The ‘family’ is the invincible Himalayan frontier for Chinese– Indian romantic relationships. With both cultures having strong conservative and patriarchal undertones, codified expectations of the ideal son-in-law or the ideal daughter-in-law collide with massive consequences, especially for the women in the relationship. Some are locked up, some are beaten.
Their partners are frequently insulted. In addition, these relationships bear witness to hidden currents of racism, casteism, and the open influence of religion, often creating a toxic atmosphere with the menacing fear—what will others think? But if distance breeds suspicion, does proximity increase trust? Even in cosmopolitan societies like Singapore where the two communities live closely, the social dynamics of majority vs minority groups play out in complicated ways.
This incomplete familiarity with the ‘other’ reinforces negative biases when one’s own child finds a partner outside the race. Family members then go to the extent of disowning them. Your own child then becomes not only a rebel, but also a traitor—not just to the family but to the entire race. What, can then, bring about a resolution? How can such couples cross the Himalayas, together? Is it just patience, time, perseverance or does it need to be a well-planned escape?
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The story of Dr Rebecca Yip Ghosh, thirties, British–Chinese, and Arnav Ghosh, thirties, Indian. They are married and live in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Rebecca: I grew up in Bristol, England. My parents moved there from Hong Kong, but they went back when I was sixteen. For a while, I was living in the UK by myself until I joined my parents in Hong Kong when I went there for my PhD. There, I met Arnav. It was difficult growing up as a Chinese person in the UK. Where we lived, almost everyone was white. I didn’t feel like I belonged there. I was bullied a lot.
Sometimes, the other kids would say, ‘Go back to your own country.’ It got better as I grew older. Or I just developed a thicker skin. My parents didn’t integrate much with British society either. My dad had migrated to the UK along with his siblings and other people from the same village. They remained a closed group, mingling mostly among themselves, hardly interacting with others. But it wasn’t easy for me in Hong Kong either. I was too ‘white’ to be Hong Kong-ish but also very Chinese to be British. I couldn’t adapt to some aspects of local culture. Like, seniority is such a big deal in Hong Kong. But while I respect everyone, it feels weird when someone demands respect just because of age.
So I couldn’t wait to leave. I heard the ‘Chinkie’ thing a lot while growing up in the UK. And in Hong Kong, locals would call me ‘banana’—yellow outside but white on the inside.
But now that I’ve left Hong Kong for Scotland, I want to return to Hong Kong. I am caught between the two worlds.
Arnav: My parents are both Bengali but I grew up in Delhi, and I consider myself a Delhiite. Just from the way I speak Hindi, someone can tell that I am so. I came to study in Hong Kong when I was eighteen. It was a shock—an entirely new life. I come from a middle-class family, which in India means that the father is a salaried man and the mother is a housewife. So back home, I always had someone to help me with things—someone to make food or help me with homework. I didn’t even know how to do my laundry. But when I moved to Hong Kong, I had to do everything.
Moreover, I didn’t know anyone there. I was not used to the food. I didn’t speak the language, even the teachers spoke to the students in Cantonese if I was not involved. It was terrible. I wanted to go back home even before the first semester was over. In Hong Kong, I did face some racism. There, if you have gone to an international school, you have international friends and are open to immigrants. But if you’re very local and have only lived in a Hong Kong kind of bubble, you don’t like outsiders. So I got dirty looks from some. If I was sitting on the metro or bus, some would leave the seat next to me empty.
They said we Indians are smelly. Even some Hong Kong-born Indians wouldn’t want to hang out with me. It’s like, since I’m Hong Kong born and you are India born, you’re different— the same happens with Indians in the UK too. But it was better once I made some friends there. They taught me some Cantonese, especially the swear words. After that, I could integrate better. And I could tell if people were abusing me behind my back; I would then confront them. So, I decided to stay. I stayed for nine years. And even now, I can’t do without Hong Kong food.
Rebecca: Arnav and I were at the same university in Hong Kong. This was back in 2014. Both of us had joined this Facebook group for international students. And I knew a lot of other Indian PhD students, some of whom knew Arnav and said he was great. So, we got talking on Messenger and WhatsApp, and we formed a good bond. He also had a very nice profile picture on Facebook. One day, some of us from that Facebook group planned to meet up. I messaged everyone before the meet-up to confirm, but no one replied. On that day, just the two of us turned up. The others said later that they just wanted to give us a chance to meet alone. Looking back, it worked out.
Arnav: I was fresh out of a breakup. I just wanted to meet new people. I came across her YouTube channel called ‘Asian Chem Nerd’ and found it very interesting. I thought I would love to meet this person. And then it just happened. Bex and I met in mid-August, and by mid-September, we were dating. It was all so quick. But it was all very natural.
Rebecca: I had never expected to end up with an Indian. I always imagined that I would eventually have a regular Chinese family—just like my parents—even when I had a white boyfriend. In Hong Kong, some local boys were interested in me. I debated whether I should go with someone I was attracted to but who wasn’t Chinese. Earlier, I had a longterm relationship with another British-born Chinese. He didn’t speak any Cantonese. He wasn’t very close to his family either. This wasn’t how I imagined British–Chinese families to be. With him, I saw how bad a relationship could be. Our communication was terrible. I got gaslighted whenever I raised something I was unhappy about. I was always manipulated into apologizing even though it was me who was unhappy to begin with. So back then, I just shut myself down.
But with Arnav, all these bad things weren’t happening. Our communication was so much better. We felt free to talk through everything. Our values are very similar. We’re both aspirational, always striving for more—I don’t like people who are just content with staying put. We’re both very close to our families, which was important to me. It was difficult to bond with the earlier guy’s family, they were not trusting. But Arnav’s family treats me like a daughter. So, this ideal I had in my head of a perfect relationship with a Chinese guy who was also British—just like me—ended up so differently. That’s what made me go for Arnav.
Arnav: After my previous partner, an Indonesian–Chinese girl, cheated on me, I thought that I was not going to be with a Chinese girl ever again. It was a traumatic experience. But life doesn’t work like that. I began to think that just as I don’t want people to discriminate against me as an Indian because they might have had a bad experience with some other Indian, I can’t completely reject all Chinese girls because of one sour experience. I tried to see it fairly. It was not about a race, it was about a person.
I got along so well with Bex. And while Bex is Chinese, she speaks fluent English. We would just talk and talk and that’s how we built a bond. I found her very cool because of her videos. She wanted to return to the UK, which worked for me. I wanted to be in a place where language wouldn’t be a constraint. My parents also liked her. When they came to know that she was doing her PhD, they were so impressed. So everything added up and now, we are here.
Rebecca: At first, my parents were okay with our relationship. But things changed once they met him for the first time. Earlier, I had told them that my boyfriend is Indian, but he speaks Cantonese. Maybe I exaggerated how good Arnav’s Cantonese was. The reality was that Arnav spoke only ‘survival Cantonese’. So when my parents eventually met him, they couldn’t have a full conversation. My parents said, ‘Oh, his Cantonese isn’t that good.’ It was my fault that their expectations were set so high.
Arnav: Honestly, back then, I had a very low level of Cantonese. It has gotten better with time—I’m learning all the time from her parents when they are here. But she oversold me to her parents to overcome their prejudice.
This excerpt has been taken from Shivaji Das and Yolanda Yu’s ‘Rebels, Traitors, Peacemakers’ with permission from Penguin Random House SEA.