Gori Girl

Friday Connections 27-11-09

Friday, November 27, 2009

Friday Connections: a time when I give links and a bit of commentary to things I'd blog about if I had the time. This week the categories are mixed families, cross-cultural food, and gender inequality issues in India (with a really sweet video).

An Office Diwali Celebration

Monday, October 19, 2009

32 Comments

Ah, Diwali. Fesitval of lights. A celebration of good triumphing over evil. A time to bemuse your boss and win free dessert from your local Indian buffet. Right? As I've mentioned previously, I happen to work in a very diverse office - and with a recent switch in teams, I now report to a South Indian manager. He's a great boss, but, occasionally, well, I can't help myself - I'll mention a Hindu tradition or a Bollywood film just to see his reaction. You see, despite the fact that he knows I'm married to an Indian, he's always so surprised when I show any knowledge of Indian culture. Shocked, almost. So, of course, to celebrate Diwali this year I decided to wear a sari to work.

Book Review and Giveaway: Your Intercultural Marriage

Monday, August 17, 2009

13 Comments

Well, here's a first for this blog - a giveaway! I was recently contacted by the publishers of Your Intercultural Marriage: A Guide to a Healthy, Happy Relationship with the offer of a copy of the newly-published book to review - and five copies to give away to readers here. Of course, being the bibliophile that I am, I jumped at the chance. Details on the giveaway are at the bottom of the review.

Interracial or Intercultural Relationship?

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

36 Comments

What do you use: intercultural, interracial, or something else? I generally refer to my marriage - and speak of other relationships on this blog - in terms of cultural similarities or differences - mainly because cultural differences are where my interests lie. Thus, Aditya and I have an inter-cultural marriage, I write about the positives and negatives of intercultural relationships, and explore the values and beliefs of Aditya's and my cultures. And yet, culture alone does not tell the whole story. Race does matter in our relationship - at least in how the rest of society views our marriage.

Broken Traditions? Intercultural Marriage and Cultural Continuity

Thursday, July 16, 2009

60 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.

Intercultural Interviews: Indian Parents’ Perspective (Part Two)

Monday, July 13, 2009

43 Comments

This is the second part of the interview I held with my husband Aditya's parents (you can find Part One here). This part starts off with an interlude on Maa and Baba's first meeting for their "semi-arranged" marriage, then continues on the topic of their first impressions of me. I finally got them to discuss some negatives: what they find difficult in having a non-Indian daughter-in-law and my (apparently) one fault. We also discussed some of the things they dislike about general American culture (as it relates to interpersonal relationships), and ended with some advice Maa and Baba have for intercultural couples, both generally and for those having some difficulty with Indian in-laws.

Intercultural Interviews: Indian Parents’ Perspective (Part One)

Friday, July 10, 2009

58 Comments

I sat down with Aditya's parents, Maa and Baba, a few nights ago with a list of eight questions to find out their views on American culture and intercultural relationships... and we ended up talking for over an hour, thus necessitating a Part One and a Part Two. Today's portion focuses on the early days: their worries on sending their youngest son, Aditya, to a foreign country, thoughts on American culture, dating, and their first interactions with me.

A Day in Our Lives – With Indian Inlaws

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

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In a short few days the only hope I'll have in the blearly mornings is that it might just be Bagel Monday in the office. When I crawl out of my sleep coma, you see, sophisticated details like which day of the week it is are completely beyond me - any day could be Bagel Monday. My primitave mind is only concerned with two things: getting our dogs, Kajol & Panda to shut up and stop wrestling on my larynx and/or bladder, and what sustenance awaits me that might be a good enough incentive to get out of bed. This past month, though, Bagel Monday has diminished in significance, and glorious 20 Ounces of Ginger Tea Everyday (With Biscuits!) has replaced it as my main morning motivator. I love it when my in-laws are staying with us. Note that I didn't say visiting us - that would imply that Aditya's parents are house guests while they're here, while, as Baba says, it's their home too. Granted, our daily life changes some when Maa and Baba are here in Washington DC, the morning tea being just one example, but the changes are more minor than many people who hear my in-laws are in-town would expect. Since we're coming to the close of Maa & Baba's second extended stay out here (they were here last year in the late summer, and will be visiting once more this year), I thought that it'd be good time to write about the "typical day" in our household while Aditya's parents are here.

