What Makes People Engage in Cross Cultural Relations

Many times when I used to start another topic of intercultural relations, a thought came to me that of course almost whatever I write about is applied to any union. It is just that cross cultural marriages have that "twist". Today I'd like to analyse what made me and my husband to engage in one of such, why didn't we prefer staying within our zone of comfort, he - in India, me - in Kazakhstan, then marry a person of the same nationality, religion, with the same mentality? The answer is "I have no idea!" 

No, seriously, we both had no intentions of marrying a foreigner ever in our life. Yes, we did have foreign friends in the Internet before, but that was just pure communication: few comments, few likes... Something happened in our case, and we proceeded further.

First, of course, we simply liked talking to each other a lot, exchange messages, share insights of our lives. Then it became a necessity for me to hear his voice and see him at least for few seconds, at least few times a week. I used to be sad when we couldn't chat for long periods of time, when he was away with his family on vacations, when I was away with my family for a weekend... It felt like that. Like I needed him in my life, he needed me too.

Second, it felt exotic, unusual, exciting, romantic to be in the multicultural relations. I dreamt of my handsome Indian boy, his land, possessing such a rich culture. You may call it curiosity or feeling of novelty, unexplored - it also played role in us becoming interested in our relations.

Third as soon as we felt special about all the happening, we both didn't want to lose it, because we felt comfortable when we were together, we had similar views, interests and so on. We knew things were not easy in the beginning and they would be more difficulties ahead, but we were determined and weren't afraid. We felt strong.
Fourth, for us it didn't feel weird to be married to a person whose cultural background is different from another one's. This can be called "open mindness" of some sort. However I shall note here that it doesn't happen in all the cases, especially when a partner is quite conservative or is not ready to adjust for another partner's' culture much. In my case I was lucky to find an Indian man who although was brought up and lived in India, had a different, not-so-traditional thinking what helped me a lot on the initial stages of adaptation.
Just to add to the question: during the course of two years of being employed in his company my D discovered how many of his colleagues from other countries ARE in cross cultural marriages! Like German-Russian, German-Indian, Indian-Ukrainian, and perhaps, many more. The world is uniting in spite of anything.
I am sure that intercultural relations which are valued and taken care of will evolve into strong bond between the partners. Sometimes we also forget what it took us to be together as things seem to have been the way they are always. At such time it is important to recollect how you started your cross cultural journey and why and remember that love brought you to each other across the distance. Cherish it.

☀Dress Code in India: When It's Hot - Short or Better Not?☀

☀ India is a very diverse country. Its big territory incorporates a big number of regions (states). Every state has its own language, traditions, in one word - pecularities. However ways of life in India are as much similar everywhere as diverse if you take into account local cultural characteristics.

We live in a city which is a capital of two states - Punjab and Haryana. Both the states have their own respective languages (besides Hindi), Punjabi and Haryanvi, as well as their own population. Punjab has a predominant population of Sikhs, while Hindus is a majority in Haryana. Both the cultures put a significant influence on our city Chandigarh. Though the city itself is  a creation of the middle of 20th century, it has quite modern buildings and well organized streets, the people here cannot be called "open" enough to accept  the changes of the life style so soon.

Before coming here I read a lot about Indian culture, some restrictions of it, Indian clothing etc. But when it came to practically experiencing it I had hard times (how many?) adjusting, especially in a sense of dressing up. First I noticed girls and women here wear mostly Indian suits, kurtas with slacks, quite long t-shirts, jeans and pants even during hot summer, and almost always "dupatta" (Indian light scarf) over their neck and shoulders.

Second of all I had to forget wearing skirts till knees, too open tops, or even Capri which revealed my ankles and calves, or wear anything too tight or too transparent. These were explained to me by my D, not because he himself was so conservative but because people, basically, males, used to stare at any part of your body which was open, and he didn't like at all his girlfriend to be stared at which was anyways unavoidable because I attracted attention as a foreigner walking the streets with an Indian man.

