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8/14/2019 Global LoveCB

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Global Love by Catherine Bell

Throughout History, people have been pursuing love from

afar despite the obstacles of geography or cultural divide.

People like; Grace Kelly and Prince Rainer; John Lennon and

Yoko Ono; Guy Ritchie and Madonna are all examples of love

done global style. Of course, these relationships all ended

either tragically or just plain badly but that is not the

point, the point is, that intercultural marriages are nothing

new. However, when you make the choice to go global with your

own marriage, it ALL becomes new: a new person, a new

lifestyle, a new country and, of course, a new culture. I said

yes to an intercultural marriage in 1998 when I married a

wonderful man with an accent that brought butterflies to my

stomach. He was born and raised in New Zealand. We opted to

start our life together in my homeland, the United States. We

lived in the upper mid-west of the U.S. for 6 years until my

husband felt the pull of his heart strings to return to his

Motherland. So, now with two young children and a household of

stuff, we embarked on our global migration (and my husbands

return) to New Zealand in 2004.

Marrying interculturally was done purely for love. And

to tell you the truth, neither one of us completely thought it

through. It is a marriage of compromise as most marriages are

but there is something about compromising the location of your



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homeland that is not an easy undertaking. I knew when getting

into this marriage that we would end up on the other side of

the world eventually and I really thought I felt alright with

that fact. My thinking centered around the idea that we were

both from the same basic origin, England. So, I thought that

I surely would fit in easily. Grant it, my ancestors thumbed

there noses at England and basically have little to nothing to

do with the Royal heritage. My husband, on the other hand,

does seem to take it all a little bit more seriously. The

whole Commonwealth situation is one that I don’t fully

understand though the people above America seem to be keen

enough on it. I don’t deny that Princess Diane melted even

the hardest of American hearts but, the Queen? Why?

Packing up a household and moving to the other side of

the world was – as you might think – a big deal. The moving

companies seem to know this and take full advantage of this as

well. At a state of heightened emotion as your possessions

are being packed up and loaded onto a container, the quote

that was given to you several months before suddenly goes up

significantly. Coincidentally, there is not a thing you can

do if you would like to see your stuff again. On that note,

we began our journey to our new home in New Zealand. We met

the movers on the other side of the world once we had settled

into our new home – of course it took them quite a bit longer

to get there – 3 months longer to be exact (on the positive



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side, I did discover that children can be quite happy playing

with large boxes in the absence of toys for long periods of

time if needed). Both my husband and I were delighted to hear

of their arrival at port – soon to be crushed with the

expectations of more fees in order to actually see our stuff

again. My husband and I, both trying to look on the bright

side, decided that there is a certain reassurance to know that

crooks live on both sides of the Pacific. Extorted once

again, we wearily unloaded our gear and began the setup.

I knew way before our belongings arrived that we were

well and truly in a different country when shopping at the

grocery store and I saw lots of food proudly displaying they

were loaded with CARBS! In contrast, the Atkins diet was in

full swing in the good old U.S.A. shunning any food that might

have carbohydrates in it or near it if you wanted to lose even

a single pound. Every food advertiser there knew to hide

evidence of CARBS in whatever way possible – legally or

illegally so, I thought it a good sign that the Kiwis weren’t

petrified by carbohydrates. They also seem to laugh in the

face of high fat dairy and processed meat. My husband and

children would be thrilled.

We arrived in late May and winter seemed to just be

getting started with lots of wind, rain and chilly weather.

We had settled in the beautiful Waikato in the North Island

and I was thrilled to see so many sheep as I was promised. As



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I bundled the children and myself up to take a walk outside, I

was a bit confused over the way the average pedestrian was

dressed. It appeared that by looking at the clothing, we were

still in a summery climate. Short sleeves, jandals (if they

were wearing shoes at all) and sometimes shorts were the

attire. It does make you question yourself when the majority

of passer-by’s dress so seasonally different than you. But, I

had come from quite a cold State in the U.S. so; I thought I

knew how to dress for the weather. I had to stick with my

instincts. I had children to think of, after all.

I was taken aback by the seasonal clothing choices more

than once and in particular, an incident with the satellite TV

technician comes to mind. A fairly fit man probably in his

early 50’s showed up claiming to be there to set us up with

satellite communication shortly after our arrival in New

Zealand. Again, it was a cold day and we all had our jackets

and warm socks on to keep warm. He arrived on time – that

wasn’t the problem. He seemed very friendly and capable - that

wasn’t a problem either. What confused and startled me (and

maybe was a bit of a problem) was what he chose to wear on a

very cold day at the start of June. He was wearing very

short, white shorts (what I later came to find out were called

“stubby shorts”) and big black rubber boots (what I later came

to find out were “gum boots”). I thought maybe my husband had

sent me a strip-o-gram! I fully expected him to pull out a



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boom box and start the show with a fling off of his left boot

to “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People. When he didn’t do this,

I just learned to accept it and admired his legs instead while

he hooked me up to the rest of the world via satellite.

My husband’s family were all very kind when we first

arrived; all that is, except his Nana or Big Nana as the

family called her. She was suspicious of me from the start

and referenced me as “the Yank”. I’ve always considered

myself a fairly realistic patriot as far as my country went.

