Have any of you relocated with your Chinese spouse back to your home country?

Hello joschka

I think it's great that you guys went to Taiwan. I hope your studies are going well. I studied Chinese while I was dating my wife. At that time we almost always speak English. Now it is half English, half Chinese. Often times we speak hybrid sentences. It's kind of strange, but I like it.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement, and I hope you enjoy your stay in Taiwan!

Dated experience is quite acceptable, and I might say, I think you hit on something here. The not driving thing was probably related to saving money, right? I have wondered what lengths my wife will go to save money in America. While in Europe, she lived off French bread because it was cheap.

I bet it is the former too. If a Chinese person worked so hard to move to America and was willing to marry an American, that person probably wants to stay... but yeah, who knows.

Yeah, you're right...that was kind of a stretch...and I kind of violate that idea myself (I live on the other side of the world from my parents with no difficulty). Well, maybe it's just easier for the foreign spouse to stay in China, because they originally had other reasons to come, than it is for the Chinese spouse to pick up and move to another country.

I wonder if the reverse is also true. I have an older American friend who married a Chinese woman who came to the U.S. for grad school. I'm curious to see if they will stay in the U.S. or eventually move to China - I'm guessing the former, but who knows.

Hi cinnamonfern,

Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful reply. You are right, there probably is a little Chinese community built around academia in Grand Rapids. Actually, I came to China because one of my favorite teachers from GR is Shanghainese.

One thing I don't think is correct that it is more important for girls to live near their parents in China. My wife said it was an honor for her grandpa to live with his son, grandson and great grandson. Also, Chinese women traditionally move in with their husband's family. That's one reason why a lot of countryside families don't like having girls. They just move to some other family, which in their eyes is useless to them.

Maybe it's cultural and gender-related? I think it seems to (generally) be more important for Chinese to stay in China and near family. And it is (generally) more important for girls to stay close to their families than guys.

Well, I don't have personal experience with this, but I have lots of Chinese friends (and friends from other countries) who've moved to the U.S. So I guess I can share from what I've learned from them.

I'm sure your wife will have culture shock....and you will as well. But I think it will be helpful for her to have you there. You're going back to GR? The winters might come as a shock depending on when she was in Saskatoon and where she's from in China. Might want to brace her for that. :)

I think making friends with other Chinese will be helpful. I imagine there should be quite a few associated with the universities in GR. If that's not true, Lansing isn't terribly far away and there are many scholars, grad students and profs at MSU. And I don't know about GR, there are also a couple of Asian markets in Lansing and decent Chinese food - my Chinese friends and I like 天天 (Everyday) and Hong Kong.

Oh, and some of my Chinese friends have flown their moms/moms-in-law in to stay with them for a few months to help with their babies. So that could be an option to keep in mind depending on your circumstances.

Good luck! I'm sure everything will go well!

Thanks for inviting me to stay around. Yeah, I'll still study Chinese. I want to know what my wife and daughter are talking about! And I have put too much effort into studying just to give it up. I'm sure I'll still log in.

I think you're right mate - in my experience, most don't seem to make it out of China! I hope you stick around on the site after you get back - and do please give an update on how it all went! I for one would be very interested. Thanks, Chris.

Thanks. Good luck on your return to the US. As they say below, I hope you stay with us and let us know how it all turns out. I'd especially be interested in how your child picks up Chinese and English.

Yes, she has a Chinese name. At first we were going to name her 美熙 (mei3xi1), but one time I got the tones wrong, and I said 没戏, which means hopeless. We couldn't have that, so I came up with a name, 静慧, which means quiet wisdom. She is a fairly quiet baby, and her English name, Sophia, means wisdom. But no, we didn't use a traditional method to name her.

Thanks for the kind words. Did you give your child a chinese name? We are in the process of trying to select one. Although it seems the Chinese don't really want to get one until after the birth.

hkboy

Congratulations! That's great news.

