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Q: Are You :The Foreigner?:
The one thing that I really cant get used too is being referred to as The Foreigner by my wife
When we are at a restaurant she will say the Foreigner wants .....Instead of my husband
Maybe it I have had to many BCD's this year
But I can tell you as soon as we land in Australia Pay back is on the way !!!
But this is Australia
or the Foreign woman
It is so clean here
There is paper in the public toilet
and about another dozen revenge tactics
Wonder if it is covered under Medicare as theropy?
Hey Laowai, you're not alone. It happens to me too.
Lol, the only time I'm the "foreigner" is when she's angry.
"Get the puck out of China, you dirty foreigner."
"Get out of my country, you dirty foreigner."
etc. All other times I am "老公 (laogong)" aka "husband," or "爸爸 (baba)" aka daddy.
Scandinavian:
maybe you are focusing on the wrong part of what she yells at you, "dirty", could it be you need a shower ?
I get the same sometime, both "get out" and "ew, you are sweaty", but hey, I am breaking a sweat just by typing this, and the A/C is on.
Hulk, it is funny how the wife can literally think they can tell you to get out of the country, mine does that too
Hulk:
The way she does it has me laughing my ass off. I find her to be cute when she has her little outbursts. The only thing I really can't stand is the not listening thing... gotta work on that.
I think sometimes my foreignerness is being used as an excuse for my perfectly normal behavior. It can be everything from small things like insisting on using pedestrian crossings during Green Man to major faux-pas such as picking up food from the table cloth when the chopsticks fail me to avoid sitting like pig in a garbagepile.
mike168229:
The wife and her mother almost piss themselves laughing when I insist on waiting for the little green man so I can cross.
Scandinavian:
I have refused to go with wife and mother in law when their rule breaking becomes too much. When asked why they're not interested in their own survival there is no good response. Anything goes as long as you don't drink cold water.
Hulk:
I always place myself between my wife and the oncoming traffic. I figure if we're gonna get hit by a car, I can use my body to cushion the impact. I hope.
I am not 'the' foreigner, but I have on occasion been referred to as 'a' foreigner.
An interesting (to me at least) anecdote was when my wife and I were living in the UK (2004 - 2010), at first she would on occasion refer to me as a 'foreigner', this was usually along the lines of "you foreigners don't appreciate real food" or some such statement where she was generalising, to which I would answer, "but we're in Britain, YOU are the foreigner". The look of utter confusion on her face was really funny (I wasn't brave enough (or stupid enough) to laugh out loud), she genuinely didn't understand how a Chinese person could EVER be a 'foreigner'. It took months of explanations until she understood the word, and while I'm pretty sure that while she understands the vocabulary, to this day I'm not sure she accepts the concept.
I am not a foreigner. I studied film in university and my specialty was the Marx Bros. I'm really the head wumao and I have the points to prove it. Sparkey gets an F in my class.
The Foreigner from your wife is rude. At the very least you should be 'he', as in ta. Definitely raise it. OR start referring to her in public as 'the small woman'.
Edit: Realize she doesn't mean it in a rude way but sometimes ya gotta work through the simple stuff - I'm sure you needed to learn about where to sit at a family gathering and how to do toasts, well she needs to learn what's acceptable to you to.
For me its' an evolution. The first year I was in my little town I was just a foreigner. Then I evolved to become the foreigner. And now I have hit the glass ceiling. To the people here I am "our foreigner."
