Life with a Chinese Wife

Here is one version of a typical life with a Chinese wife. Don’t panic halfway through it though, you’ll feel better by the end.

When you marry a Chinese woman, you marry her whole family.  In no time at all, your house will be taken over by her parents, her grandparents, and her siblings and their families.  Be ready to refurnish your kitchen because your wife and the rest of her family will need more than one wok and an endless supply of chopsticks.  Oh, and those teeny tea cups that never seem to quell your thirst.

Speaking of chopsticks, unless you want everyone elbowing each other and making fun of you in whispers every time you sit down to a meal because you’re the only one using a fork and knife, better develop your chopstick skills.  This means you’ll be more like a toddler learning how to eat on his own for the first time.  Who knows, you may even lose all that excess weight from how little you’ll be able to actually pick up with your chopsticks and the even smaller amount that successfully reaches your mouth!  Have you ever tried eating rice with chopsticks?  Switching to an all-liquid diet may be better!

Speaking of your diet, prepare your taste buds and stomach for all sorts of animal parts and, well, animals.  You may also want to practice eating with a blindfold.  That way, you can just enjoy the different textures and interesting flavors without really knowing what it is you’re eating.

With her entire family living under the same room as you and your wife, never forget to lock the bathroom door, especially when you’re pondering on the meaning of life while sitting on the toilet.  There’s no such thing as privacy to Chinese families. 

Your living room will undergo an ultimate makeover, too.  One day, you’ll come home from work and actually think that you walked into the wrong house.  Your comfortable couch and your favorite chair and its matching ottoman have been replaced by hard, awkward, and plastic-covered furniture.  Your second thought will be, “Was your house broken into?” 

You know that saying “The wife is always right?”  Forget about that.  From now on, remember that a Chinese wife is omniscient.  And she’ll knock your socks off with her amazing memory recall.  She’ll display this amazing skill every time you have a quarrel.  Most of the time, she’ll win an argument because you’ll be so stumped about a small mistake she brings up and that you supposedly made ten years ago that you completely forget the point you were trying to make.  It’s actually a very effective battle strategy. 

If you’ll be late coming home from work, for heaven’s sake don’t forget to call her to let her know.  Just make sure you can spare at least an hour so you can answer all her questions about why you’ll be late, who you’ll be with, where you’ll be going, if there will be women around and, if yes, how old they will be and what do they look like, and so on and so forth.  Better yet, just don’t be late. 

If you’re still looking for a Chinese wife, don’t lose heart and don’t get turned off, either.  Chinese women come in all shapes, sizes, and dispositions.  Just remind yourself again of what a typical life with an American wife would be like!  More importantly, remind yourself again what makes Chinese women the most ideal wives.

Disclaimer: This article is meant to be a humorous take on Chinese-foreign marriages and was adapted from a popular talk show host’s, Brother Sway’s, blog post (The Misfortunes of Foreign Husbands Married to Chinese Wives) which was reprinted on the All-China Women’s Federation website, http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/147202-1.htm.  

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