Photo Credit: mckaysavage

A commenter at this site, Lurker Frequent (aka LF), has once again asked a really interesting set of related questions in the comments section of a recent post that I’d like to address as a proper post, since I have plenty to say on the topic. Here are his questions:

I am very curious to know about relationship dynamics in your Indian American Household, with regards to the cultural differences in customs in India and America.

More specifically, in India, people invite each other over and unexpectedly drop in and hang out and do things together. In the US it’s more planned, and “khatirdari” is less common in this DIY land. How does it work in your family? How do you handle all the social obligations of an Indian wife?

… the Indian bahu is “supposed” to do a bunch of stuff like cook, clean, wash, entertain the guests, manage social life etc. etc etc. It’s all voluntary though, no pressures in modern day families. How’s your “Bahurani” experience been like? Do you guys do all of that?

I think I’ll shelve the “chores” section of the question for a later date to focus on the hospitality portion of  LF‘s questions.

So what follows here are my thoughts on hospitality generally in intercultural households, the interculturalness (or lack thereof) of our household hosting , and some general tips that might be of use to others.

My Five Basic Rules of Hospitality for Our Intercultural Household:

1. Paraphrasing Emily Post: being a good host means having a sensitive awareness of the feelings of your guests. If you have that awareness, you have good hospitality, no matter which culture you’re dealing with.
2. However, I am not an Indian wife. This is not just an Indian household. Our hospitality will not be identical to the Indian version (if there is such a thing). That’s okay.
3. Likewise, Aditya is not an American husband. This is not just an American household. Our hospitality will not be identical to the American version (if there is such a thing). That’s fine.
4. While I’ll try my best to be polite and courteous to you in a manner that you’re used to,  there are also practical and ethical considerations. Also, I’m not a mind-reader.
5. If something isn’t working in our hosting routine, then Aditya and I need to discuss it. The values we care about in offering hospitality to our guests do differ – but this is only a weakness if we don’t communicate. Otherwise it’s a strength.

I think these rules are pretty clear by themselves. We’re a mixed-culture household, so the hospitality we offer is not going to be entirely Indian or American. On the American side of the ledger, we have frozen pizza in the fridge for guests dropping by during dinner, and our kitchen is generally a “help-yourself” kind of place. On the Indian side, most of our snacks & soda are imports, I always offer tea to anyone entering the house (mostly as an excuse to make some for myself), and you’re welcome to come over whenever and stay to whenever (friends have been known to come over, then mention that they’re spending the night), even if you just want to use us for our ping-pong table in the basement. (A common occurrence when we’re having a party is for guests to slip into the house unnoticed by the dogs or us, then head straight to the basement, where they’re discovered later playing ping-pong.)

American and Indian ways – that different?

However,  beyond basic customs (like offering tea or chaat to guests), I feel like it is somewhat artificial to say “this style of hospitality is American while that style is Indian. Frankly, I don’t feel like Aditya & I have a system of hospitality deeply different than what would occur if I were married to an American.  Perhaps LF‘s questions don’t give Americans enough credit in hospitality (I can’t speak to whether enough credit is given to South Asians or not).

For example, while my own family’s home didn’t operate on an “anyone’s free to drop in” manner, I do think that there are plenty of American homes that do. Consider southern hospitality, where it can be a point of pride to feed anyone who shows up around meal time. Or, to take a closer example to me, my grandparents’ household seems to have operated exactly in the “drop in whenever” manner while my father was growing up; with six children in the family, someone was always dragging a friend or three home, and the meals were made accordingly. In fact, my grandparents’ hospitality was (and is) so accepting of others that when my uncle was teaching English in Japan as part of the JET Program, he’d routinely tell Japanese acquaintances that they should stop in and visit his parents if they were ever in that part of California. Which resulted in more than one occasion of a Japanese visitor showing up on the doorstop, suitcase in hand for an overnight stay, speaking only enough English to make it clear that my uncle had sent them.

