A really well done video about an English girl who moved to Beijing, and met a Chinese guy.
I especially like the part where AJ tried to explain to his Chinese mother that she was a vegetarian.
His mother said: “So, chicken then? … No? … Fish??”
Quite funny, as being a vegetarian is not at all common for folks in China especially if you aren’t a monk, and you have money.
Can you imagine trying to explain vegan? 🙂
中欧合璧 – AJ and Natalie from Jason Lee Wong on Vimeo and Via AF..
I liked watching this video because it made me think of my own relationship. Interracial relationships are still a small percentage, even in North America.
I think it’s easier between people from Western countries to mix because language is not a huge issue, as it is from less-exposed countries like China.
Most people in Europe can speak or know a bit of English, and as I already had a small start in French, I COULD have tried to speak it if it was the only way to communicate with BF.
(Luckily, we are now bilingual… 🙂 .. He is far more perfect in English than I am in French. )
But going from English to Chinese? I give her props for learning Mandarin.
She sounds SO good to me.
I also particularly like this video because it’s a sign of something small starting to change in China, although it is not indicative of relationships in China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau from what I could observe from my travels.
Any interracial relationships are mostly Asian girls with White guys (not many other nationalities or races either, other than Caucasian), not the other way around, as I’ve mentioned before.
They are still pretty much the kind of folks who stick to their own “kind”, and will encourage their children to stick to their own “kind”, even offering bribes or threatening them to do so, mostly out of fear and ignorance of the unknown, of the “others” (foreigners).
They want to preserve their culture, the language, and the customs… and they think foreigners won’t understand this deep-seated desire to do so. They’re scared of change, as most people are.
This is why it was even cooler to hear how open AJ’s parents were, talking about personalities matching, rather than colour or culture, although I’m sure her speaking Mandarin and wanting to be in Beijing helps immensely as well as his mother having been exposed to foreigners before.
Very cool.
(I still wouldn’t want to go back to China to visit any time soon however. Hong Kong is as Chinese as it gets for me.)
