It's a funny thing being married to a white man

ROSE KRANZ

Following a recent discussion in PNG Attitude about difficulties in some cross-cultural marriages, Rose Kranz offers some advice….

IT'S A FUNNY AND STRANGE THING being married to a white man. He doesn't fully understand your traditions, family background and beliefs - but he expects you to understand all this about him.

Does he do the same in return?

To start with, he doesn't appreciate the importance of family in Melanesian culture.

Not just mums and dads, but cousin-sisters and brothers, uncles and nieces, once twice or thrice removed - and those extended family members who you have perhaps only seen twice in your life.

They are the cement which holds our great wall of identity together.

And he doesn't understand that we have come from a village culture where we had few trappings of western 'civilisation'.

Certainly no Coles or K-Marts, and where the richest family in the village were the ones who owned a TV. So maybe I don't know the correct wineglasses to us for Christmas dinner - but I bet he doesn't know how to prepare a coconut cooler.

And he expects me to fit into Australian culture with 50,000 years difference between us?

And yet we understand the same human drives and emotions. After all, people are people.

I just ask him to try and get out of his comfort zone and realise that we are different, although also the same in so many ways.

I love him, and I believe he loves me, but he must take the trouble of understanding where I come from, if he truly wants to know me.

Comments

[Trevor Freestone.]

Similarly the Australian government made no attempt to understand the Melanesian culture that existed in PNG in the 1970's; blindly changing the politics and justice systems to unsuitable Australian systems.

Papua New Guineans also have problems when they inter-marry a partner from another province. The culture of someone from the West Sepik is completely different to that of someone from the Chimbu.

Closer to home the amazing culture of the Chimbu is again completely different to that of the intriquing Bena Bena.

This is what makes PNG so unique and interesting.

[Peter Kranz]

David - Na Rose embawan mockwa. Wagai wei!

[David Faunt]

Rose - like most things in life, mutual respect is required. In my case I had a curiosity about my wife's tok-ples & learned it. Made all the difference in my life, our relationship & my understanding how kastam works. Also probably turned me into a lateral thinker which allows me to probably fit in better to the wider community. Halpim man bilong yu long lainim tokples. Have 'tok-ples days' between you occasionally. When he asks for a cuppa tea on that day it's gotta be in tokples! Good luck to you both!