Dependent or breadwinner? Vietnamese brides reshaping gender roles at the China-Vietnam border Full Text

When my husband is away, we don’t have any way to transport the bread to sell in the city. Whatever I didn’t sell, I gave to relatives in the village and we have a few at home each day. By the time I made another batch, what we hadn’t eaten was already moldy, especially in the rainy season, and had to be thrown away. Basically, Vietnamese girls who travel to China to marry make a big fuss on their first visit to the bride’s home. Marrying into a good family is considered a noble thing in our country. Not only do we slaughter pigs and chickens, and drink all day, but we also invite a group of singers to the house. The first time I saw him, I felt nothing; my only concern was the bride price.

As such, if you’re looking for the literal definition of a “ride or die” partner, find Vietnamese girls for marriage. Since they were raised mainly on traditional ideals, they tend to behave quite differently from Western women. For starters, they tend to shy away from provocative dresses and outfits.

You’ll most likely have to meet her family members quite soon, so you should be ready for it. It’s another important part of the dating etiquette in this country—you’ll need to spend time with her family and ask them for permission to date their daughter. It’s possible, of course—but not with a Vietnamese woman for marriage.

Most Vietnamese brides believe in keeping long-term relationships. As such, they do everything within their power to keep their relationships or marriage. A Vietnamese woman isn’t likely to cheat on you, especially if you’re treating her right. Once this exchange has fully taken place, the couple will serve Chrysanthemum tea or Green tea to the family members. Then, the family members will, in turn, present them with gifts such as money or jewelry. Usually, the bride’s family divides the gifts into two parts and sends one part back to the groom’s family.

  • They adore a classic style of clothing because it makes them more elegant.
  • Vietnamese women can be quite precise about what they desire and in most cases, they’ll be upfront about it.
  • 33% of girls in this country register on dating platforms to find a partner for a long-term relationship.

After she got married, Li visited her parents in Vietnam once a year. But since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, she hasn’t returned to her home country. An airline ticket from China to Vietnam can now cost over 3,000 yuan ($400), and with COVID measures, she would have to go through quarantine if she returned from overseas, at her own expense of around 20,000 yuan ($2,700). They held a traditional wedding in Vietnam with local rituals, such as holding hands with the bride’s parents. Then the newlyweds flew to China and held another traditional wedding in Huajiahe. A Cui, a Vietnamese woman who married in Hong’an, makes Vietnamese coffee for a visitorĀ Cuì 阿翠, a 45-year-old Vietnamese wife in Huajiahe, moved here 10 years ago.

Reasons for international marriages

But estimates from Xinhua News Agency indicate that there are over 100,000 Vietnamese women in China who are married to Chinese men. That far outpaces the number of foreign women from other countries who are married to Chinese men. An estimated 7,000 brides in China come from Cambodia, for example. In rural areas of China, three decades of sex-selective abortions under the one-child policy, which ended in 2015, have created a severe shortage of women.

However, as noted by many scholars (Suzuki 2005; continue reading https://foreignbridesguru.com/vietnamese-brides/ Angeles and Sunanta 2009; Cheng 2010), with the improvement of migrant women’s economic capabilities, they are more likely to help their parents with concrete supports. Migrant daughters are more reliable than sons in remitting income to their birth families (Angeles and Sunanta 2009; Faier 2007; Mills 1999; Lapanun 2010). Here, we can easily discern how the stereotypical gendered bias to see foreign brides only as dependents works again to deny their economic contributions. Gender-biased dichotomies, such as public vs. domestic, formal vs. informal, and productive vs. reproductive, have led to the devaluation and underestimation of foreign brides’ economic contributions in many ways. Although more and more migrant women have participated in economic activities, the gendered labor division has not been substantially altered (Zuo 2004; Zuo and Bian 2005) and they are still not seen as real breadwinners. So, the marriage migration of Vietnamese brides isn’t something new, but the thing is, Vietnamese ladies can be perfect wives to some men, and not-so-good matches for other singles. They do have some national characteristics, in particular, friendliness and optimism, family-mindedness, and tolerance to other views and values.

What are the key characteristics of Vietnamese wives?

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They think that Western men are more caring, loving, and of course, more financially stable than men from Vietnam. According to some people, dating a Vietnamese mail order wife is one of the best online dating experiences a man can get. I have nothing against this idea—these girls are fun, easy-going, and very eager to be with a foreigner. These women are more traditional/conservative than women from your country, so they are not comfortable with PDA. If you’re going to meet Vietnamese brides, you need to make them feel comfortable—it’s obvious that some of them will feel too shy on the first date, especially if they have never dated foreigners before. Dating a Vietnamese woman for marriage is not that difficult. As I’ve said before, it’s easy to find Vietnamese girls online and to start chatting with them because they are extremely open-minded and free of prejudice—but it’s obviously not the same thing as dating Western women.

They are like some kind of enigma because the closer your relationships are, the more she opens up. So, you should prepare for adventures and new emotions because Vietnamese brides believe that it’s necessary to enjoy every moment and spend quality time together with their loved ones. It’s often when a Vietnamese woman for marriage makes you want to protect her from the whole world and always take care of her. Usually, local women are of short or average height, being smaller compared to Western men. This height difference makes the international couple look cute and attracts other people’s attention. In other cases which Vietnamese women have their agency to marry foreign men, the living conditions are different. These Vietnamese women can find their own jobs though sometimes the wage is low.

Forms of hezi hunyin (“joint venture” marriages) were also clearly evident in the lives of many of my informants. Therefore, the legal representatives of their husbands’ companies were registered under their wives’ IDs. The family properties they purchased in Vietnam were also in the names of the wives. Many researchers find that negative impressions of foreign brides are common in public constructions (Hsia 2010; Wang and Chang 2009). In many official records, we can only see that the majority of foreign brides migrate legally as dependents rather than as independent passport holders. The status of passport dependent greatly restricts their ability to work.

This ceremony consists of a meeting between the two families where the groom’s family visits the bride’s family to formally ask for an official relationship. The primary purpose of this ceremony is to help both families reach a mutual understanding regarding the upcoming marriage.