Perhaps the gene of welcoming folk into the house skips a generation, but, whatever the reason, I find that I feel the same way about guests coming to our house.  While we rarely have people come over without notice (see below), everyone in our social circle knows that they’re welcome to come over when they like. A coworker of mine, for example, more-or-less invited herself over to stay with Aditya and I during Christmas, since she won’t be able to be with her family – and this was absolutely fine with me. Some of this attitude, I suppose, might be because of Aditya’s influence – after all, he didn’t bat an eye when informed that this friend would be spending the weekend with us – but it’s also just the way I like to roll.

My easy-going attitude may also be partially due to the fact that it hasn’t been tested as hard as it seems Lucky Fatima,  Sharell of White Indian Housewife or C of American-Nepali Household. After all,  all of our South Asian friends, period:

1. have lived in the United States for at least five or six years
2. have gained their undergraduate degrees at American universities, and
3. are young (there’s no one older than 35 in our social circle here in DC)

Thus, all of our friends are pretty comfortable socializing in an “American” way (if there is such a thing). They call before coming over, and aren’t surprised that Aditya carries half of the hosting burden. Perhaps my attitude would change if I were faced with a more constant barrage of guests. Or more traditional ones. Would I feel more pressure to be a “normal Indian bahu”? Maybe. But, then again, maybe not – I’m not exactly one for compromising my values for the sake of appearances, as I discussed in my “When in Rome, Do As the Romans Do… Sometimes” post.  And things like gender equality (Aditya’s getting up to make the tea just as often as I am) and casualness (help yourself to whatever you’d like, don’t wait for me to offer it, ’cause I can be forgetful)  are things I value in my household.

General Tips to Ease Cross-Cultural Hosting

1. Remember that, as a host, you should be focused on making your guests comfortable – but there are limitations. If a guest comes over who’s afraid of dogs, we’ll put our two on leashes, and keep them away from the guest. But we aren’t going to kick the dogs outside in the winter (well, maybe the Malamute…).
2. Keep in mind that you live in an intercultural household, and that it’s okay for your hosting to incorporate traditions from both cultures. Your guests from a particular culture will probably be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
3. As a couple, talk about the limits you’d like to draw regarding how much you’re willing to follow any particular culture’s traditions in hosting guests.
4. If there’s a particular cultural “hospitality rule” that’s getting you frustrated or down, figure out a solution as a couple.  Consider creating a “code” you can use that won’t make a guest uncomfortable. For example, if guests coming over all the time was frustrating me, I’d probably create a “the dogs are restless with all the people around- I’m going to take them for a quick jog” code to Aditya to indicate to him that I needed more “me” time soon. (The dogs are always full of energy, so it’s not even a lie – just a convenient truth.)
5. Keep on hand the sort of things that guests coming over might appreciate to eat and drink – in our case, that means extra frozen naan, lentils, and Indian snacks, soda, and tea for the South Asians; spicy dried squid, mochi, and fine green tea for the East Asians; and frozen pizza and chips for the Americans. And extra toothbrushes (overnight guests) and ice cream for all.
6. If there’s a particular cultural hospitality tradition that you feel you must follow that you don’t particularly like (it happens), remeber that you’re still the one in control, making the choice to follow the tradition for some greater good. So grin, try to get some pleasure out of it (like your own home version of office buzzword bingo!), and know that that’s just part of being an adult.

Last Christmas, exactly a year and four days after our civil ceremony in the US, Aditya and I had our Hindu wedding in India. The date was picked for a combination of reasons: it was auspicious according to the astrologer Maa (Aditya’s mother) consulted; the weather in Calcutta would be near perfect for anyone not from Calcutta; and, most importantly, the groom and I could get time off of our jobs in D.C. to fly halfway around the world.

