In Southeast Asia, I find myself challenged not to look and ask, “Is it a REAL marriage?” or “How does that work?” Sometimes I even have the thought, “Yeah, I know what that’s about…”
Then I catch myself.
Here I am, in my first year of marriage traveling around the world with my wife – judging other people’s marriages? It’s not that I didn’t have these thoughts long before meeting Emily, it’s just that now, I have reinforced my views on marriage by being in one that meets all of my values and expectations.
Unlike in America, where the only vestiges of the Vietnam War are our parents’ memories and some people who will unfortunately, always need care from the VA – the war is not such a distant memory here in Vietnam. After all, it was their land on which fire rained down from the sky. It was their harbors, railways and cities that were bombed. It remains their people with the injuries and deformities from war, chemicals and sustained after effects.
Yesterday, a man on the street asked me in perfect English where I was from.
“America? We don’t see many Americans anymore….” I suspected from his age and communication skills that he may have worked with or around Americans in his younger days. In fact, several older people we’ve met who speak English well have made me wonder where they were during the war.
Therefore, it’s no surprise to me when I see the occasional older caucasian man with the same age to slightly younger Vietnamese wife. Plenty of GIs married Vietnamese women, I assume that now that Vietnam is reopened to Americans, couples must sometimes return to connect with family, revisit memories and maybe even retire cheaply.
When I see these couples, I think, “How nice,” and even, “They must share memories and a pain that binds them.”
In reality, I know nothing about them. It’s all assumptions.
But when I see a older caucasian man with a young Vietnamese woman, I have a very different set of assumptions and among them is power distance and selling out.
Equally not based in any fact.
That said, I haven’t met too many couples with giant age discrepancies where material considerations didn’t seem to me to be part of their relationship. I also spent enough time in Thailand to develop a bias against the old white guy with the young Thai girl scenario. Because even when they’re married, it’s usually a sort of business arrangement at heart. Or so it seems to me and most of the people with whom I associate.
I assume that given somewhat limited communication, large age gaps and giant morasses in cultural outlook, that a marriage of that kind somehow isn’t as legitimate or real as mine and most of the married people I know.
My concept of marriage involves partnership, equality, sharing, intellectual exchange, emotional compatibility – elements that form what I consider depth and substance. I got this concept from my parents, their parents and the families of everyone around me growing up.
In our society, marriage is a choice and an option. And it has to do with how you want to enjoy, share and experience your life – not with how to divide labor, get by and produce another generation. Our society’s wealth and development has led to marriage and family not as a unit of production and economic stability, but a life choice about contentment, happiness and fulfillment – which makes finding a spouse somewhat of an existential crisis. We have so many reasons, desires, expectations, thoughts, hopes and dreams all linked to marriage.
Our year of travel has reminded me slowly, but surely that marriage may exist around the world, but its meaning and purpose are far from universal. In many of the places we’ve visited – including India, Nepal, Vietnam and to some degree Bali, Thailand, Malaysia and Turkey – marriage remains about stability, duty, obligation, tradition, continuation of a family and division of labor for the overall economic betterment of the family and community.
People don’t think of their marriages as part of deciding their destinies or pursuing their goals and dreams. They may not even be looking for someone to keep them company or share their lives with. Marriage is just part of the cycle – the fabric of life.
To a Westerner – and even a lot of Easterners – this can sound boring or depressing. I think sometimes it is for the people of those cultures – but maybe not in the way it would be for us. They may get stuck with a spouse they don’t like – and that usually sucks no matter what.
However, they may not feel disappointed enough to become depressed, question themselves and struggle over their life direction. Marriage may be a centerpoint in their lives, but it’s not necessarily the centerpoint of their universes.
Americans, Europeans, Aussies, Kiwis, Israelis, Singaporeans, Hong Kongers, and probably a large number of other cultures expect so much from marriage. If they’re good at it, they give a lot to their marriages too.
We place a premium on partnership, love and fulfillment throughout the turbulent course of life. Achieving it becomes one of our many life occupations and through that success, perhaps we find some fulfillment. And while there are plenty of people who don’t make it work, there are plenty that do. I plan to be one of them.
Yet sometimes I wonder if – like so many things – marriage is a spectrum. Perhaps surrounding and between the concept of marriage I know and the arranged marriage of two people who mildly can’t stand each other as part of getting rid of a financially burdensome dependent daughter – there are many different, valid reasons for marriage.
Maybe one is to end loneliness. Or to have some joy in the last years of your life. Or to choose someone more stable than your other options. Or to raise a family which brings you more joy than the marriage itself. Or perhaps a hundred other reasons I don’t know about or understand.
Earlier in our lives, Emily and I both played around with this concept. We each dated someone foreign (Nepali and Thai) – people from very different cultures with relationships that had inherent power distance issues. We weren’t able to find satisfaction in other parts of the spectrum. It didn’t really mesh with our outlooks.
Like any good Jewish boy, I had to meet my match.
Still, I’ve come to recognize that’s not how it works for everyone.
Most Americans, Europeans, Aussies and other westerners I know are critical of the mass of caucasian man – Asian woman marriages you see in Southeast Asia. Interestingly, not the ones at home – just the ones here.
We’re also not critical of Asian men with caucasian women – at home or in Asia. I believe it’s because we see the power distance as always in favor of the Westerner – and at home an Asian-American is still an American.
But what of those power distance imbalanced, oddly mixed couples in Southeast Asia? Is it sick and wrong? Are there some legitimate marriages among a sea of mostly sick and wrong? Or do they fall into one of those parts of the spectrum I suspect exist, but can’t quite wrap my head around?
I wish I knew. I guess all I can know is what marriage is for me – and hope that whatever others choose, works for them and makes them deeply and legitimately happy.
Sent from my iPad