Okay I must admit Russian women are pretty free to wear what they please, I can even say they won't bother asking anyone what they may wear, they decide the appropriate dress for the occasion themselves. Some days I was just fine with the wardrobe limitations, some days we had big fights over another matter: I wanted to wear at least shorts because it was so damn hot, but I couldn't simply because of "others". I used to say that I couldn't adjust for each and everyone, that I was annoyed by constantly checking if my bra strap didn't come out by accident, and if it did, to feel ashamed and hurriedly hide it under my top. I felt irritated, disappointed, angry.

I also started wearing more of open sandals, slippers, mostly on low heels. It is actually more comfy in summer because your feet don't get tired that soon as on high heels or wedges. But shoes type here is totally your choice. 

Luckily times have changed  a little since then. A year ago, 4 days before our anniversary, we went to the shopping mall. My D then said, looking at the females there who wore dresses and skirts, and sundresses, that the people had started changing their thinking. And that was the day I got a dress which was only till knees. However I'd wear it only when I am with D. 

Also now I don't have complaints since I can wear sleeveless tops and thin pants in the city, nevertheless if you happen to travel deeper in the state toward smaller towns and villages, you shall think better of what to wear there as the population won't be of the same opinion about short/open clothes as you are. Same applies to visiting of temples and other holy places (like Golden Temple in Amritsar for ex.) where I guess it is understood you wear decent clothing items and also a headscarf/kerchief. In Sikh temples "gurudwara" it concerns males likewise.

I see that girls in the city becoming more and more brave and nowadays you can see females in shorts and skirts here and there. But that doesn't mean that people around are okay and favor that. In my previous office even woman used to look at my "naked" ankles. Yes, it depends on where you work too, my new office has no objection of female employees dressing up in feminine clothing items. But I in my turn now feel more comfortable in pants or trousers. 

☼ What to wear in India - Essential Information for Women - a short article as a travel guide.

☼ Modesty of Dress and Indian Culture - an article by The Hindu newspaper. Yes, why should boys have all the fun?

I also understand that such places as Goa allow for almost any type of clothing BUT it is an exception and another story similarly like metro cities Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore created their own world within themselves though at the same time belonging to a particular state. 

On weekend me and D watched a German movie "The White Masai" on one of the TV channels. Have you seen it? Do watch  it if you haven't, and see how sometimes even love cannot promise successful intercultural marriage.☀

From Russian Soups to Chilly Paneer - Russian Wife in India

♨This will be interesting for me to look back and see how well I, a girl who spent 23 years of her life in her native country, realigned herself for new settings in just 4 years. It quite amazes me but time flew so fast I now perhaps won't be able to recollect those impressions as they were.
Every country has its unique "taste", so does India, one of the most savoury countries in the world. The food of Indian subcontinent is definitely something to pay attention to, to discuss, to love or to ... dislike. Take it or leave it. Nonetheless if you are a permanently living in India foreign wife, you will have hard time adjusting to Indian food if you cannot stand spices. I was lucky (as well as my D) to be one of those foreign wives to teach my taste buds to like spicy and oily table. The first meal I had here was an omelet we bought at the bus station cafe when we arrived from Delhi. It was yumm, but it had some little green rings of some vegetable in it - green chillies! I had to dig them out from the omelet following a timely advice by my D.