Of course, the timing also meant that I couldn’t spend the holidays with my culturally-Christian family in California, exchanging gift cards (Best Buy for Aditya, Borders for me), and watching various younger cousins, nieces, and nephews play with the cardboard boxes their toys came in. Still, I consented to go to India. We get out to the West Coast every season anyways, and I was told there’d be presents for me in India. (Sure, it also meant I could finally meet Aditya’s sister and his extended family, perform important Hindu marriage rites, see his homeland, etc, etc, whatever – today’s focus is on presents.)

Shall I start with the reasons why Indian wedding gifts are excellent?

Number One:

Indian weddings can last several days and have over a thousand guests – tiring, yes, but it also means days getting gifts. Maa and Baba (Aditya’s father) took pity on their shy daughter-in-law, and chose a ceremony that would only require me to be on center stage for a couple of hours with a few hundred guests looking on. The day after the wedding – Boxing Day for those keeping count – we had a modest reception, at least by Indian standards. We ended up receiving gifts for about four days in a row: wedding items in the days before the ceremony from family members, then gifts from guests after the wedding ceremony and during the entire reception. And our wedding was on the short side!

Number Two:

The guests actually give the gifts. Instead of placing all of the presents on a table off to the side, as is common in American weddings, Indians walk up to the bride and groom to hand them their gift. For better crowd control, there is typically a designated area where the bride and groom will be waiting to meet their wedding guests. For instance, Aditya and I had proper thrones:

While I was not thrilled to remain the complete center of attention for so many more hours after the wedding ceremony (see how my eyes are glazing over in fear and jetlag in the photo?), I do think that the throne idea is a good one. We were able to meet everyone at the wedding, exchange at least few words, and get a quick picture in. And because guests came up to us in small groups I could be briefed on who they were and how to greet them by Maa or Aditya.

Number Three:

Money is a seen as a perfectly acceptable gift. In fact, you can even explicitly tell guests ahead of time that money is preferable, as Maa did for us since luggage space is always tight. So practical! As an economist I can also appreciate that giving money tends to decrease the deadweight loss that results from getting a present that cost more than you value it at. (Of course, the story on deadweight loss is more complicated than the rediff article makes it out to be). Money gifts in India are typically given in envelopes made for occasion. A few we kept are pictured above. Many envelopes, although none shown above, come with a place on the front to glue a one Rupee coin, since it’s considered inauspicious to give money in even denominations.

Number Four:

Here’s the one that sends Indian gift-giving out of the ballpark (a right proper sixer for all you cricket fans): thank you cards are not required or expected in any way! Since the guests actually handed the gifts to us (mainly to me, actually), we were able to thank them on the spot. And, really, that’s much more personal than a barely-legible card produced in a marathon afternoon of note writing.

Lastly, Number Five:

Indians just pick really good gifts – at least for me! Except for a few culturally ill-informed pieces, which I’ll discuss in a future post, all of the (non-money) gifts we received were either beautiful pieces of artwork for the house, or lovely saris, shawls, or jewelry for me. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff, that I’m still ooohing over – especially since we’ve finally got everything unpacked and arranged around the house.

It was actually Aditya who got the bad hand as far as presents go – he missed out on the Christmas gift card craziness with my family, but was given only one gift – a very nice watch – meant for him at the wedding. Well, he also received a money envelope from one Uncle who was a close friend of Aditya’s father. Uncle’s years had brought him plenty of wedding experience, and perhaps a little clairvoyance: “This envelope is for you, Aditya, since all the other things will be for Gori… from now on.” Truer words were never spoken – being a daughter-in-law in Aditya’s family is a pretty sweet deal.

…of course, what Uncle didn’t know that there’s a Best Buy quite close to our house, and a lack of Christmas gift cards didn’t keep Aditya from purchasing a “wedding gift” or two for himself. So I guess we’re all winners in the end, at least as far as presents go. Except for those poor suckers American newlyweds writing thank you notes. Next time have an Indian wedding!