The surprising joys of a cross-cultural relationship
Why being misunderstood can be the best fucking thing ever
If you’d told younger me that I’d marry a Mexican man, I’d have told you that you were havin’ a laff.
When I was nineteen I met a Swedish guy backpacking in South East Asia who followed me back to Australia after our loved-up tour of Khao San Road’s finest establishments. Once he arrived, and the buzz from our red bull buckets was long behind us, he just seemed so foreign to me. A beautiful, tall, Scandinavian fish out of water in Melbourne. He was quite literally a foreign alien.
I called it off almost immediately and left the poor guy high and dry at a backpackers in St Kilda, as I sped off in my little black Toyota Echo, wishing I’d thought the whole thing through a bit better. After leaving us both with some emotional whiplash, I swore off dating foreigners. Too complicated. Too hard. Too risky. Too incompatible.
Well would you look at the egg on my face now!
I’m often walking down the street here in Mexico City, minding my own business, when it suddenly occurs to me how strange it is to be living in this extremely foreign location. Things that were once so curious to me are now just part of my everyday life.
Like the man who yells CORRRRRTTTINNNNAAASSSSS (CURTAINS!!!) as he walks down the street, alerting you to the fact that he can help you install curtains (I’m actually not sure this is what he does but it’s my best guess) despite the fact that the internet now exists.
Or the pick up trucks that drive around with a recording of a little girl yelling about collecting scrap metal (if you’ve visited Mexico City you will be intimately familiar with the words se compran colchones, tambores, refrigeradores, lavadoras, microondas o algo de fierro viejo que vendan!!!! – which roughly translate to we will buy any of your old shit!!! and if you’ve spent more than a week here, it will likely haunt your dreams, it’s that frequent). Here is a video if you’re curious.
Or the numerous other forms of noise pollution that one comes to both love, and become completely inured to, when living in Mexico City. The deafening comote (sweet potato) whistle, the gas man yelling GAAAAS (don’t need to translate this one), the organillero playing an extremely out of tune instrument while you try and eat your huevos for breakfast. Honestly, the list goes on and on. But México Mágico as they say. It’s all quite wonderful, weird and very, very loud.
As one of these sounds recently interrupted my day dreaming, I realised that the 19-year-old girl in me who could hardly stand to have a foreign boyfriend in my own city has clearly come leaps and bounds. I take deep pleasure in being a cultural fish out of water. And being married to someone who is a bit of an oddity in my home country, too. Especially when I realise that some of the benefits of our cross-cultural relationship extend beyond us, and to our families of origin.
Both of our mothers are taking English and Spanish classes (respectively) for the benefit of their grandchild and child-in-law. Makes me tear up just to think of it. I talk with my suegra (mother-in-law) on face time for 30-45 minutes once a week in Spanish. It started as a way for me to practice the language, and now it’s something I simply look forward to because I feel safe and loved when in her presence. I know, it’s sweet, right?
On my morning walks, I bop along to Latina tunes that my Mexican cousin recommends to me. Not only does this make me feel a little bit more Mexicana (lol), I genuinely love discovering this entire universe of music that heretofore wasn’t of much interest to me. Here’s one of my faves.
Whilst our nearly fourth-month old baby is yet to make anything other than gurgling noises, I’m quietly confident that he will speak one day. And when he does, it will be fluently in not one but two languages. As an aside, during the same backpacking trip on which I met the Swede, my friend Millie and I were in furious agreement that any child we came across under the age of five speaking a foreign language was a genius. Now my child will be one of those little geniuses! (Suffice it to say, Millie nor I are geniuses).
Then there comes the issue of communication – or miscommunication – as the case may be.
On the lighter side, there’s the endless wellspring of comedy that speaking in our second languages offers (like the time I enthusiastically held my hand up to Carlo while yelling CHANKLAS! instead of CHOCALAS! – having said SANDALS! instead of HIGH FIVE!). Or the time I said tengo mierda instead of tengo miedo (I have shit instead of I’m scared). The list of these doozies is endless, and it never gets less funny when it happens.
And on the more serious side, since the very first weeks of our relationship, we understood that being together would always require deeper inquiry. We don’t do it perfectly, but we always try to remember to ask the crucial questions: what did you mean when you said that? Can I explain what I heard you say, to check we’re on the same page? Or to simply give the benefit of the doubt to one other because we know there’s a lot we’ll never understand, no matter how hard we try. I can’t go back in time and grow up in Mexico as much as Carlo can’t become a little Australian girl with two British parents.
When you come from the same cultural background as another person, it’s easy to believe that you know what they mean. Every intonation, every comment and even every look comes steeped in your shared language and culture. And so we forget to clarify. We forget to enquire. When the reality is, none of us actually speak the same language. Carlo and I just have the benefit of knowing it.
Oh yes, I hear you!! I am German and my husband is Canadian. Coming from two different backgrounds and speaking two different languages brings about many arguments as well as laughs. One time we had a huge fight about saran wrap as I called it foil not knowing that foil in English only refers to aluminium foil whereas in German, foil is the umbrella term for anything that wraps around something, no matter if it's plastic or aluminium. Or one time, when we were buying wine, my husband wanted to say "I am cheap" letting me know he would opt for a cheaper wine that night but instead of saying "Ich bin billig" he said "Ich bin hässlich", which translates to "I am ugly". We had the best laugh.
This was lovely to read—and interesting because I’ve known my husband since we were 11, so we have so many shared cultural references. But you’re right: that doesn’t guarantee that we’re always *getting* each other.
I love Mexico City! I’ve visited twice and the little scrap metal girl definitely haunts my dreams. On my first trip I practiced until I could sing her whole spiel verbatim. 🤪