On my first day in the city I was settled in a paying guest (called PG here) facility with some Indian girls. That evening I was hungry and the girls helped to fetch some rice, it looked great, all vegetarian, and I digged into it and had two-three spoons at once... When after a while I realized that my tongue as well as ears were on fire! It was so spicy and felt like it burned all the insides.
The days later my D was taking me to the university canteen where I tried Indian paneer with gravy, which I enjoyed a lot however fighting with chillies in it too. But I started liking Indian food almost straight away and after a while couldn't imagine my meal without pickles or green chillies (I got ya!). See my old post.
The food transition for a Russian girl used to tasty but rather plain Russian soups, minimum salt  and pepper in her dishes, went smoothly. The only thing is that after some time I start missing my country's cuisine very much. In those cases I cook something rather Russian like soup or simply take a piece of bread and put butter on it and eat with tea or coffee. My tongue still craves for "simple" taste without any spices added.
A peculiar thing is that Indians like to eat fruits (grapes, watermelon, papaya, apples) with black salt and black pepper. After I tried it that way several times and my throat didn't thank me, I simply made a point that I prefer a pure taste of the fruits.
Another challenge for me at times (though I don't cook much) is to make a dish which meets my Indian husband's taste. He likes Russian food a lot especially the one prepared by my mom, but I know that he expects me to cook Indian style at least a little bit. As I am a rather independent person I asked Indian food cooking tips from my in-laws very rarely, choosing Internet as my teacher. I believe I managed to make something resembling Punjabi kidney beans and channa (chickpea) and even tried to make South Indian dosas and vadas! Otherwise almost whatever I cook turns out to be of a mixed Indo-Russian taste, I can't help it. Here is what Russian I tried to cook in India, not much but it made me happy:
Taste of Dacha - vegetables in a pan, my Mom's recipe.
Cooking the Crescents - Russian dish vareniki with potato.
Apple Pie - called Sharlotka in Russian.

✿♡♡♡ Working on Your Intercultural Relationships ♡♡♡✿

The last post on choosing the language for intercultural communication had received many comments, and opened up some really interesting facts about you, my dear friends. I didn't even know that so many of you are actually in mixed relationships (next time I shall highlight who all are there), or having got someone who is in, or simply have got intercultural exposure and experience. 

Today I'd like specifically turn to a topic which is one of the most important in cross cultural relations when it comes to making such relations "work".

Love is what brought two people together, it helped them to build those bridges at first, then made them want to be with each other and finally entwined their lives - it's our story in short. But not a complete story. There are many more chapters to be added to it. One of them - what keeps these relations going. I think that I had already touched the theme somehow in the previous post where I expressed my opinion that partners shall try to learn each other language. Continuing this thought I'd say that to Learn something new about each other (also in broader term - cultures) every day is one of the ways to fill up cultural gaps, understand each other better. This can be anything from a conversation to a viewing of a movie or TV program, and reading of course.

In any marriage, you inevitably end up altering a little of yourself for another person. Here goes another building material of our marriage - to Adjust. I in particular couldn't t avoid this as much as inconvenient it was at times. It was painful too, because I felt like I was loosing my identity. One would probably say why would I do that for a whole culture above me? I had such thoughts too, and they didn't make the situation better. We both found balance to help especially me to adjust and adapt to a new cultural environment, to new people, a new family. 

At the same time some things we had to simply Accept.You cannot change yourself completely, and neither shall you demand this from your partner. We take some things as they are, and accept not only within the family but within the society too. 

We are very inspired by our relationships, especially at the prospect of having a child who will connect both of our cultures more. We Enjoy the marriage and think of all the possibilities this intercultural union can bring now and in future, in spite of all the difficulties.

After all it is necessary to Have a Sense of Humour in a cross cultural marriage to be able to face situations of misunderstanding, and not to be so serious in certain moments. Finding a humorous side of some things will help both the partners to see their cultures from another perspective.
There can be other ways as well, but in general it is important to have reciprocal communication in intercultural relations, where both are equally involved, both willing to contribute into keeping relations sustainable and loving. I shall tell about all of these more, it will alone take a whole blog post dedicated to the things I had to learn, adjust for, accept, enjoy, and have a sense of humour about during almost 4 years of our Indian-Russian marriage.
I am also starting to share some nice and useful articles/blog posts/forum posts about the same (or different) issues I offer to reflect on.
Married to an Alien: Can Love Conquer Culture? - an article by Tim Sullivan about cross cultural marriage problems, pitfalls and author's own experience being in an American-Japanese marriage.
Why So Many Russian Women Go Abroad? - a blog post in a "question-answer" style by the author of the Ask a Russian blog. Yes, why indeed? :)

source

Hope you find some of my thoughts appealing to you as well. Do you work on your intercultural/mixed/any relations or let them have their own course? 

