My girlfriend's mother won't give her the Hukou!

[imron]

Nothing wrong with 20 year olds posting on forums for life advice, and it's eminently more preferable than 20 year olds who don't ask for advice.

Anonymoose has it right though, in china you marry the family. It's not just about the two of you, it's about her family too. Especially so if she's an only child, which is quite likely given her age.

In china there is very little social welfare and parents often rely on their children for care. You need to be able to show not just that you can take care of their daughter, but also the parents.

Advice above about getting a good education and a good job will all help on this regard. Making an effort to learn Chinese will also help.

[Basil]

 

 

In china there is very little social welfare and parents often rely on their children for care. You need to be able to show not just that you can take care of their daughter, but also the parents.

 

Ain't that the truth...

[zhouhaochen]

While officialy an adult, an 18 year old in China usually does well to listen to her mother a bit. The concerns regarding who will pay for whom etc. are very valid. It is quite a risky thing to leave China without a finished education or your own financial resources. What happens if she cheats on the OP, he gets really angry, breaks up and does not want to have anything to do with her?

 

On the other hand side, if my parents had told me I cant travel where I want to when I was 18, I would have stolen the Hukou.

 

Go and provide guarantees, from education, money, career etc. that she is well taken care of and you can probably change the mothers mind. If you cannot, keep in mind that people from financially not as stable backgrounds and without a social welfare system that has their back, simply have to be a bit more careful in their life planning.

[陳德聰]

... This is ridiculous.

If your girlfriend wants to get a passport, she should just take the hukou, which though I called it "stealing" I actually meant for her to take it not you (how would you get into the house?). Lying to her mother so that she allows her to get a passport is not the most outlandish thing ever, and after she gets the passport, which I feel like some people are missing the point that it's not really within the mother's authority to deny her daughter from getting a passport, then she can say "actually I'd rather go to the UK with this passport" and it doesn't even matter anymore because she has a passport and the financing is up to her to figure out.

100% agree with zhouhaochen. Several of my peers "stole" their own hukou to get their passports.

[Basil]

I would think carefully before inciting a young Chinese girl into rebellion against her family.

 

Although she might be quite smitten by you now and possibly this is a love that will last, but in future years she will come to bitterly regret any burnt bridges with her family.

 

The family relationship in China is much more intense than that in the West.

 

Please don't superimpose how you believe families should act onto ones from a different culture. 

 

Move to China, be with her, support her. Win the support of her family, they will bring you in and treat you as their son. Then you can do whatever the pair of you wish to do, with their money and their blessing.

[淨土極樂]

It's funny how the only Chinese guy in this thread is getting downvoted.

 

He's Chinese, he knows how things are done here. There's absolutely no need to apply Western logic to this kind of situations.

 

There's a huge generation gap between parents and their kids in China. The parents are usually former farmers with little education that have no idea how things work in the modern world. So the kids have to make their own decisions without telling the parents and then just present them the facts.

 

Especially true for the girls. If they never rebelled, they would just get married off to the first rich guy their parents find for them.

[geraldc]

Chinese are pretty traditional, it's going to be worse if you have only 1 child. As said before, you're taking on an entire family, that you'll be responsible for supporting once they retire.

 

A daughter who stole paperwork, and fled abroad, will cause a lot of trouble for the family. Rumours will spread, and her name will be dirt. 

 

I say wait till you both graduate, and just carry out a long distance relationship. If that's too difficult, break it off and join tinder or something to take your mind off it.

[gato]

In the other thread, you said your girlfriend is still in high school. Is she going to drop out of high school to visit you for 6 months? Isn't that a terrible, which will make it very hard for her to go to college, whether it's in China or the UK?

[Narokela]

I managed to persuade her to stay in school and I will visit her myself again soon, will think about things anyway now before we make any decisions. I am better to come and ask for advice rather than taking actions, lucky I am not some boy who goes over to China and gets her pregnant then tries to run off from it. Could easily be the case.

 

Luckily I am a decent lad who is looking for a serious relationship, I think I did the right think coming here to look for advice anyway. Better safe than sorry!

[Lu]

From what I understand from Chen Derong, taking the hukou without the parents' knowledge is something other Chinese people do too.

Still I agree with others that that's not the best option. If I were the OP and the girlfriend, I'd take a step back and slow down the plans. Has the girlfriend even graduated high school yet? If not, do that first. If possible, OP and GF can make a big show to the mother of them both thinking this is best, OP supporting GF, helping her with her homework, etc. Whatever they do next, a high school diploma is a very useful thing to have.

Then make some serious plans. What exactly is the GF going to do in the UK? At which school, for how long, what does it cost, who is going to pay for it? Does she have insurance? Etc. OP, perhaps ask your parents for advice or other people in the know. Make sure GF keeps her mother updated on the research. This shows you are grown-up enough to think further than 'she stays with me and learns English', which is not much of a plan. (And where is she going to live? Do you have a place that's big enough for two people to live and study comfortably? If not, where? If, god forbid, you two have a fight, does she have a place to go?)

If you haven't yet, go visit her and her family in China, so they can get to know you and realise that you are a responsible, adult person, not a pimp and not the kind of guy who will get their daughter pregnant then dump her. Do everything you can to not just come off as a responsible, adult guy but to actually be one. Good grades in uni and a plan for the future might help.

Perhaps girlfriend can do some travelling within China with friends or classmates. Mother shouldn't reasonably object to that, and GF can show mother that she has the ability to take care of herself.

