Many end up speaking a mixture of languages depending on how they feel at the time. Some start sentences in one language and finish in another, other couples stick mainly to one language but throw in the odd word of another. Some couples even use three languages to communicate!

This topic was the inspiration for a group blogging project started by Fned - a Mexican / American married to a French / Romanian husband - on her blog Fned’s blog.

In ‘bilingualism in expat couples’ a group of multicultural couples write about their experiences and experiments with different languages. Read Fned’s story and find links to the rest of the posts here.

Read More:
Articles about languages from Topics of the World
How cross-cultural relationships play an important role in breaking down prejudice

Actually, lunch is more Nico’s style than French cause he mixes French, other European and Mediterranean foods all together. Different kind of fresh breads from bakeries are the only ones allowed on our table. Roast beef, turkey and chicken hams, various types of spreads like hummus, fish paste and beef pate, roasted egg plants, salad, raw veggies with dips and of course large variety of cheeses are never missed. Nico likes to experiment with sandwiches by inventing different mixes and matches between the filling/spreads and breads. It’s fun to see our dining table loaded with different foods. Spreading and making sandwiches on the spot are moments we cherish as we often have good chats about everything. Although I mostly eat left over from the Indonesian dinner as my lunch *truly Indonesian I am*, I enjoy the moment whenever I join.

Dinners are my cookings, 99% Indonesian dishes. I began to cook a lot only since we moved to the US. When living in Holland I was spoiled by hundreds of Indonesian restaurants and toko all over Amsterdam so there was really no need for me to master Indonesian cooking. The first months in the US, I had no choice but to try out recipes if I wanted to keep eating my favorite dishes. I became even more motivated to cook when Joseph started to eat table food as I wanted him to enjoy them like I do. He loves eating rice as much as eating bread. Nico skips the rice once in a while, but he always eats the dishes. We still need to help Joseph eating since he’s still learning how to scoop the rice and dishes into the spoon, otherwise it will take him ages to finish his plate. Unlike lunch, dinner table is occupied by our plates and cutleries only. We scoop the meal directly from the warm pans on the stove, and rice is in the electric cooker on the counter top. Dinner is usually faster because everything is ready to eat. I cook pasta and potato dishes whenever only when I’m bored with rice *yes, sometimes I do feel a bit too ricey*.

Celebration dishes are the ones we all look forward to. Not only for their special tastes but also because they appear on occasions only. On Eid-Il Fitr, I prepare specials like rendang, opor ayam and sayur lodeh. Even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, from time to time Nico cooks real French cuisine on some of his family’s festivities. On birthdays we simply buy a nice mini chocolate cake from Whole Foods, sing birthday songs in French, Indonesian and English, blow the candle and enjoy the yummie slices.

To me, foods represent cultures. Having French and Indonesian dishes on our table show that each kitchen has a place in our family. It’s touching to see Joseph appreciates both. We hope Louise will do the same, they both are children of France and Indonesia after all.

The above story is an excerpt (taken with permission) from Santi’s blog Trilingual+1, about living and raising her 2 children, Joseph and Louise, in a multi-cultural environment. Santi and her husband have both lived in several different countries, and are currently in Germany. Read the original post here.

Enjoyed this? Read more stories of cross-cultural encounters from My Partner is a Foreigner.

The purpose of My Partner is a Foreigner is to be a place to learn about other cultures and share cross-cultural experiences, especially involving relationships. Many of our visitors so far are living or thinking about cross-cultural experiences so I hope those of you will find something interesting in these sites.

Take a look and see what you think, and if you have any more to suggest please drop me a line, either in the comments or by email.

Bilingual / Bicultural family network
A network of families around the world who are raising children in a multl-cultural and multi-lingual environment. The website has loads of resources and they also publish a quarterly magazine with more stories and practical help for multi-cultural families.

Expat Blog
An online expatriate community. Blogs, destination guides and forums by expats all over the world.

Expat Women
Help for all women living overseas - advice on all kinds of expat experiences and how to make them sucessful. Articles cover business, relationships, having a baby abroad and there is also a directory of blogs written by expat women.

Intermix
A UK site which provides support to mixed-race families, individuals and anyone who feels they have a multiracial identity. The site contains a lot of information about many aspects of mixed-race experiences and there are forums to meet and discuss with people in similar situations.

EastdatesWest
Started by an Indian-American and Italian-American couple, eastdateswest has stories and other information mainly aimed at cross-cultural relationships involving Indians, many of which can also apply to multi-cultural relationships in general.

Internations
A social network for ‘expatriates and global minds’. Offers everything you would expect from a social network, plus local groups all over the world which organise meetups with other internationally-minded people living nearby.