We are just taking a simple approach for now--my wife will speak to my daughter in Mandarin; I'll speak in English, no matter what country we live. I'm sure she will have a preference for which language she'll like to speak in. To be honest, I don't care which one it is as long as she feels comfortable speaking and writing in both (although I would be slightly happier if she felt most comfortable in English). But yeah, I hope she can write Chinese characters, and I hope she can spell well in English and write in a professional way. I'm sure whatever country we are in at the time, we'll have to find a way to keep the other language advancing forward.

I wouldn't be too worried about your child speaking English. I have met lots of Chinese children that lived in an English environment but spoke Chinese at home, and that was fine for them. I guess it is all dependent on how much time you can spend at home.

xiaophil,

I think you mentioned you were a new father. My wife is also expecting. My question: Do you have any strategies/thoughts on how you will raise your child bilingually? My future child will have problems getting enough English exposure as he/she will be surrounded everyday with Cantonese.

My wife has never been to Grand Rapids or America, but she has been to Canada, so that experience should have helped her a bit. She was quite self-sufficient there, amazingly so, actually. So many Chinese board up with other Chinese and hide from the rest of the population. My wife didn't really like the Chinese she originally lived with, so she moved in with a couple of Canadians (who always ate her food, hehe).

Good thoughts here. I don't think that my wife is especially concerned about differences in raising children. The one major exception is I'm afraid she will not like how comparatively little my mother will be involved in taking care of our baby. My mother is in love with her granddaughter, and she will love babysitting and so on, but where my wife is from, the grandmother would move in with us to take care of the baby all the time. That won't happen, and to be honest, I don't want that to happen, but it is hard to say how my wife will feel about it.

Good advice, thanks. With all the politics currently in the UK around immigration, I just hope this won't be a too painful process when we eventually move there.

We indeed do go through all the paperwork for her to immigrate. When the time comes, I would definitely suggest your wife looks around for a online "moving to the UK" group. My wife did this, and the help and knowledge she got was indispensable.

That's a really good idea. My wife has met online one Chinese person who lives in my hometown, and I have a friend that married a Chinese woman. Other than that--nobody. I really would be sad if my Chinese just slowly withered away. Thanks for the suggestion.

Hi Chanelle, I know of a few expat families who are now repatriated and they took their ayis with them! Apparently both parties were really up for it - the families because the cost of such help is extortionate back home and the ayis because they really wanted to experience Europe. The bit I find strange is that they ayis were leaving husbands and family behind in China - but I guess this isn't much different from a lot of Chinese families within China anyway, who only get to see each other at CNY.

I can completely understand keeping your Chinese up being important. I am a bit sad to move back in some ways. I really am not homesick, and I like using a language that isn't my mother tongue and having an environment that is different that what I grew up with. But there are also advantages to moving back, so that is what I shall do.

Haha, no she didn't go to a huge Chinese immigrant destination like Vancouver. She went to Saskatoon, which doesn't have a terribly large Chinese population, but... she did know a lot of the Chinese who where there, which cannot be said of my hometown... yet. Luckily, she does know someone from Grand Rapids, and I know a couple of Chinese in my hometown who know others...

Actually, my wife is originally from an even smaller town than mine. I don't think the size of the city would be a factor.

I would take heart in your wife's experience in Canada. At least she's been outside China, and most parts of English speaking Canada are pretty similar to the US from what I've experienced. If she liked Canada based on her experience, then ok. If she liked Canada because she was in Vancouver with thousands of other expat Chinese, but you're planning on moving to Michigan (I thought you said you lived near Grand Rapids, but i'm probably wrong), and there are 10 Chinese at the local Chinese restaurant and that's it for 40 miles around, I'd be a bit more concerned.

I suspect that in the prior cases I know about, there was also not culture shock, but really moving from big city Beijing to small-town America. I wouldn't blame everything on culture. Moving from Big city to small town in the same country is still a big change as you know. Is your wife doing that?

I have met quite a few people whose Chinese wives/girlfriends want to move abroad because they think it will be easier. Maybe it can be easier work-wise, but I think the culture thing, as you spoke of, really can slap them in the face. My wife lived for a few months in Canada, but I am worried that that exposure wasn't nearly enough.