Just because you're from different cultures doesn't mean your differences are cultural.
Can romantic relationships transcend cultural boundaries? Not if we believe Susan Blumberg-Kason. In her memoir, Good Chinese Wife, she recounts the tale of her failed marriage to Cai Jun, a Chinese man she met while living in Hong Kong. Her book's back cover tells us that, "As they exchanged vows, Susan thought she'd stumbled into an exotic fairy tale, until she realized Cai--and his culture--were not what she thought." As promised, Blumberg-Kason recounts many failings on her husband's part, which she attributes to nebulous but seemingly immutable cultural differences. If that sounds like a leap of logic, it's because it is; Blumberg-Kason may have meant to regale us with a story of her struggles in love, but what she has provided instead is a confession of her own racism.
The book begins with Blumberg-Kason, attending graduate school in Hong Kong. She meets Cai, and, smitten, joins him for a date at a dance. Only weeks later, Cai informs her that he'd like to date her, but that, in China, people only date if they intend to get married. Naive and inexperienced, she accepts this as fact and agrees to date and thus marry him. The two are engaged, and Cai's parents encourage them to get married as soon as possible. They have a court ceremony in Hong Kong and a banquet in Cai's hometown of Hidden River. Unfortunately, Cai turns out to be a less than ideal husband, raising his voice or ignoring her when they disagree, spending long nights out with friends while expecting her to remain home, and watching pornographic movies without regard for her presence or comfort. They move to San Francisco and have a child, which Blumberg-Kason hopes will somehow stabilize their shaky marriage. Instead, baby Jake becomes the focus of more disagreements, both between Blumberg-Kason and Cai and between Blumberg-Kason and her in-laws. Cai threatens her with violence one evening in October and becomes increasingly emotionally distant over the following months. She files for divorce, and both she and Cai remarry. Her new husband, Tim, is a fellow American and as such carries none of those pesky "cultural differences."
It's a good thing, too, because Blumberg-Kason has a lot of blame to cast on cultural differences. Throughout the book, Blumberg-Kason attributes almost every wrongdoing on Cai's or her part to either Chinese culture's influence on Cai or her own attempts to conform to it. When Cai is unexpectedly distant at their second dance together, she chooses not to ask why. Instead, she says, "Drawing on my limited experience--and what I thought Chinese culture dictated--I felt like my only choice was to see what Cai would do." She seems to think all Chinese women are expected to be passive objects, who never stick up for themselves for fear of being accused of nagging. Meanwhile, Blumberg-Kason reacts to almost all of Cai's habits by blaming his culture, rather than Cai himself. During a stay in Hidden River, Cai rudely remarks that, "Women are dirty, especially in the summer," and insists that she bathe. Rather than confront him, she opines, "Numb, I continued to stand there and wonder if our cultural differences were greater than I could handle. Was it China, or was I the one at fault?" Which is to say, she believes there are only two possible flaws in her marriage: herself or all of China. This false dichotomy exempts Cai from taking the blame, because, after all, Cai is Chinese; since all Chinese men are the same, it would be silly to hold him accountable. Only toward the end of the book does she reconsider, writing, ". . . after all these years, I wondered if perhaps our cultural differences were not at the root of our problems, but rather irreconcilable differences that had nothing to do with culture." But she spoils this insight later by remarking,
". . . I had constantly struggled with the insoluble question of whether Cai's unkindness, his punitive temper, and his exclusion of me from his social life were a product of his Chinese upbringing or his increasing depression. Was it a cultural difference or a personality one? . . . the answer was finally clear to me: it didn't matter. What mattered was me."
It's as if she had readied herself to discard her generalizations against Chinese culture, realized she couldn't do so without admitting her shared failure in building a marriage, and backed away to save face. Thus, Blumberg-Kason chooses to learn nothing from her mistakes and, worse, leads the reader to do the same.
For all her discussion of cultural differences, Blumberg-Kason never takes a moment to dissect what cultural differences are. Perhaps, in her world, they are simply any difference of opinion held by two people of different cultures. But cultures are made of individuals, and individuals from the same culture disagree all the time. True cultural differences come from variations in societal norms, from differences in the way two groups operate. A language barrier or contrasting takes on table manners are easy examples.
