Tag Archive | "Cross Cultural Comparisons"

Broken Traditions? Intercultural Marriage and Cultural Continuity

Thursday, July 16, 2009

59 Comments

A new commenter, Lurker frequent, brought up this interesting topic in regards to intercultural marriages in the comments section of my last post: As an Indian in the USA; the only reason I would not want to marry a local is to not "lose" my own traditions and culture. Minds meeting , and matching interests and hearts are more important, but certainly , coming from an old and rich tradition, one would want to preserve it by having a completely Indian family, no? Thoughts? It seems to me that there are several issues in play here, some of which Aditya and I discussed in the comments section when Lf first wrote out his comment (do check it out). What is meant by cultural continuity? Is it something we should value, and if so, why? Does intercultural marriage (which often leads to Third Culture Kids) automatically mean that the cultures of the parents is ending? What does it mean to say that India has an "old and rich tradition" (compared, presumably, against America or other Western cultures' younger and poorer traditions)? Is it something we should value? What exactly do we mean by tradition, anyways? What sort of culture - or cultures - do we want to have in our own lives? For those of us in intercultural relationships, what (if anything) are we losing by not creating a monocultural family? Will our lives be richer for it? Poorer? What about extended families? Well, that's a lot of questions! Enough for a book or three, certainly, so I'll just give a simplified sketch of my own views on this matter, than open it up to the rest of you.

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ICR Review: Love’s revolution

Monday, March 24, 2008

1 Comment

Every so often you'll be seeing an in-depth review from Gori Girl about an intercultural relationship resource that might be useful to you. Shorter reviews can be found on the comprehensive list of resources on the page "Intercultural Relationship Resources."

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What Counts as an Intercultural Relationship?

Monday, March 24, 2008

20 Comments

Boy, I love me some good, high fiber intercultural friendship! Aditya informs me it's particularly tasty with warmed whole milk. His insistence that cold cereal is best eaten with whole milk that is not in its natural state of refrigerated coldness (oh, the horrors***) is one of many indicators that we might just be in an intercultural relationship. (I suppose his Indian passport, brown skin, and Hindu faith also belong on the list of indicators, although, frankly, I notice the milk-warming thing just as often.) Seriously, though - where is the line between just doing things a little differently, and being from two different cultures? Here on Gori Girl, we're pretty open about the definition of an intercultural relationship (henceforth ICR). Since culture is a broad, nebulous thing, finding someone of a different culture to be in a relationship with isn't that hard to do. "Relationship", by the way, is also a broad, nebulous concept, but we're not going to get into that. If you think you're in a relationship, be it hetro, homo, platonic, "it's complicated" on facebook, or whatever else, then you are, as far as I'm concerned. One concept at a time, and today's focus is on the intercultural part of ICR.

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