As always, if you want to write and share your cross-cultural experiences we’d love to hear from you. All stories will of course be credited with a link back to your site if you have one.

(Translation: Ahhh, Kyle, fatty, how are you?)

This is how my father in law would greet me every time we went over to his house. Although, the word gordita was alternately replaced with “rellenita,” another term, also referring to plumpness.

At first, I thought I needed to be on model behavior for my husband’s parents, so I would just grit my teeth, clench my fists, and smile and nod, when all I really wanted to do was punch his dad in the face, as he insulted me about my weight over and over and over again.

Finally one day I’d had it. When my father in law inevitably brought up my weight at the dinner table in front of everybody, telling me I looked “even fatter than normal,” I took the bait and snapped back, “Well, you look older and more wrinkly than normal.”

Silence.

Crickets chirping.

Me turning beet red as I realized I’d just said something truly offensive.

Eventually someone coughed politely and changed the subject. But, after dinner my husband took me aside.

“Why in the world would you insult my dad like that?!?” he asked.

I told him, “I’m sick of the weight comments, tell him to stop insulting me.”

And then the error of my ways was explained to me. My husband told me that in Chile, “Gordita” is a term of endearment and is only used lovingly. He also explained that it’s not at all impolite to bring up other people’s weight loss/weight gain and that if people do, that just means they care about you enough to notice.

And then I explained to my husband that telling someone they look fat/fatter is one of the rudest things you can possibly do in my culture and that certain gringas (ahem, not me, of course) are even prone to random acts of violence when old men, who are also fat, feel it necessary to make weight comments.

Needless to say, hubby had a little chat with my father in law and my fatness, or lack thereof, was never brought up again.

Kyle’s blog Just Married Chilean Style has more stories of married life in Chile.

Enjoyed this? Read more stories of cross-cultural encounters from My Partner is a Foreigner.

Now this would have been no big deal if we lived in N. America. There, if you told someone you got a fancy new fridge, they’d probably start yawning. Here in Germany, it’s like all the neighbours have to come over and take a look at the utter decadence. Our duplex neighbour was suitably impressed and called it a Luxuskühlschrank - a luxury fridge. We even thought about charging admission.

After the fridge was in place I had no peace in our little kitchen with everyone running in and out every five minutes to fill their glasses with ice cubes or crushed ice, my husband being the worst culprit, looking forward to long, hot summers filled with well-chilled cocktails and little paper umbrellas.

But my better half hasn’t always had such an easy relationship with ice cubes. He’s German, remember, and Germans have a thing about cold drinks. It’s a well-known German old wives tale that if your drink is too cold, you will immediately get pneumonia and die. Oh yes, it’s true. Just ask my in-laws. Ice cream is fine, ice cubes are definitely not. Very confusing for a foreigner.

When I first moved to Germany, I asked Mr. M where his ice cube tray was and he replied, “Ice…cubes? What are these ‘ice cubes’ of which you speak?”

They do actually sell ice cube trays in here, so we went out and got one. After that it was a cautious “You mean I won’t get pneumonia and die if I put ice in my drink? Promise?” He tried it, he lived, and the search for the perfect ice cube tray was on. Over the years we must have collected about ten of the things - all different shapes, sizes and materials.I guess we really have no more use for them now, but maybe I’ll keep a couple for old time’s sake - to remember the day when Mr. M finally moved into the ice age.

Christina has lived in Germany since 1990. In her blog Mausi she writes about more cross-cultural adventures in Germany with her German husband, bilingual boys and a garden full of weeds.

Let’s start with my first Italian family meal. It was in Bari, with my husband, his brothers, sisters, cousins, wives of brothers… Huge table! We ate seafood and when it arrived the whole family said ‘wow! look at this!’ The dish was octupus cooked in seawater. They said I should taste this very delicious food. I tasted and I couldn’t chew it, it was like rubber tasting of salt. All eyes were looking at me… ‘Do you like it?’ they asked. ‘Mmmm… it’s ok’, I said. I asked if anyone would like to finish and they jumped on it! In Bari fresh octupus is a delicacy.

The meal time is quite different in our countries. In Italy, Sunday lunch can last from 1:30 to 5pm. In Turkey it is from 1-2pm. In Italy they eat pasta, followed by meat or fish. We eat soup (in winter) and mezze to start. We eat pasta as main course and sometimes at the same time as the meat. And we make pasta into a salad with yoghurt. For my husband it was very strange to see me eating pasta with yoghurt! ‘what are you doing??’ he said. Now he also eats pasta with yoghurt (woman power…!)

