‘My children have to finish their plates – down to the last grain of rice’

“A wedding in China means being surrounded by three hundred strangers all day long; your father’s boss, friends of friends, people your parents have to invite, because that’s the way it should be. It didn’t seem like anything to me. I’m too practical for marriage: so much hassle for a piece of paper. I found the same practical approach in my colleague Hugo, whom I met in 2007 at the Amsterdam Trust Office.

A few years earlier I had moved from Shanghai to Groningen to study law and later economics. Quite far from home, but I didn’t mind that. As a thirteen-year-old I went to a boarding school and saw my parents only once a week. Without their strict rules of life, I was able to develop my own identity. The distance was actually good for our relationship. In the Netherlands I found the individual freedom I was looking for; I met many people from different backgrounds and customs.

Fifty-fifty

The first time I saw a woman carrying a large overnight bag while her husband whistled next to it, I laughed. That would not be possible in China, where a man even carries his wife’s handbag. I loved the Dutch sobriety and independence; hence the click between Hugo and me. Where in China all tasks for men and women are strictly divided, Hugo and I do everything fifty-fifty and we each have our own expertise: Hugo, for example, focuses on buying a car and I plan the holidays. But in the end we decide together, so as not to hear afterwards that a destination was stupid, or a car ugly. We are both responsible.

Distance

In Chinese culture, parents unintentionally put a lot of pressure on their children. For example, by offering them all the opportunities they never had as a child. Different sports, music lessons, art, dance: what can your child already do? In addition, they do everything for their children, often with the idea that the son or daughter will later ‘pay back’ in the form of money or care. I don’t want that: Olivier and Felix have to do what they want and when they are eighteen I release them – they don’t have to take care of us. I create the same distance that was so important to me. Precisely because the Chinese culture is so overprotective, I enjoy watching Hugo let the boys do the hammering. Do it yourself! With the ‘downside’ that he doesn’t spoil them easily either. Hugo will not easily buy them a present like I do – perhaps that Dutch frugality.

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roots

I also pay more attention to a movement like Black Lives Matter. Logical, because Hugo has no experience whatsoever with discrimination. I myself sometimes get comments on the street because of my Asian appearance, especially in the beginning with corona, and I realize that it can happen to the children too. That’s why I think it’s important that they know their roots. We speak Dutch at home, but our oldest online Chinese lesson has recently started. If they realize that they are Dutch and Chinese and they know their culture, then they are in a stronger position – should they ever have to deal with discrimination.

Collaborate

In terms of food, they know the Chinese culture well. We eat rice every day, except when Hugo makes my favorite food: kale. When I met Hugo, he didn’t like shrimp, fish, or cauliflower. I understood that, given the boring Dutch way of cooking. But he likes it with a little sauce in the wok.

I am strict about food. I used to be lucky enough to grow up in the city where we were better off than the people in the countryside. I want Olivier and Felix to appreciate what they have and thus eat their plates down to the last grain of rice, out of respect for the hard work of rice farmers. Hugo is more relaxed about that. Not hungry? Then not.

When Olivier was about to be born at 33 weeks, Hugo was really worried. As a mother, the one carrying the child, I had more confidence: I felt it would be okay. Now that the kids are older, I’m a bit stricter and Hugo is the one who stays calm and confident. He takes on the father role one hundred percent more than a Chinese man would. Hugo and I really work together. In Dutch. Very practical.”

This article can be found in Kek Mama 07-2021.