A Glimpse Into The Struggles of a Chinese Wife Living In The UK / 外嫁英国的酸甜苦辣

I have been married for nearly 5 years to my husband whom I met while I was studying in the UK. We have shared some great memories together and plan to spend many more as the years roll on. 

But it must be said that throughout the progression of our relationship, the cultural differences between us did play a big part in our lives. We had to get used to each other in many unexpected ways and accept ourselves for who we were even if we both sometimes couldn't understand the reasoning behind it. That turned out to be tougher than I expected it to be. 

So I thought I'd articulate on some of my personal experiences of when cultures clash for a Chinese girl settling down with a British guy in London. 

认识我的英国先生是在大学时候，到现在结婚已经五年了。我们一起分享了很多幸福快乐的时光，希望它会一直延续下去。 

然而中西文化差异在我们这段婚姻中占据着很重要的一部分。我们得学习彼此接纳对方，而不是尝试去改变对方，但现实生活总是比我想象中难。 

所以我想在这里和大家分享一下我个人的亲身经历，一个中国女孩儿嫁到英国伦敦所经历和见证的中西文化冲撞。   

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Food / 食物

Hot vs. Cold  （热食和冷食）

Chinese people have a saying, "Food is as important as the sky above us". We regard it as our top priority. With my husband, I found this at first to be quite challenging. 

We, as a nation, generally love hot food (temperature-wise). We love our soups, porridge and green tea. However, my husband loves cold food and now growing accustomed to life in London, I realised he is not the only one. Meaning in our household, vegetables are not served warm (i.e. it’s a salad), drinks are usually of the fizzy variety straight out of the fridge and sandwiches are his preference in the morning. In contrast, it’s very different to breakfast with my family in China, consisting of buns (馒头), porridge or noodle soup.   For a short while, I tried to accommodate to this. But after a few weeks, my Chinese stomach began to protest. So this led to us always preparing our meals in a separate way to cater for our unique tastes. I’m still getting used to this culinary lifestyle even after all this time, lol.   

中国人有句话叫“民以食为天”，由此可见饮食在中国人心目中的地位。中国人将吃饭看作头等大事。和先生在一起，第一个考验就是吃饭。 

中国人的肚子天生要吃口热的, 像热汤，热粥和热茶等。先生却喜欢冷食，沙拉不能加热，各种碳酸饮料通常是直接从冰箱里拿出来喝的，早餐也是冷的三文治。和我们丰富多样的早餐（馒头，热粥和面条）相比，差远了。刚开始我还可以迁就，几个星期后，我的中国胃就开始抗议了。没办法，只得各自准备各自喜欢的食物。   

Meat vs. Meat （肉食）

Another traditional way Chinese people differ from the West is in food presentation.

If it's a fish, you get everything. The tail, head, eyes, mouth, everything. And you also eat everything! Not much food is left to waste at a Chinese household after dinnertime. Sorry if it sounds a little yucky, but it's just a cultural thing.  The supermarkets here in London mostly sell fish fillets due to the fact that Western people usually prefer fish without bones, as opposed to China where half the time your meal is moving in a carrier bag all the way home! Well, of course, my husband will enjoy meat all day long but only if it bears no resemblance to the original source material whatsoever. So, after a few "shocks" at the table when I first prepared him a meal, presentation before dining is drastically different now than from what I'm used to back home! At first, his reaction did make me laugh though, I must admit. 

另一个中西文化很大的差异，是对食物的吃法。在中国家庭，如果是一条鱼，你就会在盘里看到一整条鱼，包括头， 尾巴，眼和口。一顿饭下来，桌面几乎是没有多少剩下的，绝不浪费。 因为西方人不会吐鱼刺，这里超市出售的鱼都只是两扇“鱼片”，鱼刺已经被剔得干干净净。先生当然也是肉食一族，但只会吃餐桌上看不到头和尾的食物。我现在摆上餐桌的食物与以前可谓是大相径庭了。不过当年先生盯着我的清蒸鲈鱼，不知何从下口的搞笑样子，我现在都还记得！  

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Lifestyle / 日常生活点滴

Separately vs. Together （独立还是合二为一？）

Many of my friends back in Guangzhou are happily married now. I catch up with them on social media when I can and every picture I see of them is as a couple. 

They are always together. And again, this is a very traditional approach when it comes to Chinese culture. The married couple will socialize together, have joint bank accounts, live as almost "one unit". In the West, couples usually have their own separate social groups as well. They have work colleagues they meet up with after work and their own personal circle of friends, some of which they could have known for most of their lives.  

I must admit, I found this very strange and isolating for a long time. Seeing my friends back home and comparing them with how my life was, it didn't make sense and I felt like I was being pushed to one side. But now I understand this couldn't be further from the truth. The friends we made in London who are married too, were as "in love" with each other as the ones in China. It was just a cultural thing resulting from very different lifestyles between our two countries. 

很多国内的朋友结婚了，在微信上经常能看到他们的照片总是成双成对的。婚姻像是将二人合二为一，融为一体。在西方，婚姻是婚姻，个体是个体，两口子组织上结婚了，思想上还是保持独立的。婚后先生仍然保持着自己的社交群和社交活动。不得不承认，刚开始我会感觉到自己被冷落了，但逐渐明白事实并不是我想象中这样， 这只是中西夫妻概念的不同诠释。现在看看我身边的伦敦朋友，他们的幸福和国内朋友并无不同，只是生活方式不同而已。   

Neighbourly vs. Not Neighbourly （邻里关系）

A common courtesy when greeting people in China is to ask a certain set of questions, such as "Have you eaten yet?" or "Where are you going today?". It's just seen as a respectful way of how people in China treat each other. 

