I’m going to be taking a small chunk of the summer off from the blog world (so is Chinese Ambassador). My current plans are going to the pool, vacation to visit my family, hanging out with friends, gardening, reading and sewing (I’ve been working on a present for my sister for 2 YEARS – seriously need to finish), and most importantly spending mass quantities of time with my husband and daughter and the in-laws (and I suppose working my job… they do pay me after all!). And if all goes according to plan, there won’t be one conversation in there about culture in any way, shape or form.

I feel a bit bad as I’d promised a couple readers posts they had requested. I did start them, but still haven’t finished them. Heck, I still haven’t written my “this is how I fell in love” story for our Loving Day celebration! I’d like to say, “Oh – I’ll still get to that,” but realistically, I probably won’t . So I apologize – it’s rather lazy of me, but I’m finding I can’t help it right now. I’m distracted by the smell of chlorine and sunscreen. The crystal water beckons. I will write and post them in a few weeks though. The break will revive my creative juices. CA doesn’t believe I can stay away from the blog for a few weeks though - LOL. We’ll see. I should be back on the radar in mid-August - about 5-6 weeks I’m thinking, maximum.

We’re going to turn the comments off on the blog in the next couple days – not because we don’t want you to chat, but because we don’t want you to waste your time commenting if no one is around to approve the comments. Don’t abandon us though! We’ll be back soon, likely sunburned with minds rested.

I hope you all have a wonderful summer.

I have a short Independence Day story, which may tickle my my U.K. readers some, and there’s no beating of Brits involved (hee hee). I’ve only been out of the country on the 4th of July one time. About 6 years ago Saresh and I were in London over the week of the 4th. The minute we’d open our mouths and people would hear our accent, they’d say, “Americans! Don’t you know this is your Independence Day?” They all seemed so confused, like we’re not allowed out of the country or something on the 4th.

We actually started laughing by the end of the day because so many people (complete strangers!) kept saying the same thing. One helpful man even suggested we go to the U.S. Embassy - apparently they were having a party there. I think he was actually concerned for us, as if missing the 4th for an American is like being alone on Christmas. We didn’t go to the party, but we did go out for Indian food. The greeter, the bus boy and our waiter all seemed to think we were crazy Americans, each asking in confused, thick accents, “Do you not know this is your Independence Day?”

Now this is our personal joke and we ask each other all day, “Don’t you know…?”

We’re going to *try* and take DD to the big city fireworks this year. Everyone cross your fingers she doesn’t freak out. The sound tends to bother little ones and has always scared her in years past (sometimes very badly). We’re bringing ear plugs. This is how we make sure every single American knows about their Independence Day - we traumatize them real young. So when she travels abroad later over the 4th of July, she’ll get as good a chuckle as we did. So far though, she doesn’t care much for this holiday because it doesn’t involve candy or presents, but it does involve scary noises way past her bed time. She keeps asking, “But what’s it FOR?” The whole tea and taxes story just isn’t going to cut it. She thinks Uncle Sam is Santa, too. I think I explained that enough so she knows he’s not Santa, but if he doesn’t bring anything, she doesn’t get his purpose either.

I probably won’t be checking in here to approve comments as we have family coming in, but I’ll catch everyone at the end of the weekend. Everyone have a good one!

Our church is about 99% white (maybe 99.5%!) and a decent size congregation - about 1200 members, which equates to about 700-800 people who regularly to semi-regularly attend. It’s an old German church (we just celebrated our 175th anniversary about 4 years ago) full of people primarily of German descent - and then there’s Saresh.

He’s not the only brown face in the crowd, but there’s really not very many. Given his more or less unique status, people recognize him/us even if they don’t know him. He’s also the chairman of the committee that manages the church’s endowment (Saresh and a handful of old white guys, LOL). So he’s fairly well-known.

About a month or so ago, the director of the church school program came up to him to ask how he was feeling and she was so glad to see him up and about. He asked her what she meant and she said she must have confused him with someone else, which we thought was funny. I mean, who else could he be? Then the next week, a guy (our age) who’s in a church social group we belong to comes up and asks how he’s feeling. Saresh, puzzled, says he’s feeling just fine. Guy says, “Well - just glad to see you’re able to get out.” So now we’re thinking, WTH?

A couple weeks ago DD and I were shopping in Target and ran into an older couple we know from church. The wife says, “We’ve been worried about you! How is your husband? Is he home from the hospital? Is he okay?” She says this in a tone like she thought he was on his deathbed. So now I’m certain EVERYONE is confusing him with someone else, so I tell her that I don’t know who exactly from church is deathly ill, but it’s not Saresh. They looked so confused, but were glad at least my husband was okay. Since it wasn’t Saresh that was in the hospital, they didn’t know exactly who was.

