"like a pair of old shoes, we are useless without each other (well, I’m useless without him, but I think he’d do okay without me since he’s way better at parenting and adulting than I am). Thank you, Lord for my other shoe!!!"
That's how I feel too, about Soeun. The fact that he can pronounce my name correctly every time but I can't do the same for him is indicative of our language and culture skills. He knows how to function in my country, Australia. And I quite happily live in his country Cambodia but probably with a lot more limitation. It doesn't feel limited to me on a day by day basis but if I were suddenly dropped in rural Cambodia it would be quite a shock. Conversely if he were dropped out back of Bourke he would probably be OK.
People often ask me what is hard about cross cultural marriage. I used to try to think of something interesting to say, while secretly wondering if we were doing it wrong. Was it meant to be hard? Why did people keep asking me that question, why didn't an answer come to mind? I think Soeun does most of the language and culture work in our relationship so to me it just feels like home.
Five Minute Friday free write link up. This week the word is: NAME
Edit update: Just now I was with some English speakers. A friend was explaining to a new person about my husband.
My friend turned to me and asked me something along the lines of "How do you say your husband's name?" (Which made me laugh as I had just written this.)
"Soeun" I said
But then my daughter piped up, declaring to a table full of adults, "But his real name is Daddy."
Edit update: Just now I was with some English speakers. A friend was explaining to a new person about my husband.
My friend turned to me and asked me something along the lines of "How do you say your husband's name?" (Which made me laugh as I had just written this.)
"Soeun" I said
But then my daughter piped up, declaring to a table full of adults, "But his real name is Daddy."
4 comments:
Funny thing...for me, Khmer, Lao and Vietnamese names flow naturally, but some Englih names are baffling.
He looks like a bloke I would gladly call friend.
#1 at FMF this week.
https://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2019/05/your-dying-spouse-626-why-god-why-fmf.html
Thanks for your comment Andrew, you sound like you are familiar with SE Asia.
How do you pronounce your husband's name? "Sun?"
Hi Susan, the vowel is a weird one we don't have in English. I know how to write it in Khmer but to help English speakers perhaps I could say something like its a big long "ir"or "er"sort of sound.
Post a Comment