Lynette’s Musings
No, I am not promoting the
show, though I would love to watch it. By now, some of
you would have heard about the movie Meet The Parents
(http://www.meettheparents.com) a comedy about a male nurse, who
is meeting his girlfriend’s ex-CIA father for the
first time and ask for her hand. Actually, its curious
how timely this is as I know so many of you who are
either meeting the parents or arranging to meet the
parents.
Ok, so what has this movie
got to do with us? Thanks to Ken, who will NEVER let me
forget his ‘ordeal’, I thought it was good to
enlighten everyone about meeting parents who are 10,060
miles away and maybe not even speak English! Hopefully,
everything goes right for you and Good Luck!
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Meeting The Parents?
As I recall, I didn’t
see what was such a big deal about meeting my parents.
But for Ken it was a big worry spot. Not because my
father is a CIA agent or mom a tyrant (and yes, they
speak English) but after thinking about it, I realized it
was because our cultures handle relationships and
marriages quite differently.
Overall, children live at
home until they marry unless work takes them out of town.
Over the course of courtship, the comings and goings at
each other’s homes, the couple would be very
familiar with each other’s parents and vice versa.
So, marriage is a gradual and natural progression, the
good old-fashioned way. In fact, often times, it’s
the parents who urge their children forward. This doesn’t
mean it is easy meeting for the very first time, but
because parents know you are not asking to marry their
daughter then, the situation is less dramatic.
This being the case, it is
not an exceptionally good idea to ask for her hand at the
very first meeting. It’s likely that you will have
to count on making several trips. But, you live so far,
plane tickets are expensive and you have only 10 vacation
days in a year! Her parents have got to understand right?
Unfortunately, wrong. It’s
rather difficult to explain to some parents because the
sad fact is many Asians believe the Hollywood image. In
their minds, an American man is 6ft tall, blue eyes,
blond hair, drives a great car, has a great apartment,
makes a lot of money and wears suits everyday. Even if he
doesn’t earn a million dollars a year, the mere 1 to
3.8 exchange rate makes him ‘wealthy’. Telling
them it is expensive to fly to Malaysia 2 times a year
doesn’t always cut it unless her parents are well
read.
Ok, you have money but not
vacation time. Surely they know I am trying to do what is
best for us. Not necessarily. Malaysians enjoy 12-14 paid
vacation days a year. Depending on seniority and rank,
some people have more. I know one of my ex-colleagues had
30 paid vacation days! But most start off with 12-14 days
AND, there are so many public holidays you wouldn’t
believe it. This year itself, there are 13 National
public holidays, plus a couple of other days State
holidays. So really, Malaysian get about 25 days paid
vacation a year! My own mother gave me a hard time when I
tried to tell her Ken couldn’t take time off work.
What can you do? It’s
not like you can go to her parents’ house for dinner
every weekend. But there are ways to soften the blow. I
knew my parents would be very skeptical about our whole
relationship. They are not familiar with the Internet and
they have not met Ken. So, I talked to them about Ken, as
often as possible. After they knew about him, I got them
to talk to him online so that they can get somewhat
acquainted and not shock them when we brought up marriage.
After Ken’s first visit, we also got my mother to
correspond with Ken. This makes her more comfortable with
Ken and as an added bonus, great ‘evidence’ of
a relationship to show the INS. Did I also mention that
siblings are often there when you discuss marriage? So it’s
not only parents but also family you will be talking to!
Internet romances do not
often go down well with elders. For us, Ken being a
divorcee compounded it. A lot of parents don’t like
their daughters marrying divorcees. I remember my parents
asking a whole barrage of questions regarding this.
Having observed a while, I
learnt that marrying at the Courthouse is the favored
route for Americans. This does not go down very well for
most Malaysian families. It is true, that a lot of
couples register their marriage first, which is like to
marrying at the Courthouse but families expect a wedding
to follow. Being legally married is often ‘not good
enough’ and a banquet is a must. A large and well-planned
banquet is associated with marrying well and a small
wedding is about 100 people. My parents wanted 120 to 150
relatives and that was small to them. There is little
exception to this, so you might as well forget about the
private wedding in Hawaii.
Traditionally, weddings
are planned and initiated by the parents of the couple
and the couple has little say. Today, while the couple
plans most things, wedding dates, invitation lists,
location, religious and traditional ceremonies are still
arranged by parents. So, do not be offended when a parent
says its this date or never. Another need to know is the
groom or his family pays for the wedding not the other
way around. In cases where the bride’s parents are
very traditional, they will ask for gifts or dowry
depending on race and religion. Be sure to make space in
your budget for things like that.
Every family is different,
some more liberal than others are. But you can expect
these few things. At the very essence of it, the more
times you have met her parents or talked to them, the
smoother things will go. It is our experience that you
both need to discuss everything at length. Never assume
your partner is aware of something. For example, Ken didn’t
know that the right way to address my parents then as
‘Uncle’ and ‘Auntie’. He also assumed
that he would be the one to pay for dinner and my parents
assumed they would pay because Ken is a guest. The right
thing to do here is to always offer to pay for the tab.
By virtue of you being younger, you should show your
honor to the elders by offering to pick up the tab. I
doesn’t mean that you have to but at the very least
offer. I remember as well, telling Ken that being the
younger, we should serve or offer to serve the elders.
These are usually minor and often excused because one is
foreign but it doesn’t hurt to make an impression
right?
Meanwhile, have some fun! Send a 'Meet The Parents'
Card! I pray that your
arrangements go well and may the Lord bless you all and
lead you in your challenges.
~ Lynette Chandler ~
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