If it's true love, it will still be true love if you wait six months or a year. No need for dramatic actions to prove it. I wish you both the best!

[geraldc]

To study uni in the UK, she will need a lot of money. As a non home student it's higher fees and no access to loans.

[Shelley]

Glad to hear she is staying at school. I hope you enjoy your visit with her.

 

I hope things work out for you both, remember just take things slowly and sensibly and if its meant to be it will all work out.

[rezaf]

Geraldc is right. (Just out of curiosity) What are you guys going to do about the tuition fee and other expenses in the UK? It's certainly not something that an average Chinese family can afford.

 

In any case in my experience whoever has the money can call the shots. If you expect them to pay it then you have to play it by their rules which might mean a few years of difficult relationship until you prove to them that you are serious. However if you have money and can pay the tuition fee then it opens up other options. With money, gifts, house, ... the trust can be bought much faster.

[陳德聰]

I've only just now checked the other thread OP posted. I was also thinking if she is in school away from home she should have been registered in the hukou by her school... But if she has said that she isn't, then I guess that's the case...

 

I think you'd be better off trying to get her into a UK undergraduate program so she can apply on the tier 4 visa (which requires she prove she can afford it, and have a satisfactory English level already) and then you can spend more than 6 months together.

[geraldc]

International student, 3 year course with lab work,15k a year, plus living expenses.So for 3 years, you need to find £60k?

[daofeishi]

Please don't superimpose how you believe families should act onto ones from a different culture. 

 

Hmmm... That is a statement that works both ways, isn't it? Same-culture couples are free to define the boundaries of their own personal relationships. Of course couples from different cultures have to be expected to do the same. Ultimately it is up to the couple to define their own boundaries, and if they stray from what is considered the "norm", that is not a reason by itself to criticize them. 

 

Adults in any culture are autonomous individuals. If they want to break with the convention, who is anyone to say they have to conform just to perpetuate a cultural norm? And who is anyone to say that it is unreasonable to disagree with norms within the culture of someone's partner? Shouldn't there be a dialogue between the two to strike the right balance?  

 

Of course, finding a solution that doesn't create tension within anyone's family is probably the best, but I am very skeptical of bringing in cultural norms as some ironclad rule that you are morally obligated to adhere to. There could be very good reasons not to, and ultimately it is up to the two adult individuals to decide if the other's expectations of the relationship are acceptable. Not society as a whole. 

[Basil]

 

 

Adults in any culture are autonomous individuals. If they want to break with the convention, who is anyone to say they have to conform just to perpetuate a cultural norm? And who is anyone to say that it is unreasonable to disagree with norms within the culture of someone's partner? Shouldn't there be a dialogue between the two to strike the right balance?  

 

This is a real person asking for real advice about a problem that might impact on people for decades.

 

This is not a uni debating jolly.

 

If I were to say everything that you have just said to my wife's parents, as good as it sounds, they would simply not understand it. They would not know what the words meant, they would not get the concepts. They would struggle with the idea of concept. They are simple. They want their daughter safe and for her to do well and to provide for them in old age. They can't cope with gossip. They've had enough of it already. Bad gossip means they can't bear to go out of the house and face the world and they are too old and tired to do anything else.

 

Respecting other cultures means that you respect them even when they are weaker than yours. Especially when they are weaker than yours.

 

If you are going to start some kind of relationship revolution, go ahead. However, it is good manners to take that fight to someone who understands the nature of the fight. If you fight with noble terms of self actualisation and self realisation, and then maybe the opponent will raise his fists to fight. But he will not be fighting on equal terms. He will simply believe he is fighting for his daughter and his future and his family line. To a great many people in China, especially of that generation, they are simple, nothing else matters, especially not all these grand incomprehensible terms that spew forth from the mouths of those from the other countries.

 

 

 

That is a statement that works both ways, isn't it? Same-culture couples are free to define the boundaries of their own personal relationships.

 

Because they are the same culture, they are not free. They are held back by the invisible binds of a thousand different conventions.

 

This is about two young people. Technically adults, although the girl is not legally old enough to marry for a few years yet...

 

Romeo and Juliet did everything to be together. Great, romantic, noble, fantastic story. But all things considered, don't you think their actions were ever so slightly myopic?

[gato]

Considering things solely from a couple's perspective rather than the family's or a village's or a tribe's (or an individual's) is itself a cultural norm. There is no inherent reason that one is better than the other. It depends on one's circumstances. That's why cross-cultural relations can be so hard -- because one's circumstances and cultural norms can conflict.

Furthermore, there is a vast difference in maturity and autonomy between an 18-year high school student and a 25- or 30-year old woman. The difference usually is even greater in China than the West.

[Lu]

Adults in any culture are autonomous individuals.

People aren't autonomous. We depend on one another, to various degrees, for virtually everything. But in the West, adults are generally expected to be more autonomous and independent than in China. In Western countries, parents are often expected to let their adult children go more, to let them do their own thing and not be a unit with their old family anymore. In China, adult children are often expected to still be very much part of the family, live in their parents' house, help out practically and financially, etc. This is reflected in things like the hukou: in my country, minors aren't even allowed to be on their parents' passport anymore, let alone that an 18-year-old would need her parents' permission to get a passport. The law follows the cultural norm here. And the OP would do well to respect that.

[Simon_CH]

Hah, young people nowadays.