Fadhilah Raihan

Intercultural Dating

Intercultural dating is just like other normal dating between two people except that they do not share same culture. In most cases, intercultural dating is referring to romantic relationship of two people with different ethnicity. For example, a relationship between a Black man with a White woman, Chinese woman seeing a Mexican guy so on and so forth. As quoted by Martin, a study shows that the reason why people choose not to date with someone within their own ethnic group is because of lack of attraction while the reason for not dating someone outside their ethnic group is because they do not have an opportunity to do so.

This friend of mine is part British and part Malay.

She has a distinct physical features and that makes her look attractive.

She is dating a Malay guy.

Does that make her "partly" engaging with intercultural dating?

I would say those who do not have the opportunities grew up in a homogenous society and those who have plenty opportunities live in more diverse society. It is an obvious pattern as you are not likely to see many Japanese people in Japan marries someone from outside their group. This is supported with the study by Tucker and Mitchell – Kernan as quoted by Martin that California that has more diverse schools and neighborhood has greater incidence of intercultural marriage. I want to point up another reason on why people choose to marry people outside their ethnic group. My mother wants me to marry a Caucasian just because of the differences in biological traits that we have. For example of having blue or green eyes other than dark brown that Asians have. It is not only because of the eyes, mixed born babies always look more adorable; maybe that’s what she thinks. As for me, I still do not have that opportunity but my preference on my own ethnic group does not change. I would put someone from my ethnicity as priority.

This is very important concept in the future because globalization has shrunken then world. People from different ethnicity and different background can meet anytime and anywhere. The tools like Facebook and Twitter do not even need people to travel far to “meet” someone from the other side of the world. I remember meeting a Malaysian lady who lived in Colorado. She got married with a Caucasian American guy. When I asked about how she got to know him, she said, she just met him online through a chatting website and they always share their day and feelings until one day this guy flew all the way from America to Malaysia and asked her hand for marriage! It is an astonishing story indeed. What is more, her children can speak a Malay dialect fluently despite of them living their whole life in Colorado. When they have a summer vacation in Malaysia, people try to speak English with the children as they have stronger father biological traits on them but they replied in fluent Malay. I would say that they are one of the best products of intercultural dating. This incident could happen to anyone. In UNL, there is quite a diverse ethnicity of students. Intercultural dating is inevitable.

Reference:

Martin, J., & Nakayama, T. (2010). Intercultural Communication in Contexts. New York: McGraw Hill.