Well hello there! How are you doing? I am up at the Sunshine Coast for some stimulating family time so I have handed over this blog to a handful of new bloggers. If you like what you read, please visit their sites. You never know.... it may be the start of a beautiful, strange, cyber-stalking type situation.....
Not so Exlusive Club
Around eight years ago, I joined the club of Filipino brides of foreign men.
It was a definite decision on my part because, well, you can’t really choose the person you fall in love with. I never saw myself as another Filipino bride to another foreign national. In my head, I was just marrying my perfect match.
However, I am constantly forced to look at things differently when I’m visiting the Philippines. When my then-boyfriend first visited the country, it was very much apparent to me that I was looked at as “one of those” Filipinas – a “brownie” hooking up with a “whitey” for financial reasons.
It was also very obvious how other Filipino women saw him. While on a holiday in Bohol, three “tourist trappers” strolled around us for quite some time, flipping their long hairs and batting their eyelashes towards my man’s direction. They didn’t care that he was there with me – perhaps for them, it was a battle of whoever gets the guy wins. They were baiting him, just in case he decides to bite.
He gave me a quizzical look and asked what the hell they were flipping their hair about. I explained it to him and he shook his head, embarrassed by the blatant display of flirtation and boobage.
Later on that night, he asked me if the things he heard prior to his visit were indeed true. Were Filipino women really so desperate they’d flaunt themselves like that to get a foreign husband? Yes, it’s true, was my honest answer. Practicality comes first. It ranks above love and desire especially during desperate times.
It is a sad reality. Marrying and getting whisked to another country is considered “lucky” because you get to escape poverty. It doesn’t matter if your husband cheats on you, beats you up, looks down on you – you’re encouraged to suck it up because you are “lucky”.
And yes, even when I first arrived in Australia I was called “those words” – you know “mail to order bride”, “Filipina sex slave”, “child bride” and so on. It was easy for me to brush it off because I was confident of my place and my relationship.
It’s not always the case though. I know of several Filipino women who are happily enjoying their interracial marriages, and living in different parts around the world. It makes me very happy to know that although there is a bit of an age up between some of these couples, their minds and hearts meet at the right point. And although, like me, they all get the same side remarks from other Filipinos, they also ignore these things knowing that they married for the right reasons.
During my last visit, Mama invited all our neighbours to our Christmas party – even the ones we weren’t that close to. I didn’t wonder why. She wanted to show to the neighbours just how hot my husband is and how intellectually compatible we are. She wanted to show the proof that I didn’t just marry some old white dude just for the heck of “escaping” the country.
I still get those looks when I go to visit – at the airport, in the mall, doing the groceries. But it doesn’t bug me. I know where we stand with each other and how much we love our little mixed family. So they can stare all they want. It makes me feel like a celebrity anyway.
Kristyn is a freelance journalist, photographer and first time children’s book author. Aside from loving being a WAHM and wife, she also loves zombie movies and cocktails (hopefully both at the same time). She blogs at http://mummyk.com and tweets as @mummyk