The second difference is coffee. Italians are so quick to drink their espresso or macchiato. In Turkey it is a ritual to drink Turkish coffee and chat. We need at least 15 minutes. Everytime I drank coffee with Roberto I expected to sit and chat. But our coffee arrived and he drank it in one gulp. I am still disappointed but I got used to it (man power…!)

So on pasta I won. On coffee he won!

Lamia’s blog Bursa Daily Photo shows photos of her town Bursa, in Turkey

If you have a cross-cultural story to share please send it to info@pocketcultures.com

By the time he was done, there was not a grain of rice left on his large oval plate. My mother told him how lucky he was that he could eat enough food for three people and not be fat. François was of normal weight - although he did outweigh me, which fulfilled one of my two requirements for dating a guy. The other requirement was a total lack of interest in watching sports on television. François fulfilled that one, too.

Unbelievably, he ordered dessert, exclaiming that he couldn’t possibly imagine skipping the rose water and pistachio ice cream. By then, I was just hoping that if he did throw up, it wouldn’t happen in my father’s car.

Once we arrived at my house, I asked François why he had eaten so much. “I know that Middle Easterners love to feed people and I wanted to make a good impression on your parents,” he said. “But now I need to go lie down”

The story above is an extract from the book Funny in Farsi published with permission from Firoozeh Dumas. Firoozeh is the author of Funny in Farsi, an excellent and funny book of tales about growing up Iranian in America, and her second book, Laughing without an accent, has just been released.

If you have a story to share, or if you would like to receive our email newsletter, we’d love to hear from you at: info@pocketcultures.com

As someone who comes from a country with proper winter, it was understood that the cold will not affect me, and I bravely assumed the task the first Christmas I spent there. Now it is always up to me to make sure there is sea water for the gamba roja!

Do you have a cross-cultural story? We’d love to hear from you. Please write to us at info@pocketcultures.com

After flying back to Italy from the US, my husband and I decided to spend the night at his parent’s house because we were too exhausted to drive to our apartment downtown.

Because one of my suitcases never made the connecting flight, I didn’t have any of my own things. My husband lent me a pair of his pajamas to wear and we went straight to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, I was feeling groggy from jet lag. My husband suggested that I take a shower to wake up, so he told me that he’d get everything I need for my shower in his parent’s bathroom.

I walked into their bathroom and jumped in the shower when the water was hot. When I opened the shower door afterwards, I couldn’t find a bath towel hanging anywhere. I spotted a small hand towel and considered drying off with it, but couldn’t bring myself to use it because it looked like it had already been used.

I stood on the shower mat dripping wet, beginning to get cold, trying to come up with another solution. I didn’t want to yell out to my husband to get me a towel because he wouldn’t have been able to hear me in the kitchen.

As a last resort, I decided to dry myself off with his pajamas instead. Luckily, my husband had handed me an accappatoio
(bathrobe) before taking my shower, so I walked out of the bathroom wearing it and holding my now wet pajamas.

I flung the accappatoio on the bed and started getting dressed. My husband scooped up the accappatoio and was about to hang it up when he said, “How come the accappatoio is dry?”

“Why would it be wet?” I asked.

“Didn’t you use it to dry yourself off?” he said, patting it between his hands.

I told him that he forgot to put a bath towel in the bathroom for me, so I had to use his pajamas to dry myself off. He told me that the accappatoio was my bath towel and showed me how to dry myself off by putting it on and using it like a towel.

I had only ever worn an accappatoio in luxurious hotels after washing up and never knew it could be used as a bath towel. As a result, I got my own accappatoio a few days later. I find it even more practical than a bath towel: I can dry off quickly while keeping warm and cover up at the same time when I exit the bathroom.

You can read more about Melinda’s adventures in Italy in her blog Living in Florence

Enjoyed this? Read more stories of cross-cultural encounters from My Partner is a Foreigner.

Mother called last night and asked the frog if he had any idea what she could get him for his upcoming birthday. I would give anything to have been a fly on the wall to see her reaction when he said that he could do with a pair of handcuffs*.

Strait-laced mother must have been struggling to process this unexpected/unwelcome revelation about our sex life and his request was met with a protracted embarrassed silence. I was too busy choking with mirth on a sour cream and onion Pringle to put either of them out of their misery.

He meant cuff links*.

Reproduced with permission from Catherine Sanderson´s blog Petite Anglaise. Catherine is about to publish a book about her adventures living in Paris.

*note for non-native english speakers:
handcuffs - the police use them to fasten your hands together
cuff links - decorative device used to fasten shirt sleeves