Realities of Family Life in China

I will be honest, a lot of those horror stories you hear about the Chinese mother/mother-in-law....absolutely true. I really and truly do consider myself blessed that my Chinese m-i-l is a kind, Christian woman....however, I will readily admit that she still drives me up the wall sometimes...mostly related to some very, very traditional ways of doing things that most young people in China don't agree with, but tolerate because of the idea of filial piety.

As we prepare for marriage, I have been very careful to assert with my fiance that we will NOT be following the traditional Chinese way of relating to parents. Of course we will respect his mother and listen to her (within reason), she is (mostly) a very wise woman. However, I have also point-blank told him that I HAVE to know that when it comes down to my feelings versus his mother's, that he is going to stand with me. Since I expressed concern about this, he has been very good about standing with me even on the small things, but sometimes things are still difficult for me...because honestly, I am an impatient American and don't want to take the time to HAVE to listen to some of the unwanted advice, even if we are just going to ignore it later....especially when he says he will just talk to his mom and explain if we want to do something differently than her...in my mind I don't believe that we should have to take the time to do that.

This frustration comes very much into play with trying to make decisions about what we will do for business. We have our own ideas, but my fiance is somewhat prone to changing them when he receives business advice from others. This frustrates me, but I do recognize that most of it frustrates me mostly because I am VERY American in my tendency to want to do things independently.

Somewhere in the middle is probably the best balance...after all, it's foolish to ignore wise advice, but at some point, you just can't take it ALL in....you have to make decisions as a couple.

The group-think mindset here is probably my number-one cultural frustration. Some of the espoused reasons for this are good....family unity, etc....except that in reality, families here have just as many issues as families anywhere....and oftentimes, more deep-seated bitterness and frustration.

So there you go, an honest assessment of something that is a difficulty about Chinese-American cultural interactions. More to come on some of the specificities about what is different about family relationships...