Falling in love in China

Originally I planned to travel to China for a year but things soon changed after meeting my girlfriend and four years later I'm still here teaching English and guitar, living with my girlfriend and dog in the busy strange land of China!

Recently we've been trying to plan out our wedding and it's very different to what I was expecting being an Englishman. An English wedding is pretty straight forward and simple but it's a little more complicated over here.

As Chinese families are much more closer than I was expecting I quickly realized that you don't just marry the girl you love but it's more like you're marrying the whole family. And Chinese families are pretty massive.

Chinese people usually do as there parents say regardless of their age, so we have faced a few difficulties. Last year my girlfriend's father asked her to leave me so she could marry a local guy from their home town, but of course she refused. Not only am I not from their home town but I'm from a different country so her father seemed to have a problem accepting her decision to be with me.

But after almost four years of being together he seems to be taking me serious now. I don't think he's a bad guy at all, I think he's just a worried parent. In China people believe after a woman has passed thirty years of age that she's not marriage material any more and she'll be left single for the rest of her life. This is why people rush to marry even if they've only been dating for a few months. I think he was just worried she was wasting time with a foreigner who came to China to play around and eventually leave.

There is quite a lot of pressure to be in a relationship in China. I'm very thankful as my girlfriend must be facing a lot of difficulties from her family but she stays with me regardless.

So there are some traditions in China when two families join together in marriage. The first shocker my girlfriend told me was that it's traditional that the man should pay the father for his daughters hand in marriage. Each city and town vary in the amount, but her home town is 100,000 RMB which is quite a lot! Also the man should own a house and a car before the wedding as a sign of security. On top of that, the man should pay for the entire wedding ceremony which usually costs another 100,000 RMB. Unfortunately I don't have any of that! But her family seem to be accepting me more and more and gradually understanding the culture difference and that we are happy together. It's difficult to use happiness and love as a reason to marry here as money trumps all here. There is definitely a change happening with the younger generations in China but there are still the older folks who are money crazy.

The ceremony in itself is very different. I recently went to my girlfriend's sister's wedding which I was excited about as I love an excuse to wear a suite! Funnily enough apart from the groom I was the only person out of about 500 who was wearing a suite. The wedding is really just the families coming together to eat a meal together, but I'm talking about ALL of the family, even your most distant relatives. So I think our wedding might be a little one sided haha.

I just thought I'd share some culture differences about the topic from an outsiders perspective, I don't wish to freak people out about marrying in China as you will find some difficulties but love trumps all so follow your heart! I have no regrets being with my girlfriend, my life is awesome! :D

Thanks for reading, I hope you found it interesting.