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.

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!