There are genuine cultural differences between Blumberg-Kason and Cai, but they're not the main antagonists to their relationship. When Cai first visits the United States, he considers buying a gas station in a classified ad, thinking he's found an easy way to make money. As Blumberg-Kason explains, "He just didn't understand the way people found jobs in the United States. . . . It wasn't like China where the government assigned professions and places of employment." He has similar problems understanding the complexities of healthcare in the US (understandable, even for an American), having only ever received medical care provided by the Chinese government. Perhaps their most divisive cultural difference arises when Cai insists Blumberg-Kason not shower for a month following childbirth on account of Chinese superstition. Blumberg-Kason addresses this by pretending to consent, then showering while Cai is not home. She remarks only that, "These customs sounded like voodoo," a sentiment mirrored by her mother, who declares it, "sounds like witchcraft."
But what Blumberg-Kason overlooks is that cultural differences aren't something Cai has and she doesn't; they're a two-way street. She asks Cai to agree to a bris (Jewish circumcision) for their son, and he ostensibly agrees. But even as the mohel explains the procedure to him, she admits she "wondered if he really grasped what it would entail." However one feels about circumcision, most would understand Cai's shock and upset following the ceremony. Blumberg-Kason, however, laments his descent into "another funk," and describes him crying and shaking his head "like a child refusing his parents' orders." She paints Cai's reaction as a problem that he has, rather than a very human response to witnessing another man cut off a piece of his son's genitals. She never expresses regret for not explaining the procedure more clearly ahead of time, and she certainly never cites this cultural difference as a reason for their divorce.
There are, however, many sound causes for their divorce. Whatever my disagreements with Blumberg-Kason's characterizations of Chinese culture, her description of Cai establishes many flaws in her husband. He pays no attention to her comfort or desires when it is inconvenient to do so. He reacts childishly to disagreements, giving his wife the cold shoulder or raising his voice. During one particularly tense argument, he tells her, "You're so lucky I don't hit you." Even without the threat of violence, his parenting skills are questionable. When his infant son will not stop crying, he yells at him, placing him alone on the floor of one room and slamming the door as he leaves for another. But does Blumberg-Kason view these shortcomings as Cai's faults or as Chinese cultural norms? Blumberg-Kason never gathers the conviction to say.
Yet, while she never explicitly assigns blame, her feelings are clarified by the constant backdrop of "China." Not the nation, mind you--the word. Blumberg-Kason misses no opportunity to remind the reader when Chinese people are speaking Chinese, reading Chinese newspapers, watching Chinese television, listening to Chinese music, or eating with Chinese utensils. The cover blurb even describes Cai as "the Chinese man of her dreams." When she first hears Cai's life story up to their acquaintanceship, she remarks, "It seemed like something from a Chinese novel or film." After her in-laws agree to move the date of their wedding banquet to accommodate Yoshimoto, a family friend, she expresses her disappointment by writing, "I couldn't help but feel like the typical lowly daughter-in-law I'd read about in classical Chinese novels." Of one long walk through Hong Kong, she writes, "I walked ten steps behind Cai, like an ancient Chinese woman hobbling on bound feet." When she grows suspicious of Yoshimoto (more on that later), she explains, "Whatever doubts I had regarding Yoshimoto's intentions now skyrocketed like fireworks set off at Chinese New Year." After a disagreement about how to put Jake to bed, she says, "Interactions like these began to make me feel more like a lowly daughter-in-law in a Chinese backwater town where I had no rights and no say." Perhaps the most superfluous example of all comes when her doctor asks, "Is your husband Chinese?" and Blumberg-Kason replies, "Yes, from China." Blumberg-Kason harbors grave concerns that her readers will somehow forget how Chinese her ex-husband is and perhaps by extension how Chinese their problems are.
But plenty of their problems have nothing to do with China, and everything to do with Blumberg-Kason herself. Throughout her relationship with Cai, she obsesses over the unsupported possibility that Cai has been having sexual contact with Yoshimito, whom Cai refers to as "Japanese Father." She hangs her suspicions on a moment when, while waiting for a delayed flight, Yoshimoto rests his head on Cai's shoulder, as well as on the fact that Yoshimoto invites Cai to spend long nights in his room while collaborating on a book. Perhaps Blumberg-Kason believes physical contact between two adult men violates some boundary of Normal Heterosexual Behavior, but the incident is more easily explained as a moment of familial affection. Cai's parents, meanwhile, welcome Yoshimoto into their home, and Yoshimoto gifts Cai and his new wife the equivalent of about a hundred thousand dollars. Blumberg-Kason points to this money not as an act of generosity but as some sort of payment for sexual favors. No evidence for her theory ever surfaces.