To Hug or Not to Hug: More on Meeting the Parents

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

26 Comments

Aditya's parents are visiting us again for the second time - they arrived late last week - which has cut into my blogging time as we catch up with them. Of course, it also means plenty of blogging material is being generated with our temporary extended family living situation. The last time they visited I only got out one substantive post on the topic - I hope to do a bit better this time. Of course, that post - which was on the (eek!) order that Aditya's parents tried to bring to our home, disrupting my chaotic-but-somehow-functional mess of a system - still haunts us. Today Baba and Maa dusted and vacuumed the house while we at work - and then jokingly pointed out after I arrived home that my piles of mess were exactly where I left them, just cleaner. (Little do they know that if I am stymied in blogging about their dastardly actions of cleaning our house & cooking delicious meals I have no problem in getting irrationally upset about some other minor issue. For example: the fridge has been reorganized without my express permission, and the dishwasher was inefficiently loaded, resulting in one less cup being washed than if I had loaded it. I'm still reeling!) Since I haven't had a chance to sit down and think through a post lately, I thought I'd share with you the transcript I've typed up in spare minutes from an NPR segment called Intercultural Relationships: Can They Work?. I'm not a professional transcriber, so there may be errors - but I figured something was better than nothing for those of you who can't (or don't like to) listen to podcasts. The segment (and my post title) was developed from an article in East West Magazine. The article, which you can find here, is quite complimentary to the NPR segment, and I encourage you to read it as well as the transcript below. I've bolded the parts I find particularly interesting, and will post my thoughts on it tomorrow in the comments section.

Cross-Cultural Connections in your Community

Monday, January 26, 2009

24 Comments

I share my office with a Chinese-American man. My team at work consists of said office mate, an Indian-American (Gujarati) guy, a Turkish fellow, a white dude from the Midwest, my Taiwanese female boss, and three Indians in our Delhi office (two Mr.'s and a Ms.). The offices closest to mine include said Turkish fellow, a Bangladeshi bloke, an Indian (Bengali) lady, a Ghanaian-American gent, a French woman, and a Nepalese chap. Really. For those of you keeping count, that's two Caucasian Americans (including myself) out of fourteen folk. With numbers like those, as you may guess, I don't talk to white Americans all that much while at work. (Or women, either - but that's what you get for working in a field dominated by economists and engineers.) However, even when I step outside the office, I've found that I don't interact with a many people - or, really, more than a handful of people - who appear to be from the same general cultural & racial background as my own. Frankly, it's a little odd now that I think about it.

A Mixed Pair

Monday, January 5, 2009

10 Comments

It was really early in the morning, you see, when the dogs informed us that they needed to go out. My turn to let them out, unfortunately, but afterwards the three of us agreed the hike back upstairs was too long, so we settled on the couch for a nap until the sun was properly up. Well, Kajol - a total snugglebunny - and I settled on the couch, and Panda slept on the cool floor next to us. Panda Bear is the latest addition to our family, and, as an Alaskan Malamute, he tends to be a bit too warm to snuggle comfortably for that long indoors. He's about two and a half years old, and another rescue dog - poor pup spent most of his life tied in a field with grass so high he couldn't see out of it before Animal Cruelty rescued him. When he came to us he was twenty pounds underweight and didn't know what a treat was or how to play with another dog. He's still a bit of a failure with treats - he's excited to get one, but just drops it afterwards for Kajol to eat. Kajol, however, has taught him to play like a champion at the only game she knows: wrestling. We often look out onto the deck to see Kajol's head disappearing into Panda's massive jaw, or him just calmly sitting on Kajol while she struggles to get free. They're a well-matched pair, despite being from such different breeds - and I suppose there's a semi-corny lesson in there for all of us in an intercultural relationship, or, really, any mixed relationship where looks or personalities or abilities differ.

Any Chicagoites Interested in Some Press?

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

2 Comments

I know we have some ladies (and perhaps gentlemen) here who call the Windy City home. Well, if any of you are interested, I've recently been contacted by a Chicago Tribune's Red Eye reporter, Alexia, about an article she's preparing to write on "meeting the parents." Alexia would like to include an intercultural couple in the article, and was wondering if anyone here would be interested in being interviewed: I'm a reporter with the Chicago Tribune's RedEye newspaper, a daily aimed at readers in their 20s and 30s. I stumbled across your blog while doing research for a story I'm writing. I'm wondering if you might be able to help with the story, given your blog's focus on intercultural relationship issues.

