You never know
Sep 24th, 2010 by Peter
When you’re married to a Chinese woman here in Denmark, you are bound to have tried something like this:
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5.30pm the phone rings while you’re almost done cooking dinner. It’s your wife’s Chinese friends, who’s just in the neighborhood and wants to come around.
If we lived in C’s hometown that’s would be quite all right and a normal scenario, but in Denmark it’s highly inappropriate. What’s the right thing to say in the phone? I really don’t know.
C and I often discuss this, because she likes these blitzkrieg visits, while I normally find them highly annoying. It’s not that I don’t want visitors. It’s just that I like to know when in advance. This gives me time to buy groceries, clean the place, plan dinner or whatever needed. Especially now that our days are 99% packed with chores and watching our little rascal.
The above example is not just an example. It’s what happened last Friday. We were both beaten from a long week and C already started moaning about how to get all her homework done before Monday. We’re both severely tired and not at all ready for anything but dinner, homework and relaxing an hour or two before hitting the bed. Still C wanted her friend to come by. She incidently had time to tell me about it, when her friend’s cell phone lost connection.
I was in the middle of cooking and a bit pissed that someone would actually contemplate coming by at that time. Here in Denmark you’d feel obligated to invite the visitors for dinner, which is why people rarely make house calls round dinner time. It’s simply considered rude by most people. But I started working out how to stretch the dinner for 2 more people.
In China you wouldn’t consider it a problem at all. You’d just whip up an extra dish or two and have a good time.
“Fortunately” (for me) when C’s friend’s phone came back online they had already driven past the highway exit and didn’t feel like turning back. Even though it eventually worked out so they didn’t come by, it’s still an occasional dilemma for us, and must be for many mixed Chinese-Danish couples here.
I’ve tried being open-minded about it, but it doesn’t help that I’m not the social type. I like to charge my batteries up for being social by knowing about guests and us going somewhere in advance. Sometimes I bite the bullet and moan a bit before the guests arrive. Normally everything works out well in the end, but I still don’t like it.
hehe, maybe at some point it’s not about culture differences but about gender differences, or even social circle differences.
Chinese guys can’t be willing to have unsolicited guests either. They spend all day out being a man and making money for family, so when they’re home they also just want to be with family and be spoiled by their wifes.
Besides, if the guests happened to you and your wife’s collective friends, maybe you would’ve felt less annoyed. But when they merely were sentimental-valued friends to your wife, you somewhat felt aloof or even rejective.
To me, it sounds fun to be disturbed once in a while because I’d know that I can get things done while I’m not organized.^^
Shuo:
Both my wife and I work or go to school all day, so it’s not a man vs woman thing :-)
It’s true that it’s mainly my wifes Chinese friends that do this. On the other hand none of my Danish friends would ever put us in that situation, and I would feel the same way about the whole deal if they did. I’m not used to it and tbh I believe 99% of all Danes feel the same: It’s just not polite here.
Anyway, I try to find the middle ground, where both the wife and I can be fairly happy :-)
Only time I get calls like this it’s from my brother (he lives 10 blocks away). My parents usually give me a day’s notice. My wife never gets people coming over on short notice–mostly because her friends don’t live around here. But she does get calls from friends in NYC to go out immediately. Good thing they don’t live too far away.
I envy you mate :-)