having a daughter from Italy.
From Dina (Italy) & Craig (U.S.A.)
A. Get out now before it's too late!Ê Really really research a culture before you marry it, because you're marrying the spouse, their parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and grandparents and neices and nephews etc. and there's an excellent chance that you'll really hate each other and they'll do all they can do drive you apart because they don't approve of the marriage. You can smile and try to make friends, ignore it for a while, completely stop being yourself to make everyone else happy, and go crazy, then still find yourself in the middle of a divorce, dying inside because you love your spouse but couldn't love their family ( hated their family, after a while), and they couldn't put you before that family that never wanted or tried to give you a chance.ÊÊNothing will really change the immense difference in belief systems between some cultures, and you can't possibly imagine how different those little "harmless" differences can be until you've lived them, but you need to try so you're not hit blind from the side and hurting so bad when it happens.
Miserably,
Sabotaged in Florida.
From Stephanie (U.S.A.)
A. Most values are shared, but Craig tends to be more conservative and future thinking, and Dina tends to be more spontaneous and reactive. Dina had a very difficult time adjusting to the American culture and values. This integration of culture and values between us has happened over the five years we have been married.
From Dina (Italy) & Craig (U.S.A.)
A. Craig was beginning his "dream vacation" to Europe in 1990 flying from San Francisco to Rome and Dina was on the same flight returning home from her first vacation to the U.S.A. We met on the plane and Craig changed his plans so he could spend one week in Rome with Dina (where she worked and lived at the time). We "fell in love" and spent the next 8 months visiting eachother internationally. We were married exactly one year from the day we met in the church of Dina's village in Italy with all of Craig's family (15) and Dina's family (250+) present.
From Dina (Italy) & Craig (U.S.A.)
A. I (Richard) am an American-born Caucasian, of English/Irish/German descent (several generations in USA), and my wife (Wan Radziah) is a Malay who lived in Malaysia for 30-ish years. While there are a number of "cultural differences" between our mainstream USA and Malaysian backgrounds, we have found that many others seem related to male/female cultural differences, as discussed by Deborah Tannen, and by John Gray in his "Venus & Mars"-titled books (I must say, some of his adverts seem downright smarmy, but the books are very thoughtful and well-written). Becoming aware of male/female differences helps me think "Oh, I guess that's how women think about that" rather than "What's wrong with _her_?", when she does something I don't expect.
From Wan (Malaysia) and Richard (U.S.A.)
A. Admiration for each other's spirituality greatly facilitated our relationship, and is a constant source of discussion and at times, disagreement.
From Andrea (U.S.A.) and Dhrubajyoti (India)
A. Understanding and patience.... understanding to know that cultural and languages differences are going to cause some problems in communication and thus lead to discussions that other non-international couples don't have.
And patience to get through the "growing" years. If you can stick out the first 5 years you got it made! By then you will have your own "language"!
From Dee (U.S.A.) and Hani (Egypt)
A.We are a Japanese-Italian family. When we had to give a name to our first child we thought first of a name that exists in both languages (like Anna), but we gave up, because there are really few. Next, we thought of two different names, but with the same meaning (like Grazia/Megumi). Again, these are hopelessly few. Since our child was going to be born in Finland (we used to live in Helsinki at the time) we thought of a Finnish name, but most of them sound too unusual to both Japanese and Italian ears. We ended up with one Italian name (Giacomo) and one Japanese name (Hokuto), without even caring about pronounciability in the other language (Giacomo sounds like the Japanese word "jako", a kind of small fish..., and very few Italians can utter Hokuto correctly). In order to avoid making him a schizophrenic child, we call him sometimes Giacomo and sometimes Hokuto, and it has worked out very well.
We repeated the exercise with his sister, Lucia Sakura. However now everyone, both in Japan and in Italy, calls her just "Lu".
For thethird child, in order to halve the work, we decided we wanted to know the sex, and her names are Francesca Momo. We'll see how she ends up being called.
From Mami (Japan) and Federico (Italy)
A. For us, preserving both languages and raising our daughter bilingually were very important needs, so balancing the two languages is our goal.
While we were in Hungary, we spoke English to each other, but each of us spoke our own native language to our daughter. When we moved to the US, we switched completely to Hungarian with each other, to preserve the minority language. Later, when we move back to Hungary, I think we will be able to continue in Hungarian if we want to, since there is such an abundance of English input available for our child/ren to benefit from - and of course, we each will always use our own language with our children, because we don't want to teach them our mistakes.
From Margaret (U.S.A.) and Andras (Hungary)
To the Main page.
To the Countries' page.
To the Chatroom.
To the FAQ page