Indian Parental Problems: When Your Intercultural or Interracial Relationship Is Suddenly an Issue

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

94 Comments

A new reader to the blog, jbf, recently posted her personal story as a detailed comment in the post Initial Family Resistance to your Intercultural Relationship. Jbf's problem, however, is a bit different from the one highlighted in that post, so, with her permission, I'm hoisting her comment up into a post of its own, along with the comments from others that followed her original one. I'm sure she'd appreciate any further advice or suggestions you guys have. My own advice will be coming in the comments in a couple of hours. Of course, I'm not sure if I can do any better than what's been said so far - I'm very impressed with the level of thoughtful dialogue occuring here! Jbf's story & problems: I’m not sure if it is too late to comment on this, but I just came across it while searching for comfort in my situation. My friends and family have given me their support, but in matters of intolerance I do not know if they can offer anything more. I (a 25 yo white American girl) have been dating an Indian guy (born in America to Punjabi parents who moved here 2 years prior) for two years. I will call him B. We both hold graduate degrees and have careers. We met while in graduate school through mutual friends. We lived in different cities but found out that our parents lived only 15 minutes from each other. We quickly became close and decided to start a relationship despite the distance. I met his family very early on. They were receptive and welcomed me into their home. I even spent the night on multiple occasions. When he would come visit me he would bring small gifts from his mother, candles, potpourri, etc. I spent Christmas with his immediate family the last two years (I have not met extended family beyond cousins as dating is not a part of Indian culture). He graduated and started a job about a year ago. Within a few months of this we decided that when I graduated in a year I would find a job where he was and that we would move in together with the intent of being engaged within a year. Although untraditional it was important to both of us to be together in the same place before making such a commitment.

Confluence on the Roads: Thoughts about American, Indian, and German Traffic

Saturday, June 21, 2008

12 Comments

Yesterday Aditya and I made the trek to the holy queen of all box stores, IKEA. It was the first day of the Preview Summer Sale, so of course we were there, battle plan mapped out, lists made, room measurements at hand, and stomaches ready for meatballs. The plan was that I would arrive mid-afternoon with the U-Haul rental van (the better to transport our loot - we take IKEA seriously in this household), and Aditya would come directly from the office once he was off work at 7. Once there, my orders were to make one reconnaissance sweep, then head to the ground floor to secure the bed we've been trying to purchase for the past year. Yes, we've been sleeping with a mattress on the floor for a year rather than give up on our dream cheapo bed just because of little things like it always being out of stock. We plan, and God laughs. I think it was when the third firetruck passed me, sirens blaring, and traffic ground to a complete standstill that I realized I would not be reaching IKEA at 1300 hours. There I sat, stalled on the highway, surveying the baking asphalt meadows around. To pass the time, I started observing the cooperation of the other drivers in responding to the emergency vehicles and the on-going traffic jam, and thinking about how other car cultures I'm familiar with cooperate in their own ways.

Interracial Hate Crime in Elkhart, Indiana

Sunday, May 11, 2008

21 Comments

I've finished up with dreadful exams just in time to hear about a dreadful incident in northwest Indiana. According to the AP report: An interracial couple who awoke to find a burning cross in their front yard in Elkhart are praying for peace and asking for privacy. Maggie Williams says the cross burning took her and her husband, Adam, by surprise. The FBI is investigating the cross burning, which police are calling a hate crime. Elkhart police say the 5 1/2 by 3 1/2 foot wooden cross was left burning against a tree about 15 feet from the couple's front door about 2:30 a.m. May 2. The Williamses have met with Mayor Dick Moore and representatives from the police department, the FBI and the NAACP. Bradley Vite, a family friend, says they also expect to meet with a Department of Justice official.

Why the Gori of Gori Girl?

Friday, April 18, 2008

20 Comments

There's been some talk in the comments about the word gori, which, given the blog name, is probably a term you'll hear thrown around here from time to time. So I thought I'd explain what it means, some of the connotations it can carry, and why I chose it for the name of this blog - as well as my pen name. What does gori mean? The following was derived from Aditya’s lengthy comments on the etymology of the word gori – be thankful that I’m sparing you all of the tangential diatribes that developed during our conversation. Gori is a Hindi adjective that literally means “fair” or “light-complexioned”. The i at the end of the word is a feminine conjugation, so gori is often used as a noun, with the subject being understood without explicit reference. In this slightly looser interpretation of the word, gori can mean “pale female”, “fair woman”, or even “white girl”. The masculine version of gori is gora, which can be translated as white man. Since I’m awfully pale-skinned, at least in the winter, gori can be rightly used as an adjective to describe me, or as a noun in reference me.

