If someone were to ask me what the biggest challenge in my life is, I’d say the cultural differences between my wife and I. These differences make our lives so interesting, and dictate our characters, but also create confusion and anguish.
When I met my wife I’d already had short term relationships with women of different nationalities including American, Canadian, Dutch and Romanian, and in fact my wife wasn’t the first Filipina I’d been with. Having spent my life at sea and worked on cruise ships, I’d been exposed to so many cultures and in theory had a good grounding, and in fact as a newly qualified officer spent 3 months as the sole foreigner amongst a crew of 12 Filipino’s. That 3 months was tough, and could put me off visiting the Philippines for a long time, and especially soured my opinion of their culinary skills.
I had a lot of challenges in the early days of working with Filipino’s, and in fact the company I worked for gave provided a book on the cultural differences to be aware of when working with them. Misunderstandings often occurred over language or misinterpreting the meaning of a situation, and even being unintentionally rude due to a lack of common understanding.
On the cruise ships I was frequently recommended not to enter into relationships with Filipinas, with a familiar but offensive warning ‘Filipinas are for life, not just for Christmas’. Meaning that unlike the Western girls who you could have a fling with and then move on, the Filipinas often expected long term commitment from the outset. The Filipina women were also protected by the Filipino men on-board, who’d been known to intercept Officers down dark alleyways to warn them that if they treated the Filipina badly there would be consequences. I did on one occasion witness the results of those consequences through a colleague, who was left barely able to walk and with a blackened eye.
When I met my wife on-board, she was different in so many ways, not least because she’d lived and studied in the UK, so was quite westernised in comparison to the average Asian. I realised very quickly that I wanted to be with her, and since was the Fitness Trainer and Physical Therapist on-board, I had to endure countless sessions to get close to her and gain her trust (Yes, I know it sounds a bit perverted now, but seemed much more romantic then). We started out as friends and progressed onto trips ashore in the various ports, and eventually become an item. I suspect that the turning point was taking her to a theme park in Copenhagen and scaring her half to death on the rollercoasters, somehow this brought us closer.
The relationship was eventually firmed when we were both on leave and met up in the Philippines, and thankfully I managed to get through that period without any serious faux pas, but that wasn’t to last, as I eventually ended up in an argument with her Father. He was working in China and we got into an e-mail debate as he seriously disapproved of his daughter being involved with a westerner. This wasn’t a good start, and as anyone who knows a Filipino family will understand, if you upset the close relatives you are at risk of destroying the entire relationship. Family life is incredibly important, and Filipino families live very much inside one another’s pockets. What belongs to one family member, belongs to the entire family. I think that this is an area which probably causes the greatest amount of grief in Western-Filipino relationships in the early days, particularly in relation to finances.
There is often an expectation that the wealthier family members will help out the poorer family members, particularly in times of need. I’ve tried to avoid any involvement myself, and leave it to my wife to decide, but we always talk openly about our own finances. It’s not often, but every now and again we get asked for some help towards an Aunt in hospital or a cousin in need. If we don’t help out, then I suspect my wife gain a poor reputation and be known as someone who shows no respect to her family. To overcome this, my wife knows how much money we have spare and what we can afford and appreciates what can be sent. Secondly, we try to find out what other family members who work overseas (OFW’s/Seafarers) are putting into help out, and then match their contribution. Thus, we help out with a 1000 here or a 1000 there, but rarely more. By having a mutual understanding on this we seem to have created harmony all around, and whilst I’m still known as the tight-fisted Brit, my wife gets enough respect for giving a little.
We’ve been together six years now and still have disagreements which are caused by cultural misunderstandings. At times these can seriously strain our relationship, and it can be incredibly frustrating when you feel that your partner doesn’t understand your opinion or situation at all, no matter how much you try to make them understand. It’s also frustrating when you don’t understand each other’s decision process or when you’ve/they’ve said something which has a unintentional or different meaning. There are times when I have to take a step back, take a few deep breaths and seriously think about what’s important, and occasionally concede defeat.
The greatest problem to overcome I find is understanding and respecting ‘Tampo’; now all women around the world are good at this, but Filipina’s have this down to a fine art. The art of silence, or saying ‘I’m fine’ when clearly everything isn’t fine can drive any man insane. You have to overcome the urge to say, “well ok if you don’t want to tell me, then I’ll go to the pub”, and commence the “lambing” process.
We’re living in the Middle East now amongst a large variety of expats, many of whom are British friends with spouses from the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Ukraine, USA and France. All of these friends face the same cultural challenges and misunderstandings. If a friend asked me for advice on entering an inter-racial/cultural relationship, I’d warn them now how tough it can be at times, how strained the relationship can be and how many of these mixed relationships I’ve come across in my day to day life and here on the forums that have failed because of the failure to understand each other or false expectations.
Is it worth it though? Without a shadow of a doubt yes, and I’m proud of having true Anglo-Filipino children who I hope will grow up open minded and culturally aware.
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Originally Posted by lastlid
I discovered that Philipinas go 100% on birthday celebrations and you MUST have a cake! Well I never bother we cakes, and I didnt arrange to have a cake sent to her .. ohhh no big no no! But We talked about it and her upset and we both saw it wasnt in my culture so I didnt understand hers. I will never forget a cake! I learnt to about money, sure I cannot afford to support all her family in need but we agreed that we would do what we can to help in money because thats thats the culture.