I thought maybe that was the end of it, but then one of the guys on the endowment committee comes up to Saresh this Sunday and asks if he’s doing much better! And this guy KNOWS Saresh. They have a quarterly meeting together, so he would know if he was deathly ill (so I wrongly assumed). Again we have to explain that he is not sick - someone else is. Now endowment guy has no idea who is in the hospital either.

Turns out there’s some guy with the last name of Sumariwalla (or something similar). We don’t know him, and his first name is “ethnic” sounding - not even close to the nickname that Saresh goes by. He must not go to church much because no one seems to know who he is, but his name has been in the church program and monthly newsletter for being very sick in the hospital for months now. All these people keep assuming it’s Saresh because of the name - they don’t remember our last name, so they just assume this “ethnic” sounding last name must be Saresh!

Some poor guy is gravely ill in the hospital but Saresh is getting all his sympathy. I imagine all these sweet people praying regularly for Saresh instead of the right guy, and Saresh isn’t even sick! I figure God at least knows enough to redirect the prayer where it should go, but still. It just cracks us up that they even know Saresh’s first name, but still think this sick guy is him, even though they see us at church often. And our last name is short and simple - people sometimes think it’s Spanish. It does not resemble Sumariwalla in the slightest.

I tried to think if Saresh and I knew people’s last names at church well enough - and for the people that have asked about him, we do know their first and last names. And, we have the tougher job because they all have German names. They only have to remember apparently TWO non-German last names. We should probably be irritated, but it’s kind of hard to be when they all obviously think enough of Saresh to be this concerned about him - whatever his name may be. I keep thinking I should write a thank you note (for all the prayers and well wishes) to appear in the newsletter. Better not.

A while back, Love Generously wrote two articles called Community Values and Community Values, Part Two. If you didn’t read them (and aren’t going to) the gist was that her husband got a new job much further from their home, but they chose not to move because they’d have to live in white bread suburbia, and they thought it was better for their Hispanic kids to live in their current mixed race community. Part Two gave a real life example of how their community affects them in that capacity (her daughter going to the ballet and getting to see a Hispanic ballerina).

We had some disagreement on my part because my personal opinion was that I’d rather live in Whitesville than lose an extra 2 hours a day with my kid’s father. I felt that time with DD’s father would trump having easy access to a rainbow of faces in daily life, arguing that you could still take your kid to the ballet or wherever the non-white people abound if that was important to you.

My opinion on that hasn’t changed - I’d personally still choose having my husband for 2 extra hours; however, I have been thinking recently how much what she said has merit in my family’s life. Thankfully, my family wasn’t put in the same situation as LG’s (having to choose where to live because of a job change), which makes my decision much easier. I don’t have to think about things like that because DD sees Indian people all the time and all the other races, too, on a daily basis. She’s the only brown kid when we go somewhere as often as she’s in the racial majority (or just the “brown colored” people majority anyway).

One of DD’s favorite haunts is our city’s Children’s Museum. Though the museum is located in a primarily mixed ethnicity area (white being the most prominent still though), on any given day the majority of kids there may be black, due to field trips and camp trips of primarily black schools, which we have a large number of in our city. On a recent trip to the museum, I was given pause to remember LG’s articles. The museum has a miniature room (sized for little kids!) that DD likes, and she and I were having a tiny tea party. A trio of black boys (about 7-8 yrs old) from a field trip peeked in the room (we were the only ones in there - it’s like our secret place) and asked if we were having a tea party. We said yes and asked if they’d like to join us. They did and DD served them all tea and cookies, which they proceeded to pretend to eat. She was so prim and proper serving them, and I couldn’t believe they’d want to have “tea” with a 4-year-old! But they all seemed to have a blast.

She’s never once asked me about another person’s skin color or obvious cultural differences (like clothing, etc.) - not when we go to an Indian event and I’m one of the only (if not only) white person there, not at the zoo where it’s a multi-culti fest complete with a large number of Amish visitors, and not even when we visit the museum and both she and I are usually in the minority. I have wondered on occasion if she’s just not attuned to it, but I don’t think that’s it.

Later that evening at dinner, she was telling Saresh how much fun she had at the museum and about how she made new friends at her tea party. Then she says, “I liked their hair. It was short and black, like yours used to be before you shaved it.” Then she babbled on about the rest of her day. I loved that the boys’ hair is what caught her fancy that day, and that they reminded her of her dad.

