Happily Married to a Chinese National: Practical Tips on Chinese-Foreign Relationships

This book is great for someone who is in a cross-cultural or bi-national relationship though it is also suitable for anyone in any kind of romantic relationship. In this book, eight of the nine contributors have been married to their Chinese spouse for more than ten years. It is written from a foreigner's perspective; these foreign spouses are from the U.S., the U.K., Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Canada.

This book doesn’t focus on how a relationship is developed, but rather on how a relationship is maintained. However, each writer begins their essay briefly sharing how they met their Chinese spouse. Very quickly, they move on and offer practical tips on how their bi-national relationship works.

The difficulties married couples typically face are money, sex, communication, responsibilities, and appearance … just to name a few. Marriage doesn’t have to be a difficult challenge. Bi-national or interracial relationships can be enriching. Like someone leaving his own country and moving to another place to work or live, it widens a person’s horizons. However, marriage, especially an interracial or bi-national union, is a labor of love. It pushes the couple to not take things for granted.

The contributors cover multiple issues found in a marriage, especially interracial and bi-national marriages, and share their vast experience in making a cross-cultural marriage work. Topics include intercultural communication, conflict resolution, cultural differences, interacting with in-laws and relatives, raising children, living in a neutral third country, love and intimacy, and finances.