Intercultural Dating

There are many different opinions about dating a person who is not from my culture. These days more and more people date across their cultures, riding on the trend toward internationalization. Generally speaking, many Japanese people long for intercultural dating. In my opinion, I can date a boy who is not from my culture because I have dated outside my own ethnic group before. However, there are a lot of problems involved in going out with a person who has a different culture than yours.
I had a boyfriend who was Chinese. He came from the northern part of mainland China. We were both Asian, so we looked like we were in the same ethnic group. I couldn’t speak Chinese at all at that time, but he could speak Japanese very well. So, we communicated in Japanese and sometimes in English. At first, we always had fun together. It seemed that there were no problems between us. Yet, there were a lot of differences in our values.
I have many friends that live in Hong Kong and Taiwan. I like them very much but he didn’t want me to have contact with them, especially with my Taiwanese friends. I had heard of a case that a Chinese boy and a girl who came from Taiwan had broken up just before they returned to their homes. The reason why they broke up was because of the serious conflict between mainland China and Taiwan. So, I knew that my boyfriend disliked Taiwan. However, I couldn’t agree with him, so we often had big arguments and discussions.
What was even worse, was that although my parents didn’t care about my boyfriend, my grandparents and my older brother hated him because of his ethnic background. My older brother said if he and I get married, he would not attend our wedding and he wouldn’t acknowledge that my boyfriend had become one of his relatives. I felt very sad but I never changed my mind and I still keep in touch with him even though he is not in Japan right now.
There can be a lot of problems with intercultural dating, not only between us, but also around us as I mentioned above. If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend whose culture is not the same as yours, there will be many difficulties experienced while living together. If your countries are different, there will be more problems we have to consider, such as history, languages, relationship between your countries, and so on. However, I recommend you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend who has a different culture from you. It will be good experience for you to have a different point of view, even though you might have a lot of problems. I believe if you truly love each other, you can get over those problems. Make sure you have a lot of time to discuss your problems together. Try to know your partner’s culture and thoughts. These efforts will help you if you date a person who is not from your culture. I am studying Chinese by my self now to understand him more. I had a very hard time but I’m very happy to be with him.