Who is Affected by your Intercultural Relationship?

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

36 Comments

Many people subscribe to the idea that your personal life is nobody's business but your own - as long as you aren't maiming others, anyways. While I generally agree with the sentiment this idea expresses, I also think it's important to realize that, like it or not, your actions affect a wide swath of people. In fact, at the margin, your actions affect the entire world. Let's all pause for a moment to ponder that grandiose thought while breaking out into The Circle of Life. Everyone back? Good. I brought up this topic because being in an intercultural relationships has a tendency to disrupt the "social equilibrium," if you will, of the people around you. In almost every country and region an intercultural relationship is the exception, not the norm. So while being in any relationship might affect those close to you - my dad still hasn't gotten over the fact that I'm no longer his little girl - intercultural relationships are both a regular ol' relationship and something of a challenge to the status quo. As if romantic relationships weren't tough enough on their own! In this post I'm focusing on how intercultural relationships, in particular, affect those around us. I'll start out by laying out a (non-comprehensive) list of the type of people who can be affected by your intercultural marriage or relationship, continue with how these effects ripple out through the social web of life, and then finish up with how much you should really care about it all. This post developed as I thought about how parents can react to their children's intercultural relationships - I'll be applying the principles and theory I develop here to that post, which will be the next "serious" one.

Indian Wedding Story: Part One

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

15 Comments

I've mentioned previously that Aditya and I recently had our Hindu wedding ceremony in India, and I've been meaning to write a post or two (or a hundred) about my experiences in India. And then a reader mentioned that she liked the pictures of the wedding that are sprinkled around the GoriGirl site, and would be interested in seeing more of them. So I thought I'd combine these two ideas and post a couple of pictures each day, working through the story chronologically. We'll start off with our arrival in Calcutta (also known as Kolkata - but I'll go with my inlaw's usage), where the wedding took place.

10 Reasons You Should Learn Your Partner’s Native Language

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

28 Comments

A reader in the comments asked for me to discuss how I've dealt with language issues in my intercultural marriage. From my side of things there haven't been many issues, since Aditya speaks English very well. This has allowed me to be really lax (read: lazy) about learning his native language, Bengali, which I absolutely think I ought to do. While developing the post on our language issues, such as they are, I started to think about all the great reasons I should get off my butt and start studying Bengali. The personal post will be up tomorrow, but for now here are ten reasons in no particular order, along with a bit of explanation.

Intercultural Families in the New York Times

Monday, March 31, 2008

0 Comments

In case you didn't catch it, there was a news article today in the New York Times on interracial people, entitled Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race. Since many intercultural marriages end up producing little beings which grow up to have some of the issues discussed in the article, I thought it might be of interest to you guys here. The article starts off with the obligatory mention of how Barack Obama has churned up discussion on the issue of mixed races, and then transitions into discussing how interracial issues in America have changed in recent years. It's a good, comprehensive piece, and I particularly like the bits that cover how parents feel about their mixed-heritage children. If the topic interests you, try checking out some of the links on the Intercultural Relationship Resources page here on Gori Girl for something a bit meatier.

Tag Archive | "Intercultural"

Friday Connections 27-11-09

An Office Diwali Celebration

Book Review and Giveaway: Your Intercultural Marriage

Interracial or Intercultural Relationship?

Broken Traditions? Intercultural Marriage and Cultural Continuity

Intercultural Interviews: Indian Parents’ Perspective (Part Two)

Intercultural Interviews: Indian Parents’ Perspective (Part One)

A Day in Our Lives – With Indian Inlaws

To Hug or Not to Hug: More on Meeting the Parents

Cross-Cultural Connections in your Community

A Mixed Pair

Any Chicagoites Interested in Some Press?

Indian Parental Problems: When Your Intercultural or Interracial Relationship Is Suddenly an Issue

Confluence on the Roads: Thoughts about American, Indian, and German Traffic

Interracial Hate Crime in Elkhart, Indiana

Why the Gori of Gori Girl?

Who is Affected by your Intercultural Relationship?

Indian Wedding Story: Part One

10 Reasons You Should Learn Your Partner’s Native Language

Intercultural Families in the New York Times

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