Humanity has come together, but we are still different.

Before I write any more articles on how the Internet is bringing humanity together no matter what culture, race, or religion you come from, I have to share a personal story in which the balanced opposite of cultural difference acting as an obstacle has recently affected my life. The beauty about this new information/communication era is that we can all realize we are human and the same, while conversely keeping our individual traits that define us. This month I came head-to-head with some of these cultural differences, which no matter how close humanity has become, are still very hard to overcome. I met my girlfriend’s mother. I live in Australia and she came to visit from China as my girlfriend is an International student here. Let me tell you what happened.

The first thing my girlfriend said to me when I arrived at the train station (we live in separate cities) was, ‘I have something to tell you. My mother and I had an argument about you and she says she is leaving back to China.’ This was not the auspicious beginning that I was hoping and planning for. I knew that meeting her mother was going to be hard, the fact that she couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t speak Mandarin was already a huge wall to traverse. What I ignorantly didn’t know was that because of her traditional view of life and reality, I being in her daughter’s life was tantamount to being the ‘end of the world’. After writing so many articles about how globalization and the Internet are bringing humanity closer together, this was a real slap in the face to my understanding and perception of the world.

Her mother is a traditional Chinese woman, and I hope not to sound judgmental in any way, but this means that to someone like me her views seem to be based in a history that could belong in the ancient past. Then again, I have to be aware that there are often good reasons why beliefs have been sustained over such long periods of time. It was time to get to the bottom of the situation and find out why I was an anathema to her world.

At first she didn’t even want to meet me, but through translation from my partner I kindly ‘forced’ her to come out to a restaurant for dinner. This was a tough experience to say in the least. I did my best to be positive, open-minded, and diplomatic but this woman was as stubborn as a mule. To her my existence meant a possible loss of so many important things in her life. First, there’s the idea that her daughter could choose to stay with me in Australia, in effect taking her away from her family ‘forever’. China has the famous ‘One Child Policy’ and so in her mind this equated to losing her only child, and one third of the current family. I explained that we could live both in China and Australia (no skin off my nose) and that in Australia her daughter would have many more opportunities to become successful in terms of wealth, and so would have the means to come and visit on a regular basis. This didn’t satisfy her.

Secondly, her mother (through translation) explained to me how they’d been waiting for her daughter to marry a Chinese man, thus bringing a fourth member into the family. I have learnt that family is so important in China (and other Asian countries) and this fourth addition would be accepted and treated like a true son, no son-in-laws there. This meant that they would also lose the acquisition of the fourth family member they had been waiting for so long. The fact that I can’t speak Mandarin (I can speak Japanese alright but that sure doesn’t help) made her feel that she wouldn’t be able to know me properly because we’d never be able to relate at any real depth. From a male-dominated social perspective this meant that her parents wouldn’t be able to connect with the future ‘leader’ of their family (if I intended to marry which is assumed if you are seeing someone romantically in China).

The next issue was the idea that the next generation is to take care of the elderly in China both financially as well as generally help around the house. They consider their children to be an investment of sorts. Having been paying most of their money so that she could be educated at a good university in Australia, they’d hoped that she’d return to China, pay them back for their generosity, and then financially support them in the future. I don’t think they have too many retirement homes over there. They want to grow old around the people they love, who if monetarily successful (it is assumed that education will lead to wealth) will take care of their needs when they become infirm or incapacitated.

Yet another issue is the fact that I intend to move to Japan to teach English soon, and plan to take my partner with me. When my girlfriend told her mother this, she cried for two days straight and wouldn’t talk to anyone (not that there were too many people to talk to in an English-speaking nation). You see China and Japan have some very old and strongly ambivalent feelings towards each other. Her family just happens to come from Nanjing, one of the older capitals of China, and it just so happens, the place where the Japanese held a huge massacre and rape of all its citizens back in World War Two. Not all Japanese will admit to this fact which causes much controversy between the two neighbors. The fact that my partner won’t be able to work while there (she can only come as my wife, and then be on a non-working Dependent’s visa) also has the terrible connotations that she mightn’t finish her degree at university, and she won’t be furthering her career (and their investment), not to mention the fact that she’ll be living off another person’s sweat and hard work. This, all while living in the land of an ancient ‘enemy’ and still ‘far’ from home (I don’t think her parents do much traveling outside of China and Hong Kong).

Now you think that must be the sum of all my worries don’t you? Well, let me add in the fact that my girlfriend first came to Australia for another man, an Aussie who she’d met in China and who had proposed marriage to her. When she came to Australia he changed his mind and decided he was no longer ready for such a commitment. They broke up. You don’t do things like that in China. It’s a breach of the terms of honor and integrity which are so important in their social and cultural fabric. What kind of message do you think this gave her parents about Australian men? I’m of Jewish descent and not Anglo-Saxon but I don’t think that makes much of a difference to these people who had to deal with a depressed and lonely daughter stuck on the other side of the world.

More people from separate cultures connect with each other today than any time in the history of humanity. Chinese and Australian people are working, studying, and befriending each other in many countries around the world, both in-person and on the Internet. I have had friends and acquaintances from Fiji, Japan, China, Afghanistan, India, South Korea, South Africa, Italy, Pakistan, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Singapore, Germany, Columbia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia…you name it and I’ve most probably met someone from just about any place you mention. This is the awesome reality of a multicultural world where boundaries of separation and fear have gradually dissolved over time, and through advancing technology and evolving consciousness.

That’s why this experience has been such a strange and profound one for me. In a true multi-cultural society we all need to keep the flavors (I love food from so many places) and traditions that make up our identities. These can mix too, there aren’t any rules written in stone, but I was just so surprised to see such an immense challenge arise because of these differences. It goes to show that no matter how close we all become, and realize that we are one human culture, differences in belief and opinion are always bound to rear up their heads and cause confusion and even conflict. This is the way of things, the perfect balance of nature, and we need to prepare for these clashes of ideology. If we indeed are all the same yet different, it’s time we become informed of each other’s beliefs so that we can make logical decisions based on compromise and tolerance. Hopefully, the intense emotional and irrational reactions that we often see in today’s media will diminish when we realize that we all, vie it be by various routes, are working our way towards the same goals of happiness and peace.