Dear Jacques,

In my opinion, marriage whether it's intercultural or within the same culture, is not and easy task and not for the fainthearted. Like in the fairy tales or in the movies it cannot soley work on love but you need to build your marriage on that.

Marriage is a union between two personalities and if one cannot have a hundred percent satisfaction on oneself most of the time how can it work between the two?

Without understanding each other it's a bumpy road most of the way. When you have children it gets harder since there no special training how to raise your children. Sheer hard work and many trials and errors is the order of a parenting life.

Divorce may seems to be a solution but in terms of human cost I don't think it's not. In Burmese we have this saying where we have to think very hard before we decide to go ahead and do it. These are, marriage, having a tattoo and building a stupa or pagoda. Onnce done they can never be rescinded.

However, these days one can remove a tattoo by using laser surgery and so can others be rescinded I suppose.

Hi Warazein,

I agree 100 per cent with you. Now young people divorce too quickly. They don't try to overpass the couple problem and the children pay for that.

But to return to the basic question, we have in France a saying "Marrie toi dans ta rue" (Get marry in your street. A good marriage is not a question of race, but a question of same social level, and so common interests.

Dear Friend,

People get together by common interest YES, but NOT necessary of the same social level The problem is interests often change with time and environment... In a relationship, the most important is the care for each other & good communication (all kinds of).

I'm a Texan married to an Iranian and it works great. Toronto seems to have tons of intercultural couples. I think it makes life more of an adventure, slowly learning about each others' worlds. Since being the same is impossible, it doesn't become a big emotional project to make the other person to be more like me.

My first post, I've been an Asia Observer reader for some time, just registered. I'm a caucasion female who has dated Asian males exclusively since my teens. I prefer Asian men who grew-up outside country. I have many friends, Asian females who have married American males. Of course these relationships work out well in many cases, but the old saying "East is East and West is West and Never the Twain Shall Meet" (or something to that effect) is true. One or the other must lean toward one main culture I think, but not totally. You take the best from each and celebrate. I am a strong woman, out-spoken I think I have a good sense of humor, but I detest the lack of structure or etiquette in this country, and so love that in other cultures. I treat my men (and anyone in my life that I love) like gold, but don't take an ounce of crap, like anyone with a modicum of self-respect. If a person IS interested in someone from a different culture and hasn't the courage to swat off whatever difficulties might come up from family, friends or strangers then they probably shouldn't proceed.

goggles wrote:

QUOTE:
I'm a Texan married to an Iranian and it works great. Toronto seems to have tons of intercultural couples. I think it makes life more of an adventure, slowly learning about each others' worlds. Since being the same is impossible, it doesn't become a big emotional project to make the other person to be more like me.

hi goggles

glad to see your reply here,
i agree with you.. marriage is an institution which needs two people ---to make it right..wether they belong to the same or different races.