Never a zealot and was usually one of the first to see our

faults but I have to admit that it can bring out the most

primal patriotic feeling when you are attacked not for your

character but for someone else’s perception of what your

character should be based on their perceived notion of a place

they have never been. Seeing how old Big Nana was, I think

she was basing her views of the United States on episodes of

“Dynasty” or “Dallas” that would have played here 10 years

after J.R. was even shot! Anyhow, I took all the knocks about

how our dairy couldn’t be as good, how our meat couldn’t be as

tender, how our, trees couldn’t be as green, etc. I think I

took it all in stride even when she suggested my children

didn’t really look that much like their father. The only thing

that got me through the very long evening was envisioning

taking the old broad out back and laying into her with a few

American kidney punches! But I refrained and the next time I



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saw Big Nana she was quite sweet to me. I guess it was some

sort of old school initiation?

That wasn’t the only time I felt initiated into a new

environment. Driving was another experience that took me out

of my comfort zone. In the United States, we drive on the

right side of the road and I mean that literally not

ironically in any way as my husband has accused. When driving

in another country, it is a sink or swim situation. I found

myself alone in an empty house (our furniture had not arrived

at this point) with two little kids. I could stay there,

alone and entertain them with sculptures made from carpet fuzz

or I could get in the car and drive to one of the many parks

or even somebody’s house that had children who might be able

to entertain mine. After one day on my own – I jumped into

the car, strapped the kids in and told myself to think left.

And, actually, this seemed to work everywhere except car

parks. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to the

traffic order within the actual car park itself and also to

this day, I do not understand the size of the spaces given to

park. Did there use to be a fluctuation of clown cars in New

Zealand? That would be the only thing that would account for

such a small space given to fit what is now quite large cars.

The strategy I chose to use to navigate through these lots was

to follow the most expensive car and hope they wouldn’t lead

me astray. It has worked so far. God forbid, I accidentally



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follow a stock broker or a banker who has lost the plot during

an economic down turn!

Car parks weren’t the only place I had near misses. The

language barrier often found me smack dab in accidental

confusion. In fact, it could sneak up rather unexpectedly

like in the kitchen when my mother-in-law and I had an

altercation over what a hamburger was at one point. I thought

it was perfectly clear as did she but neither one of us was

talking the same language (slang I should say). The

conversation went something like this: Me: “I need to run to

the store to get buns for the hamburgers.” Her: “Don’t

bother, we don’t need buns.” Me with a confused and maybe

annoyed look: “It isn’t a hamburger without the buns. It is

just a patty on a plate.” Her with a confused and maybe

annoyed look: stony silence. We ended up settling on

sausages instead.

Slang is unique to every country and often even within

certain areas of that country. It can lead to

misunderstandings among the newbies to the culture as I found

out. On one of our very first invites to a social event I was

asked to bring a “plate”. Imagine my surprise after I caught

on to the fact that they meant to bring a plate with food on

it to share with the group! I quickly grabbed what was left in

the kids’ lunch boxes that were on the floor of the car to

pass off as my “plate”. I don’t think I impressed anyone with



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my display of Cheese Doodles and raisins but I managed to

cover up my ignorance. Another slang phrase that caused me

difficulty and my children total humiliation because of my

difficulty was the term “fancy dress”. I assumed by the use

of the word “fancy”, it meant your “Sunday best” as Americans

say, but again I was wrong as we instantly discovered when

walking into the party and were surrounded by Batmen and

princesses! After that, the kids never did quite trust my

interpretation of the language.

Pronunciation can be a problem for me as well. My

husband and I have had an ongoing debate over pronunciation.

He claims because he speaks what he calls the “Queen’s

English”, his version of how a word should sound is most

correct. Well, I have already covered my views on the Queen so

this theory didn’t hold much weight with me. I feel when the

meaning is lost due to the pronunciation then the Queen must

be wrong. An example that I like to rub in my husband’s face

(for lack of a better phrase) is his pronunciation of the

names Alan and Ellen. He pronounces both as the later: “L –

N”. So, when I ask him how his day went and he says, “fine,

‘L-N’ and I played squash at lunch time” I don’t know if I

should be jealous that he is spending so much time sweating

with an attractive female office colleague or relieved that he

is getting good exercise with his male colleague. He actually

does mean the male colleague and I try to point out to him



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that the A’s should be pronounced as a long A as in apple. To

this day, he still does not hear the difference! We have had

to learn to agree to disagree and I have not yet taken it up

with the Queen.

Even feeling fairly secure about what the differences

were that I would encounter, I was still taken off guard on

many occasions. This feeling of not quite “getting it” can

create a sense of true isolation even in a room full of

friendly people. It can be a bit startling to be the one not

to get the joke or not understand the political reference. I

have grown to appreciate that strong sense of belonging you

embrace because you “get it” right away and you are part of a

group. This is a deep feeling that is very easy to take for

granted if you have never felt like the outsider. I can truly

empathize with the immigrants that have far more than slang

barriers to worry about.

We are going on 5 years now in New Zealand. My children

are a hybrid of Kiwi and American but have opted to call me

Mum and not Mom so I know they are strongly influenced by the

folks in the Southern Hemisphere at this point. I haven’t

perfected a Pavlova yet but most of the locals appreciate my

contribution of American style brownies and chocolate chip

cookies so I feel appreciated when asked to bring a “plate”.

And most importantly, my husband’s accent still brings

butterflies to my stomach. Viva la global love!

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