I am American, my husband is Romanian. We live in Oklahoma (nuthin’ but Rednecks here).
Problems we’ve faced… Religion, a little, but not too much. He is Eastern Orthodox (though not practicing) and I am Jewish. Language - I don’t speak any Romanian, none of his family speaks any English. This summer I plan on learning enough Romanian to speak with them. I’ve never met them, because of immigration problems my husband has been having. He hasn’t seen them for almost 7 years, so that has been rough.
I think culture has been the hardest to get over. At first (and still to some extent), he had very strict ideas about what should and shouldn’t be discussed at the dinner table, in front of relatives, etc. Even now he will stick his fingers in his ears, yell “LALALALA” and walk away (StarvingArtist can attest to this!).
He tends to have weird (to me) beliefs about some things. For instance, if you open too many windows in the house, it will let bad air in. Eggs have poison in them (and he doesn’t mean cholesterol) so if you eat too many you will die. If you are doing any sort of exercise, the chest must be sufficiently covered and protected (i.e. in a sweatshirt or coat) any time the weather is below about 70.
But we tend to get along pretty well, and I love him (usually… )
American with Japanese wife, living in Japan, and planning to stay here at least until retirement.
No kids yet, but when we do, we want to have our child learning both languages. Maybe not so hard if we’re living here, since my wife and I mainly speak in English.
All the families have been wonderful toward both of us, so that really hasn’t been a problem (my parents are an American-French couple, so that may have made them more open to me having a bi-national marriage myself. Or they may just be nice people. That certainly seems to be the case with my wife’s all-Japanese family).
They are OK with it. It is the only place my daughter has ever lived. When she goes out she dresses like Bourka Barbie and gets along well enough in Arabic.
My wife considers the place a pain in the butt but not a disaster, just an irritation. A couple of things I have noticed is that the wife will make or break a career over here. If she gets in with a crowd that likes to sit around and bitch, the time she will stay is limited. OTOH, if she gets in with a good, outgoing crowd, she will be fine. Another thing is the compound. A lot of guys try to go cheap on the compound and pocket the extra money. Bad idea, really bad.
The other thing that helps is that my Asian wife is not the least bit submissive or humble. Very much the contrary. Quite a few of the mutawwa have discovered that to their chagrin. They see a short, Asian woman and expect to browbeat her. Instead, it is like a small explosion going off under their noses. She has actually run one of them out of a local hardware store. The employees cheered her.
We are starting to have a few issues with my daughter. Her education is going well, the local private school is about a year to eighteen months ahead of most US schools. The problem is boys. She is 16 going on 20 or so and I have put my foot down extremely hard regarding local boys. Sorry, I’m all for tolerance and goodness and all the rest of that but I still have a grasp on reality as well and local boys are not to be considered. (Typical dad, huh?)
Yes, we understand all this. But my impression was that the lecture my wife received had more to do with Being Proud To Be American and less to do with the technical requirements of crossing the border.
The way my wife described the lecture, I could picture the Stars and Stripes flapping proudly in the breeze behind the customs officer while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang America the Beautiful to accompany scenes of purple mountains’ majesty and amber waves of grain.
Like Murdoch, my bride-to-be is from Iran also. Though her family fled as refugees in order to eventually make it to the US five years ago. I grew up in Texas so there’s a bit of a cultural difference there.
Murdoch, have you ever been there to see Iran? She still has quite a lot of family there and I’d love to be able to meet them someday. Unfortunately the situation there isn’t exactly American-friendly (a bit of an understatement, I know.) I’d love to see where she grew up, assuming the city is still there in the future.
Well, how about this. We are both americans but he’s from Arkansas, I’m from New Jersey, but we live in Arkansas. I know it’s not two different nations, but it seems like it.
He’s Baptist, I’m Catholic.
In NJ, everything is pretty much accepted. Well, the part I’m from is anyway. So to come here to Hicksville, USA was a major culture shock for me.
It’s like folks down here are against everything. At least in my experience so far, and I’ve been here for five years.
My major problem is I left my entire family behind and come into a family I really don’t like. For love. BAH.
I am a Canadian and a dual citizen (born in the United Kingdom) but raised in Toronto my whole life. I’m also a Muslim and ethnically Pakistani. My fiancée is American, raised in California and he’s white (raised Catholic) but converted to Islam after we met. We are very similar and raised pretty much the same way, same culture (ie American pop culture growing up in the 70’s/80’s), but I also grew up with a dual Pakistani/Canadian culture too. Sometimes I don’t think he really sees me as a Pakistani girl, but as Canadian girl more, although I could be wrong. He doesn’t see many differences between us and I dont either. Some foods are different for me for example I have never had meat loaf or spam or any other type of meat in a can and before me he never had fish fingers for breakfast, but thats what I used to eat in England. Tea is not that great where we are going to live, but starbucks will do for tazo chai. And he thinks my accent is funny sometimes because of the zed, and the way I say about/out. The biggest challenge is that I’m moving to Whidbey Island/Washington and its new for the both of us since he and I both used to work/live in California and we both have to get accustomed to things closing early and the lack of cultural diversity (for me more). It is rural there and I’m used to living in a big city so I suppose it will take some adjustment and a new experience for the both of us, which I am looking forward too.
I posted somewhere that I use any excuse to refer to my English SO. So how could I ignore this thread that gives me the ulimate excuse…Hey everybody! I have an English SO!!! And it doesn’t get any better than that…
…err…well I guess it could get slightly better, like if we were on the same continent.
The odd thing is we just might end up in Canada. Kind of a compromise…I get to stay in North America, he gets to keep the Queen on his money…
My wife is Irish, I’m English. I am fairly assimilated into Irish culture, and the two cultures aren’t that different - though more different than many English people might think. The only real transnational issue is where we should live long-term, so we’re going to give England a go next year, for a few years, to see how she likes it, and then make up our mind where we’ll end up.
That happened whe I was really young and found out I had dual. The customs/border guy asked me directly “what’s your citizenship?” and I piped up with “I have dual citizenship!” He looked annoyed and said gruffly “Pick one.” I thought about it a bit with that deep concentration little kids get when they are really trying to do the right thing that the grown up wants… “Canadian?” I said. Didn’t go over well at all, but he didn’t bother lecturing me since I was too little.
But Back to the OP:
Another thing that never ceases to amuse my New Yorker GF is when we Canucks live up to our stereotype of politeness. She just loves it when strangers “fight” here. Especially since she’s so used to the swearing, gesturing, and ugliness of a New York City confrontation.
Like, she met me for lunch, and on her way to do some shopping, she saw an maniacal asshole on a bicycle cut off a car, jump the curb and almost clobber a pedestrian. The pedestrian yelled: “HEY!..That was very inconsiderate!”
Apparently we are much more polite and reserved with our public displays of anger.
Oh… something that cherry mentioned which I forgot - the cultural diversity. Here, it seems, there is white and black, with a little bit of other ‘races’ thrown in here and there. I’m used to white, black, brown, red, yellow, purple (okay maybe not purple)… as I work(ed) in hospital pharmacy, I got my dose of diversity there.
)
And it doesn’t get any better than that…