[on differences]

Enter into any relationship and there's bound to be differences between two individuals. It would be quite unlikely that even two related families do things the same way. What more in an international, intercultural marriage. Over the past 9 months (woo I survived so long heh), I've noticed several differences in Mr F's and my style of doing things. Just wanted to point out a few here.

1. Food. In Sg we believe in our food pyramid - having a bit of everything during one meal. Rice (or other carbs), a meat dish and a vege dish. I remember the first meal I cooked after our first grocery shopping here. I cooked what would be a typical meal at home - chicken curry and stir-fried french beans. Upon having lunch, hubby commented that he didn't realise I was going to cook everything in one day. I later learned that what I cooked is equivalent to 3 different meals in India - chicken dish one day, potato another and french beans another. There went my "ideal" meals, but I'm not complaining since it's one less dish a day to cook hehe. Having a vege side dish has always made eating veges more palatable since the meat dish can "mask" the taste of the vege. Now we cook totally veg on certain days. They also cut their veges into tiny tiny pieces so that the quantity lookes bigger. After discussing this with his friend the other day, I realise maybe it's because (most) S'poreans are, Alhamdulillah, well to do and we don't need to pinch on our food at least.

2. Recipes. Also related to the above, needless to say I'm cooking more Indian/Hyderabadian recipes these days. It isn't a problem for me since I eat Indian food in Sg anyway, but I miss Malay food, something which I now cook only occasionally because Mr F's face changes whenever he sees a dish he's not familiar with (yes I notice darling). Gone also are my chilli downing days, whether it's prawn sambal, sambal belacan or a fiery curry recipe. Seems that although Indians are supposed to be able to tolerate spice, chilli spiciness is a different thing altogether. The couple of times I used a blazing hot fish curry mix (not used to the brands here yet...) and cooked sambal, Mr F's GI system went ablaze and he rushed to the loo immediately. Then again, I think he generally doesn't have high spice tolerance, which he claims is the result of having lived here for too long. Now I mostly cook chilli stuff just for myself, rarely.

3. Clothes. Again although I have no problems wearing traditional Indian clothes, it seems that the Hyd ladies here wear it all the time, out or at home. Gawdy sequinned ones at that. Thank God my MIL firstly doesn't like gawdy stuff, and secondly knows my taste about overly sequinned stuff, so the suits she makes for me are more plain. Yet after that, I feel a little underdressed everytime I meet the DH because my clothes are always the ones without any embellishments. I also wish I could be more "myself", wearing my regular clothes when I meet them, but with the growing number of suits MIL makes me, Mr F always goes "Who's gonna wear them if you don't?" Gah.

4. Language. Out of this list, I guess this is my biggest gripe. It seems that everyone just EXPECTS me to suddenly start speaking Urdu. It's not that I have anything against learning the language, but you can't learn a language overnight, especially when you hear it only once a month at most. I swear when I was hearing it constantly last July, I picked up more than I did these past months. And you also can't learn it when people just continue speaking in that language without any translation (that's why they invented the dictionary). My mother probably learned Tamil fast because my grandma lived with us, and she had plenty of things to say to her not-so-favourite DIL (i.e. she learnt a lot of swear words too lol). I get extremely bored and frustrated everytime the DH meet because although one or two of them will bother to tell me what's going on every now and then, it is mostly just me sitting there looking (or feeling) stupid because I have absolutely no clue what's going on. When there's a joke, everyone will suddenly turn to me and wonder why I'm not laughing, then someone will feebly try to translate, after the excitement has died down. What happened to accomodating an outsider? I guess that won't happen anytime soon. That is why I'm so desperately trying to keep in touch with fellow S'poreans or Msians, because believe me, speaking in your own tongue is sooooo liberating. I'm trying to learn on my own now, forcing Mr F to teach me a phrase or two a day and reading up here and there. Seems that Urdu teachers are hard to come by here; the only one I found throughout these months lives too far away for hub's convenience. I only have a couple of months more to go, since my in-laws will definitely be "testing" me when I'm back for hols. Sigh.

The list goes on, but I shall continue another day. Having pointed out these few points, I should say that even though the differences are there, it doesn't necessarily imply that it's a bad thing. As a matter of fact, it makes you more open to receiving and giving cultural experiences. Furthermore, isn't compromise what a good relationship is about? ;)