Another possible source of marital strife is that Blumberg-Kason, for all her romanticization of Chinese culture, has some low opinions of Chinese people. Before meeting Cai's parents, she muses, "Upon hearing my nationality, would they think I was a loose American who disregarded the traditional family unit?" She cites no precedent for this expectation; maybe she assumes all people are as prejudiced as she is. After Cai's parents meet her and explain their eagerness for her to marry their son, she reconsiders, "I guess they didn't think I was a slut or selfish American. Many parents in remote areas of China wouldn't have been so compassionate." Blumberg-Kason never mentions meeting any racist parents from remote areas of China, so her justifications remain mysterious. Later, when Cai appears tense after buying train tickets in Shanghai, she speculates that the seller had inflated the price of a foreigner's ticket or "scolded [Cai] for marrying a foreigner." In reality, Cai is merely intent on not missing their soon-to-depart train. Blumberg again assumes the worst after Cai and his parents celebrate the news that their baby will be a boy. She writes,
"I knew Cai and his parents would be happy we were having a boy, but I never dreamed they'd react as if they'd just won the lottery. How would they have responded to news of a girl? Had Cai only said he wanted a daughter because he didn't want to jinx his chances for having a boy? In Chinese culture, only a son of a son counts as a true grandchild . . ."
Rather than accept sincere delight at face value, Blumberg-Kason insinuates a hidden misogyny, which she attributes to Chinese culture. To be sure, there are plenty of misogynists in China (and America, for that matter), but Blumberg-Kason's brushstrokes are too broad to allow for exceptions. Consequently, her insinuations tell the reader more of her own real bigotry than of Cai's family's imagined sexism.
Finally, any discussion of Blumberg-Kason's marital struggles would be incomplete without a discussion of how she separates from her husband. Early one year, Cai suggests a family trip to Hidden River. Blumberg-Kason worries that living conditions there would be unhealthy for their son but voices no immediate opposition. For some reason, she becomes concerned that, once Jake goes to China, Cai and his parents will want to keep him there. She mentions this concern at work, and her coworker puts her in touch with his friend, Aimee, whose brother married a Chinese woman. Aimee's sister-in-law, she explains, has taken Aimee's niece to China, and refuses to return her. Aimee warns Blumberg-Kason that thousands of kids are kidnapped to other countries every year, and Blumberg-Kason asserts she would be "delusional to think it wouldn't happen to [her]." Operating under this conclusion, she contacts a lawyer, who advises her to fly to her parents' home in Chicago while Cai is at work, then remain there for six months so that she can file for divorce in an Illinois court. Blumberg-Kason follows this advice, and, in order to legally differentiate her actions from kidnapping, leaves Cai a note that he is welcome to visit. In her own words, she was, "abandoning him in a country he didn't like, taking away his son, and leaving him with a house, two cars, and no way to pay the mortgage or other bills." She expresses surprise when she learns that her actions have brought Cai to tears. At no point does she inform Cai of her worries about Jake's well-being in Hidden River or her reluctance to go. Instead, she considers abandoning Cai, divorcing him, and winning full custody of Jake the more reasonable option. While their divorce was certainly for the best, Blumberg-Kason's machinations suggest that not all of their problems originated with Cai or his homeland.
But, Blumberg-Kason blames Chinese culture. Even when her lawyer asks why she's married to Cai, she replies, "I don't know. I thought I understood Chinese culture." From her book, it's clear she never did. However poor a husband Cai was, his problems were ultimately his, not the burdens of Chinese society. Blumberg-Kason's failure to understand this point makes it hard not to wonder how she would have written her memoir if Cai had been from the Bronx. Would she have blamed Bronx culture for his emotional distance and short temper? What if she'd had a happy marriage? Would she have gone on thinking that China was an exotic wonderland? Neither of those stories would have been worth the paper they were printed on; this one isn't, either.
