What's it like marrying a foreigner?

What's it like marrying a foreigner?

JAKARTA (JP): All of us are driven by that thing called love,
and sometimes it leads us to people who come from distant lands
and cultures.

Indonesians and expatriates talked to The Jakarta Post about
their crosscultural marriages.

Irma Schwarze, an Indonesian woman married for more than 30
years to a German; they have four children.

The first time I saw him, I didn't feel anything but then it
clicked. My parents didn't agree -- they were screaming, "you
don't know him or where he is from". But I knew he was
responsible and diligent.

We were different religions, but God is one. Among my children
(one of them is TV presenter Briggita Priscilla) there is a
Buddhist, another a Muslim, one a Protestant -- we are a real
Pancasila family. And the other thing is that, after a while, all
men are the same, whether they are German or Javanese.

We were from the same kind of backgrounds, the same milieu,
which is probably why we are still together. After a couple of
years, many of my friends who married foreigners got divorced,
telling me they couldn't take this or that about living with a
foreigner ...

I think there have been changes in attitudes today because
there are many more crosscultural marriages. It was harder in the
past; people used to shout at me on the street, "hey hostess,
hostess" but I didn't care even when I was pregnant and walking
with my husband. Even my grandmother said to me, "Why do you want
to become a nyai (concubine)?"

Bill, an American in his 50s, who has been married for 12
years to a younger Indonesian woman. They are the same religion:

I don't think spouses in a mixed marriage are treated any
differently than anyone else here. You're expected to work
wherever you are, and the people who complain about not having a
work permit do not fit into Indonesian expectations of what
foreigners should be doing here in Indonesia ...

Atty Meigh, 44, married since 1982 to an Englishman. They have
two daughters:

My father was in the military and had traveled all over the
country and was quite broad-minded. It was his family, actually,
not him, who had the problem with me marrying a foreigner. My
husband converted because we believed it was the right thing to
bring the children up as one.

We met in Bandung, where I'm from, and then I was sent by my
company to work in England. I met his family -- they are from the
north of England and are very nice, very close-knit. I decided I
could live with this ... our exposure in the 1970s, when I was a
teenager, to western ways was very limited and I was expecting
life in the UK to be more or less the same as it was, but still
it was a shock. But I enjoyed the freedom, the privacy.

When we were living in England, we spent holidays in Indonesia
every two years. I taught the children about Islam and I showed
them that I am an Indonesian but they were still free to speak
their minds. But I also gave them the understanding that no
matter what, I am still from the East ...

Anne Parapak, an Australian married for almost 30 years to
former government official Jonathan Parapak. They have three
daughters:

I have now spent more of my life in Indonesia than in
Australia, but once you're past the age of 12 your cultural
formation, like your accent, is already there. I think it takes
an awful lot of humility to come into a new culture as an adult
and be considered impolite. I came here and to me using my left
hand in everyday life was nothing strange, until people started
telling me it was wrong and impolite. And all the while I was
looking at them and thinking, "well, all of you eat really
noisily".

But I think what was most important for me was living here for
two years before I married my husband. It was at his insistence,
so I would know what the way of life was like here. He also spent
seven years in Australia, so he could understand my point of
view ... At the end of the day, if the only person around you who
understands you is your spouse, then that's probably enough ... I
was helped by the fact that I never thought I must become
Indonesian, but one thing I learned from my husband is that if
you bash your head against a brick wall, all you get is a
headache ... (Bruce Emond)