DD’s growing up so differently than I did (rural Whitesville) and it gives me a lot of hope for the future, especially when I see grown-ups behaving so badly. For her, people are just people and she expects them to be/look different because that’s all she sees on a daily basis – a great big bunch of people who ALL look different from each other. She likes to look through my magazines and say which of her friends the kids in the magazine look like. She never points out their eye shape or skin color or even asks any questions about them - it’s just, “this girl looks like Sophia!” (Chinese) and “this girl looks like Melissa!” (mixed race) and “this girl looks like Claire!” (white). When everybody’s “different,” basically no one is to her. It’s a non-issue, and I hope it stays one in her life. I think she will be confused as she gets older when she finds out how much of an issue some people make it. I wish I could feel what it was like to look through her eyes right now.

I’m posting a link to this blog, The Daughters of India, by Barbara Raisbeck. I’m not posting this because it has anything to do with interracial relationships, but because I was intrigued and then thoroughly heartbroken and wanted to increase awareness. I had no idea any of this was going on. I just wanted to pass it along in the hopes that it helps someone - anyone.

She also includes a post with a link to 50 Million Missing - also very worth your time to visit and learn.

I am thankful every day as a woman to be born and living where I am. I’m blessed that my daughter lives here.

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Edited to add: Thanks to Devaki’s blog, I also found these two web sites, which are profound:

From Indian Homemaker: Can an Indian Daughter say, “Mere paas maa hai!”?
And Unchaahi: Crying for Love

A little funny for your weekend - here’s some amusing blog search terms people have used to find CBC. I haven’t been keeping track much for a while, and if you read the last one, you’ll know why. It’s hardly worth it to look anymore.

indian guys cant get white girls
single indian guy frustrated
indian guys are drama
I thought these three belonged together, as they follow in a logical (and yet hysterical) order. I think #3 explains #s 1 and 2 quite well.

huge hips tall moms gallery – I just don’t know what to say to this, except I have NO IDEA how it made my blog come up.
clothing for immigrants – Your Scarlet Letter will be issued shortly. You must attach the large red “I” to all of your clothing so everyone is aware you are an immigrant. Failure to wear your letter is punishable by law.
hindu child birth good days – Lots of people are into picking a most auspicious day for a wedding, or buying a house, or whatever. But I honestly think someone was trying to schedule which day is most auspicious to birth a child. Can you imagine? “Sorry sweetie. I went the natural route and let my body decide which day you would be born. It wasn’t auspicious so your life is completely doomed. Bummer, huh?”
full monty party india 2008 – I’m SO THERE!!!!!
shaved head looks good on old guys – Mmmm… depends on the old guy.

And finally…
erika sawajiri – this is the #1 search term to find my blog. We apparently have a picture of her somewhere on a post called “Eurasian Portraits” which is also one of the most read posts. Apparently, people on the internet have a serious hard-on for this woman. I’ve never counted up the times she comes up (or derivatives of her name), but it’s every single day. Since that post went up, Erika sometimes sucks up half the spaces on my blog search terms. I don’t hardly see funny ones anymore because she’s taking all the spots!

I’m giving a shout out to Nigel who runs the Retire 2 India blog in my blogroll. He was one of the the only few people to find my blog when I first started it. I wrote a post called Whacked Out Retirement, about how my in-laws wanted to retire to India and how I thought it was crazy for a variety of reasons.

Nigel was so nice (he and his wife are planning on retiring to India). He referred me to his blog and also answered some of the concerns I had. And after checking out his blog and talking to him, I found that the in-laws’ plan wasn’t so crazy and could actually work. However, we still have to deal with the fact that we don’t want them to go. Ugh.

Nigel has put some serious effort into that blog - he has great resources and really goes to great lengths to answer real questions (check out his current post!). IMO, he’s also wicked smart. There’s also some good info on other locales you can retire to early, book reviews (very well done), and of course all the great stuff on retirement in India. It’s not all finance related - he has an older post with info on some hot retirement spots in India that I thought was good for tourism purposes (complete with some pics).

Many moons ago on this blog, there was a big discussion about the movie the Namesake. Lots of differing opinions on whether the white girl in the film sucked, or the Indian boyfriend sucked harder - it was a toss-up. I think most of the people who thought the white girl sucked for being clueless about Indian culture have moved on from this blog. But for the rest of us, this is an interesting development…

One of our regular commenters (who has been much vilified), had quite a bad reaction to that movie at the time she saw it, since she was dealing with her Indian boyfriend’s family. They apparently behaved (and continue to behave) like an episode of Jerry Springer, so admittedly she had a dim view of them. But then this showed up in our mailbox:

“I had to email you because you are the only people who will understand this.  So, tonight, the only thing on TV after I got home from the gym was The Namesake.  I think I said before that I really hated this movie - it really offended me and it just made me angry and resentful.  I was kind of scared of it stirring that up again, but Raj is travelling and I was too tired to do more work so I left it on.