So, when I actually moved in with my husband, I met a neighbour of his one morning. They greeted me and asked my name. I said "Hi, I'm Rea, have you eaten yet? Come in and have some breakfast with us". Then the lady said "No, no, I'm OK. Let's just keep things neighbourly". I smiled, a little taken aback and said to her that's fine, maybe next time. Yet when I told my husband, he laughed and said that even though I was sweet for saying it, London people are not that forward on first meeting. I was only trying to be friendly, lol. I must say though, after living here for a long time now, I totally see the truth in that. Life in the big city, eh! 

日常打招呼，中国人大多使用“吃了么？”“上哪呢？”等等，这体现了人与人之间的一种亲切感。

搬到先生家后的一个早上，我遇到住在隔壁的老太太。于是我友好地问她吃过了没有，要不要来我家一起吃早餐。老太太显得有点措不及手，尴尬的样子连连说“不，不用了!”。没想太多，我笑着回应那就下次吧。回到家中与先生聊起，他笑着说我好可爱，在伦敦邻里之间大家都会保持一定距离，更何况是第一次见面呢！过度的热情反而会让邻居觉得你想干涉她的私隐。这么多年以后，我也体验到这确实就是伦敦大都市的邻里生活。  

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Communication / 沟通

Chinese vs. English  （中文 vs 英文）

When I first came to the UK, I was speaking "Chinglish" rather than the more understandable form known as "English" so communicating with people outside of my group of Chinese friends was always a daunting task. 

Upon meeting my husband-to-be and trying to strike up conversations to get to know one another better proved very difficult at first. The more I practiced though, the better I became.  However, as our relationship progressed, we ran into additional hurdles such as when arguing. It always started with me fighting my way through which English words to choose to express my thoughts all the way through to me just standing there, looking at him, as I literally didn't know what to say next. Frustrating, lol! Over the course of spending more and more time together though, this luckily is not so much of problem anymore. It was hard work trying to adapt though!   

初来英国，我的英语并不好，每次与中国圈外的朋友交谈，我总要使上九牛二虎之力。刚刚认识先生的时候，想要了解对方，我们的交流也是困难丛丛的。但练习多了，英语长进也就快了。 然而随着我们恋爱关系更进一步，随之而来的情侣吵架对我而言也是一大挑战。要说的话，得在脑海里搜索相应的英文单词，组织成英语句子，还要考虑语法是否到位。一句话，吵个架还真累! 幸好和先生在一起的时间越长，语言也就不再是障碍了，呵呵。     

Quiet vs. Loud  （安静 vs 热闹）

My parents are visiting from China for a few weeks. An always popular Chinese cultural thing is socialising at the dinner table where it is seen as a place to eat, laugh and talk. 

The three of us were used to catching up on past events in China I missed, life with the rest of my family back home and general chitchat. My husband though is always as quiet as a mouse, doesn't say too much. He does converse to some extent, but is not used to the type of social nature of us Chinese. Dad even asked me the other day if he is upset about something, lol. I told him it's fine, that's just the way he is. But the more I spent time in London, the more I did actually notice that the people here are much more conservative, not as brash and direct as Chinese people can be when conversing. Again, a cultural difference that was really interesting for me to compare with what I was used to growing up.  

父母从广州来伦敦度假几周，我们三个总喜欢围着餐桌一起吃吃喝喝，说说笑笑，聊起国内时事，亲戚朋友近况等！先生不大说话，总是安静得像只老鼠。这显然与我们中国人的热闹氛围有些格格不入。有次我父亲还悄悄问我，先生不是不被什么事情烦扰着，呵呵。我只能笑着说先生平时就是这个样子的。在伦敦生活久了，我越能感觉到英国人的严谨和保守。父母的到访让我切切实实地体验到我生长的环境与现在生活环境有多大区别。   

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Opposites Do Attract / 异性相吸

After reading the above, you'd be forgiven for thinking how on earth we made it together as a couple, lol. But as the old saying goes. 

                                                                            "Love Conquers all" 

Now we have learnt to actually embrace our differences and see them as a positive rather than a negative. The coming together of two cultures as diverse as the East and the West can be a blessing in disguise, as the door is opened to enjoying various food experiences, meeting new groups of people to form new friendships and overall increase your knowledge base of the many different types of people who share this earth.  Hopefully being part of the Steemit community too, my cultural knowledge base will only grow and improve more and more.  

看到这里，你一定会想这两个有着如此大文化差异的人到底是怎么走在一起？其实就像是一句俗语所说: 爱情的力量是伟大的！ 

现在我们已经学会包容彼此，把消极变成积极的正能量。东方和西方的不同文化，为我们打开了世界美食的大门，创造了结识新朋友的机会，同时也开阔了我们的视野，让我们认识到这个世界其实是由许许多多的不同种族及其文化而组成的! 

相信身为Steemit这个社区的一员，通过每天阅读越来越多的好文章，可以提高并增长我的见识。   

HAPPY STEEMIT!!!!