My View On Inter-colour Marriages

Of course there is no such phrase as "Inter-colour marriage"; I made that up to mean marrriages between people of different skin colours.

I. Inter-colour marriages are becoming non-events.

Many years ago, interracial marriages in North America were mostly with people of the same "colour": Europeans of different ethnic groups(White) to Europeans of other ethnic groups; Yellows to Yellows (Asians from different regions to one another; and Blacks to Blacks (African Blacks, American Blacks, Caribbean Blacks.)

Today, inter-colour (I know there is no such word, I just invented it) marriage is no longer a "taboo." In fact, the number of inter-colour marriage is accelerating. Every time I go downtown where four universities are located: McGill, Concordia, University of Montreal, and University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), I see numerous young people of different races and colours holding hands, embracing or engaged in some kind of intimate behaviour. (Ahem...I mean behaviour that is decent in public.)

Even among the "older generation", inter-racial, in the sense of inter-colour, marriages are "accelerating." I have several colleagues who are white that have married Asians: Indians, Chinese, Filipinas, Japanese and Koreans.

II. More hurdles to cross but not unworkable.

I have witnessed many interracial marriages, some last and some don't. The ones that did not last have nothing to do with cultural differences. Yes, I do agree that the difference in culture introduces an additional hurdle to the already complicated equation of marriage. But my experience and observation tell me that you are just as likely to find a soul mate from people of another country as from your own. And by the same token, you are just as likely to find a mis-match from a person of your own race as from another. The simple fact is, people are people the same everywhere; many factors, not just that of racial and cultural differences, contribute to the success or failure of a marriage. Sometime such marriage failures are due to external pressures from society and the parents of the couple. In a racially monolithic society such as China, the pressure from society must be enormous for interracial couples. Introduce a less than sympathetic parent into the mix, and you will have an explosive situation. More often than not, the parents failed to understand or accept the cultural differences and insist that their own offspring adhere rigidly to the "old tradition" without compromise. Little do they know this will only add stress to the marriage and undermine an otherwise workable relationship. The lack of understanding from the parents have caused many a marital problem not just for racially mixed couples, but also for couples who are living in a different cultural milieu and have adopted to a different set of rules. The older generation, such as that of my contemporaries, might still have parents who believe in certain obligations that their son-in-laws or daughter-in-laws must fulfill. They often failed to understand that the new independence of women no longer requires the total obedience of the daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law. When this situation arises in a family of same-race marriage, the parents usually put the blame on a "bad" daughter-in-law. But when this happens to a racially mixed marriage, the parent would invariably blame it on "cultural differences" or "those foreign barbarians."

Nowadays,in most western countries, there is virtually no social pressure on inter-color (because they are visible) marriages. But the pressure is, I am sure, still enormous in countries where the majority of the people still holds very narrow world views or have the society or government drill prejudice into their heads. A Palestinian living in Gaza marrying a Jew, an Armenian marrying a Turk in Armenia (The Armenia Genocide by the Turks), a Chinese living in China marrying a Japanese... will all find themselves living under a microscope. No one lifts an eyebrow when that happens in North America. Much as I don't like the American bullying other countries in the world, there are still many things that I admire about them. If I have to choose between evils, I would choose living in North America than some other countries.

Real examples

Some interracial marriages work and some don't. More often than not, the breakdown has nothing to do with cultural differences. One of my graduate school classmates, a Chinese (in physics), married a blond New York girl (in mathematics) some 40 years ago.They had a very hard time struggling to finish their graduate studies and starting a career. Both their daughters are Ph.D.s now and they are still together. Another very close friend from university days married an Acadian (French settlers in the Maritimes). They have no children by their own choosing. They are married now for over 30 years. (They both married in their late 30s.) Another university classmate married a Jewish girl and they are both living in Hong Kong now. They must have been married for close to 40 years. One of my colleagues, an English professor in charge of the "English exit" exam in our college, married a Filipina some 15 or so years ago. He must have been closed to 50 at that time. The last time I met them at the college retirement party, they were still together. One of my sisters is married to a Ukrainian; they have 3 kids: 2 daughters and one son. Another was married to a German, but sadly, they both died of cancer in their early 50s. Fortunately, they had no children.

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I don't want to delude you that all interracial marriages work out well. One Chinese guy from undergraduate days—not a friend of mine, and about 3 years my junior—married a French Canadian nun who had renounced her vows. Unfortunately, it did not end like the "Sound of Music". Their marriage ended up in divorce. The fault fell squarely on him. He is a compulsive gambler and womanizer. Even on Christmas Eve, when the wife wanted to attend mass, this guy sneaked down to China town to gamble. Before entering into this disastrous relationship, the girl was a nun and had done missionary work all over the world. She was also the founder of a famous bilingual (French and English) private school. She confided to us that she had seen many untrustworthy men all over the world, and considered Chinese men as “the most reliable.” We were all trying to find ways to hint to her that her prospective husband was the least reliable person in the world, but we could not.

Another marriage failure was between a Chinese girl and a Scottish Canadian. Although the girl had been in Canada for 6 years and was very westernized, they were both too young (fresh out of college) to know what they were doing. Fortunately, they had an amicably separation, and remained friends until now, some 35 years later. Her second marriage to Cambodian Chinese, however, was a lot more turbulent. They fought tooth and nail and had a very messy divorce.

So there you have it, boys and girls. Marriages work because you make it work. Marry someone because of what he or she is, and not what he or she isn't. Isolate the fascination element, and if what you find after that's been peeled is still what you like, go ahead and take the plunge. Don’t delude yourself that "I will change him/her after marriage." That won't work. Accept the person as he/she is first before thinking of marrying him/her.

Epilogue October 26, 2009
 
Six years have elapsed since I wrote this article, parts of which started as my participation in a discussion on interracial dating and marriage. The pace of interracial marriage have quickened in Canada and I am sure much is the same in the U.S., England, and Australia. Many children of my Chinese friends have married non-Chinese.

The advertising industry is highly sensitive to cultural changes and demographic shifts. In the 1960s you would never see ads featuring a white and a black, or even an Asian and a White. Nowadays, many TV and newspaper ads, especially those from financial institutions: banks, insurance companies, investment houses etc., often show mixed couples of Asians and Whites, showing that these marriages are now considered as mainstream in the Canadian society.