Which Language? Intercultural Couples' Communication

I love everything related to language and literature, and it wasn't at all surprising when I chose to become a philologist, a person who loves "word", just like my Mom. Different types of language, be it spoken, written, body, sign, help us to convey and ... connect.
I remember when we had one of the general linguistics lessons in the university, we came to the subject of language families. That was when I  discovered the variety of languages which exist. I took particular interest as I recollect now in Indo-European family which is the largest, and looked through the line-listing of the languages of India ... Oh my! How many of them were there I couldn't remember and pronounce their names at all, and only  few months later I myself was put into that language environment.                                                                
To tell the truth I wanted to be ready before I reached India, and started learning Hindi in my city. I did it because I was curious and inspired by love. It also happens that both the partners have the same native language they can use in all areas of their lives, but what to do when your native languages are different? I will not touch here the situation when partners live in a country which puts its own linguistic demands on both.
Our own experience is such - my husband's mother tongue is Hindi and my is Russian.
In our case comes the universal medium - English language. We chose this way because my Indian boy couldn't speak Russian at all that time, and I still hadn't developed my Hindi speaking skills.
We have Indo-Russian families who have different approach to this problem. In one family a wife speaks Russian, while husband speaks both, Russian and Hindi. English is not used at home much.
Two other families have both the parents speaking both the languages, depending on a situation, and I consider this to be an ideal variant, and that's how I'd like our communication to be.
One more "method" of communication I  got to know in the university was that some multilingual families learn and involve a third language like Esperanto  for daily communication. 
Okay, we still speak English with each other, but I in my turn learnt quite enough Hindi to watch TV and movies and understand what people say, and converse when I need it (let me boast more - read and write); my D also can speak Russian a little, knows alphabet and can write. In modern India though English is more than enough to feel yourself comfortable, and there is no obligation for foreigners residing here to learn Hindi in order to get good job or lift their social status.
However, at times it is not easy to make a person who speaks your own language to understand you. It is double fold difficult when you and your partner are using different language systems, because language also represents culture, it bears its concepts, and knowledge which have been accumulating for centuries! In many ways if intercultural couples don't at least try to learn each other's native languages, they miss on understanding their partner's inner world, his or her mentality, ways of life he or she chooses, and many other small things which are in fact important for a successful cultural blend :) But if you try may be the reaction of your loved one can be as such:

Dear friends, what is your opinion on this topic? Is it important for you that your partner speaks your language? Or do you think that love can break any language barriers?

Where Intercultural Couples Meet

In the beginning of this blogging way, almost a year after our marriage, I made a post about our intercultural story, and how we actually met with my husband. Since the time I came to India we witnessed many many stories about an Indian boy and a girl from another country. Some of them ending in good friendship, some in marriage, some not leading anywhere and becoming just a memory for their participants. 

Living in the age of advance technology which help us to communicate with hundreds of people across the Globe had its influences on how people find each other. I'd give few points which relate to how Indo-Russian couples make it (although it is applicable to all and any mixed couple of course).

Indian Henna

1. Social networking and Internet overall. This applies to us as well, though none of us had an intention of dating a person from abroad. We started talking as friends, then started web cam chatting and phone calling, and then gradually we already couldn't imagine being apart. That was when we decided to remove the physical distance of 3000+ km in between. One more example of a cross cultural marriage which had Internet beginning, is my Singaporean friend and her Indian husband. Her incredible and touching story is here.

2. Meeting in real in girl's country of origin. My Russian friend married to an Indian, who live in the same city as we, said me many times that for her Internet way couldn't be an option at all as she seeks for stability and certainty in relationships. So she, as many other Russian girls, met her husband in Russia when he came there for study and work many years ago. 

