Cultural Distinctions of Chinese and American Families—Analysis of the Movies Pushing Hands & Everybody’s Fine (6)

4.2 Suggestions for Possible Problems in Transnational Marriage between China and America

As has shown in the movie Pushing Hands, Alex and Martha lead a transnational marriage; such a combination can collect all kinds of cultural differences in one compact relationship. We can discover that the couple’s life is hard but sustainable, though gone through many frustrations and bafflement; they still carry on living together.

Nowadays, it is common that people from different countries get married, especially in coastal areas and international metropolis; people can communicate with each other without time and space limitation. However, due to the changes in living surroundings and people they associated, transnational marriage faces great challenges. Divorce cases increasing year by year as the transnational marriage ratio increase. Such a marriage is not always as romantic as they seems to be, due to the lack of adequate understanding of different customs and culture, some of the marriage fail to continue.

Problems might be emerge like: long term separation lead to indifferent between husband and wife; lack of solid foundation of togetherness; the dishonest purpose of choosing such a marriage; differences between language, habits and religions make transnational marriage lack a sense of belonging and identity.

There are lots of problems in transnational marriage, but we still have ways to avoid them, here are some recommendations:

Firstly, make sure that love is the basis of marriage.

Love to marry but not marry to love. Without love, there would not be further companion. Love is the initial thing that should be taken into consideration. Marriage is to find a person who can hold hand with and company with to the end of the life. While some people covet after temporary material enjoyment or out of curiosity.

Secondly, make rational decisions.

Choosing transnational marriages should foresee the potential problems in the future. Languages, habits, religious beliefs and other issues must be clarified before the determination. This is the responsibility that to be burdened. Marriage is not a trifling matter. Before making the choice, people should clearly know whether can overcome these problems or not. The rational thinking process for the future of married life problems may arise to be pre-prepared. When problems do arise, it would be dealt with calmly.

Thirdly, make well preparation for transnational marriage.

The first thing to be solved is language. Since language is a tool for communication, it can convey thought and emotional feelings. To choose transnational marriage, capability of the language of the other side is essential. The second thing is to learn to be tolerant and understandable. The more easily understand each other's thinking and behavior, the more easily to solve the problem.

And lastly, marriage needs operation.

The important thing is that both sides should devote to build the marriage more beautiful. Accept the differences among, will to adapt the difference, and find more consensus than disagreement. Mutual respect and understand plays an important role in keeping the family operates well.