Not seeing his parents for almost a year now must have really relieved a lot of my resentment towards Indian culture at large, because the movie’s main couple and their culture did not bother me at all.  I thought they were really sweet and had nothing like the reaction I had before.  Given there are negative aspects of the culture described on Bad Indian Girl and elsewhere that weren’t depicted in this movie, but overall it struck me how entirely different Ashoke/Ashima were from Raj’s parents - and why the heck did I see so much of them in the movie before?  It made me think a woman in my department (a white, Jewish professor who lived in India for a few years) was possibly right when she said, “There are a**holes everywhere.  These people just sound like a**holes.”  I think maybe I just got a set of particularly damaged in-laws.

Anyway, I just had to tell you guys because I was shocked by what a different take I had on this movie tonight. “

Just maybe…when we are hurt and nursing some serious wounds, the only thing that heals it is time?

So cheers for getting through a rough year, congratulations on your upcoming engagement party, and we wish you and Raj all the best because you two totally deserve it. And we better see some wedding pictures, too! (Lord I’m probably going to sob when I see them, how did I get so emotionally invested in someone else’s marriage? lol)

I was thinking about this since people have been throwing this statement around a lot:

“How can you not like XYZ culture? If you love a person, then how could you not at least respect the culture that “made” them?”

I’ve seen this several times, and I think in the past I may have made a like statement. (I can’t remember right now and I don’t feel like hunting, but I think the sentiment was similar.)

But I think there is a difference between liking certain things about a particular culture, and automatically revering culture as some sort of god, just because you’re raised in it.

When I think about who I am (and yes I do a lot of self-reflection, because this is part of my spiritual life), I never think in my head “I’m an AMERICAN!”. Never. I simply don’t associate the person that I am, with all of my faults and strengths and inner spiritual workings, with American culture.

I’m an American, yes. I was raised here, yes. But do I pledge allegiance to all things American, and do I think that America is perfect and beyond criticism? Hardly. And it’s not because I think American culture is inferior to others - it’s that I think ALL cultures are inferior to what really matters. It’s not about cultural relativism for me. It’s about the One who really, truly made me.

Do Levi’s blue jeans and hot dogs make me who I am?

Does democracy and the free market system make me who I am?

Certainly not. Because my good points (empathy toward others, willingness to sacrifice for my family, self-denial, etc) are not the result of being an American. Thus, Ang is not obligated to love America simply because he fell in love with me.

I think some people believe that we are all the result of purely our environment - that the culture is what shapes us, what defines our outlook on life, etc. “Culture” is actually a religion to some people in this way.

Because Ang and I are Christians, and because there are Christians in every nation on this planet, we don’t revere culture in the same way that others seem to. Culture means little to us, besides a geographic location, a language, and a style of dress/type of cooking. While it’s fun to explore different cultures, it’s a little like sampling a box of chocolates. Some we like more than others. But how much does chocolate really matter, in the end?

It’s been fun to explore cultural differences on this blog, and for CBC it’s been therapy since her intercultural marriage started out really hard!

But that just isn’t enough. We have to go beyond that because culture isn’t a monolith, and spending all of your time trying to analyze culture (or worse yet, trying to make yourself into someone else through the use of culture) seems like spinning your wheels and never really getting anywhere.

There’s just so much more.

I’ve added The Inter-faith Marriage Network web site to the blogroll. From their web site:

We’re in mixed marriages ourselves and we’ve listened to many other people in interfaith, intercultural and international relationships. We started the Interfaith Marriage Project because we realized that very little help or information was available for people like us, and couples and families often have to face the issues alone. As more and more people are forming relationships with partners of other faiths and cultures, it’s important for us to support one another.

We’re not here to tell you whether your relationship is right or wrong, or whether it can ‘work’. But we can help you ask the right questions and sometimes suggest things that have helped other couples. So you’ll find articles and links about everything from weddings and baby naming ceremonies to recipes and festivals, and don’t forget to look at our discussion forum.

We’re a network rather than a formal organization with members and officers, and we’re doing this in our spare time, so please be patient if we can’t respond to immediately.

It’s a U.K. based site, so some resources may not apply to U.S. and couples in other countries, but I thought it was really helpful overall and it also has a great links page.