Russian Gzhel'

3. Meeting in real in boy's country of origin (India). This also happens a lot. For the past 4 years me and D saw numerous relationships starting between a foreign girl and an Indian boy while a girl visiting India with a different purpose initially of course. This way can be a little tricky as the boy is close to his family and there  may be or may be no difficulties for a couple to proceed with their relationships (further on that in the following posts).

4. Meeting in any other country. I believe this can be the best for mixed relations, as both the participants of it are free from their country's influence and can objectively see what's going on between them, and decide their options either in their respective countries or in a third one. I know that a number of international couples choose this option  for building up or strengthening of their relations before or after marriage. 

Anyhow the mixed relationships is not easy to sustain for a number of reasons (of which I would be talking in other posts), so those who make it up to some level deserve appreciation I think. Hope the above will be helpful in some ways to somebody at least. I really enjoyed preparing this post, and I know you have something to tell too, my dears. I am going to make it a weekly post and share my experience and thoughts on various intercultural topics.

To see how truly diverse relations can be I am giving the fact that among our friends we have such mixed couples as: German-Indian, Brazilian-Indian, Polish-Indian, Russian-Indian, Singaporean-Indian, Lebanese-Indian, Belorussian-Indian, Ukrainian-Indian. Indian men certainly have something special about them ;) And yes, they like CHAI (tea) a lot! So be ready to prepare quite a few glaaasses a day when it is his weekend, that I am going to do from today on :)

Have a lovely weekend my dears!

Cultures' Chord in My Life

Many of you already understood or are yet to be introduced to the fact that me and my husband belong to different countries, religions and languages. Lately I have firmly decided that with our family expansion I would need to make my blog a place to share this incredible experience as a mother of a mixed child :) I am thrilled at the thought of it, I am a little scared whether we will be able to inculcate in him/her that consciousness of being so much enriched by belonging to two worlds. I am sure it all will be all right and natural. So the blog name I am finally choosing shall reflect that hey, we are a mixed family, one of many such in the world, but one of a kind at the same time, because our story is so precious and unique for us first of all. 

Taking into account all your huge response to two latest posts, valuable suggestions and experiences, and considering my own preferences and my D's opinion that he actually likes my current blog's name too but yea, I can carry on with the proposed names... I have finally chosen this one "Cultures' Chord by Hindustanka". The URL has not been touched, and the new name is combining the good old and a new idea. Was I way too worried for this? Haha, but I feel relieved and happy, and now can expand blog's themes a little more and discuss questions of a cultural blend which arise in my head all the time and what will help me to understand things better. I was thinking of this idea when first started this blog, but it shifted in some other dimension. Now let me take a leave and wish you all a Happy Weekend!
And a quote I liked a lot:
"I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry" - Rita Rudner. I want to believe it, my D has one ear stud, hehe :)

3 Magical Years

I don't really know how it has happened that it's been already 3 years after that memorable day of our marriage, back in 2010. It was memorable not only because of the character of the event itself, but how it actually happened. The way we met and became husband and wife still amazes us every time we recollect it. 

I perhaps would write a good, well thought-out short story about it later on, but not today, even though all those memories keep on coming into my head almost every day, and I say myself that if it wasn't nature's own wish, we would have never been together. So today on the 15th of June we have completed the circle of 3 years. 3 is a mystical and magical number in all Russian folklore and fairy tales. I wrote about it here. As soon as I am Russian  I believe that the power of 3 will give a good start for the next yearly circle of our union, full of good beginnings and successes, and happiness of course.

I love you my D, and I  hope that our love and understanding between each other will be increasing day by day, and spread around, making us, our parents and everyone else happy. I wish to both of us to keep that sparkle which came when we saw each other (live) for the very first time in Delhi airport and we didn't know  yet what this all would lead to. Let's cherish those days, and value present moment too, as we had to go through many things to actually make it the way as it is now. And now is beautiful.