On Marriage as an Immigrant in China

A world map, with a heart in the US connected to a heart in Europe. Image source.

I'm a US citizen; my husband is a Chinese citizen. We got married in China, we live in China, and we have a son who was born in China. A few days ago I wrote a post called Why Marriage as a Private Contract is a Bad Idea, which included the idea that people don't think about the fact that marriage is an actual legal arrangement which comes with certain rights/obligations/restrictions- they just think in romantic terms like "we want to spend the rest of our lives together, so, we get married." This post will be about how that relates to my situation as an immigrant who got married in China.

When we got married, the legal process of it worked thusly: I had to go to the US consulate in Shanghai and get a document that states I wasn't already married. (If I had been married before, I would have had to bring proof of divorce or death, when I went to get this document from the US consulate.) I just had to swear that I'm not already married, and the US consulate didn't do anything to check if it's true or not, they just believed me and wrote up a paper that says so.

Then we had to go to my husband's hometown, because his hukou is from there. What is a hukou, you ask? Ah. Well. The hukou system is very important in China, so let me explain it. A hukou is a document that all Chinese citizens should have, that states what city in China you are officially a resident of. In the city where your hukou is, you enjoy some rights that non-locals don't have- things related to access to public services like schools, health care, buying property, etc. Some hukous are better than others- for example, a Beijing or Shanghai hukou is seen as really valuable to have, whereas a hukou for some little city in the middle of nowhere, like, who cares.

It's not that each individual has a hukou- it's the household that has the hukou, and all the family members' names are on it. So for many people (such as my husband) their hukou has their parents' names on it, and their name. And the actual physical document is in the parents' possession, in their hometown. Lots of people in Shanghai are in this situation- they live in Shanghai, but their hukou is a hukou from their hometown rather than a Shanghai hukou, and they don't actually have it physically, their parents have it in a different city.

In China, lots of people move from small cities to big cities to find jobs. But just because you move to another city, and live there for a long time, doesn't mean you can change your hukou to that city. Each city has requirements about what you have to do to get a hukou (for example, how many years you have to work and pay taxes, how high your salary has to be, what level of education you should have, etc). I know people who, after living in Shanghai for a long time, were able to get a Shanghai hukou, and remove their name from their parents' hukou.

Anyway. So. When Chinese people get married, it has to be in one spouse's hukou city. They can't just get married anywhere. So, we went back to Hendrix's hometown, brought all our documents, and got our marriage licenses there. (We later held the wedding in the US- in China, getting legally married is a completely separate event from the wedding.)

Okay, so that's the legal aspect of getting married in China. Also, we have to be a man and woman because China doesn't allow same-sex marriage. (Same-sex couples would have to go to a different country to get married, I'm not sure on the details of this, sounds complicated.) Beyond that, I didn't think about the legal aspects at all.

Later, we started the process of applying for a US green card for my husband (but now we're not sure about the timeline for moving to the US, so we're currently not really moving forward with it). That's a very significant legal benefit that comes from marriage- if you're married to a US citizen, there's a straightforward, reasonable process to get a US green card, and eventually US citizenship. If you're not, well... it might not even be possible.

In China, my status as a legal immigrant is dependent on my job, not my marriage. If you're in China on a marriage visa, you're not legally allowed to work, so that's why I don't have a marriage visa. But it is nice to know that if I lose my job, and I can't find a new job before my residence permit expires, I can do the paperwork to change to a marriage visa, rather than being forced to leave China. (A "residence permit" is basically the same thing as a visa but if it's long-term they call it a residence permit instead of a visa. Also, I know that "marriage visa" isn't the correct technical term here, but I am trying not to get this blog post too bogged down in the minutiae of Chinese bureaucracy.)

There are things that are much more inconvenient for me than for a Chinese citizen, and even some things that I can't do at all, so I just ask my husband to do them for me, which works out well. For example, when buying imported products online, it's often a requirement to have a Chinese ID card, and the seller needs to use your ID card number for some customs bureaucracy stuff. If you don't have a Chinese ID card, you could either ask a Chinese citizen to buy the thing for you, or you can message the seller and explain that you don't have an ID card, and ask if they have a workaround. (Sometimes the seller will use their own ID card for it.)

Also, my husband has a bank account with a better interest rate than mine. I tried to open one, but it required a Chinese ID card. So, we keep a lot of our savings in this account, which only he has access to. But I am the organized one who tells him when to put money in, and when to spend money from that account. And I also have my own bank account with my own savings. (In China there aren't joint bank accounts.)

So, that's an overview of the ways that the legal aspects of marriage- where he is a citizen and I am an immigrant- have affected our lives. ("Hey babe I'm sending you a link for some deodorant that needs a Chinese ID card to buy, can you buy it for me?" - that's mostly what immigrant marriage is.)

Sometimes I read news articles about women who immigrated to the US and married American men, and how a woman in that situation can be very vulnerable. If her husband abuses her, she may feel like she's not able to divorce him, because it would affect her immigration status.

I don't have anything like that in my marriage, but I wonder if it's always true that a marriage between an immigrant and a citizen will have a power dynamic which could potentially turn bad. The root of it is, citizens always have more rights than immigrants. And an immigrant married to a citizen has more rights than an immigrant not married to a citizen. So, it is necessarily true that the immigrant will have more legal rights if they stay in the marriage than if they don't. 

(Thinking about how people usually view this kind of marriage in very romantic terms, like "wow our love is so strong, it crosses the boundaries of culture, race, nations, and language, how beautiful" without thinking at all about the practicalities of it.)

Honestly, though, it's probably impossible to have a relationship that doesn't have any kind of "power dynamic" at all. (And maybe "power dynamic" isn't even the right word here- is it only a "power dynamic" if it's likely to turn harmful?) The two partners are two different people, each with their own unique resources, which the other partner can have access to if they stay in the relationship. Is that a "power dynamic"?

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Okay, but things are different if you have kids.

When I was pregnant a few years ago, I joined a few social media groups for international women in China who are partnered with Chinese men. And that's where I first heard about the massive amount of bureaucracy you have to wade through if you have a child who has 1 Chinese citizen parent and 1 foreign parent. See, China doesn't recognize dual citizenship, and yet, according to Chinese law, our son is a Chinese citizen because his dad is a Chinese citizen, and according to US law, our son is a US citizen because I am, so, uh... he does *have* two citizenships, but China doesn't *recognize* it, what on earth does that mean? 

Well, the short version is, it means more paperwork for me. (And it means that China calls it "nationality conflict" [国籍冲突] instead of "dual citizenship." ... So basically dual citizenship, except with extra bureaucracy because they're pretending it's not dual citizenship.)

There were a whole bunch of bureaucracy-related decisions we had to make, after our son was born. On his birth certificate, do we put his Chinese name or English name? Do we get him a US passport? Do we get him a Chinese passport? Do we get him both passports? (Note that apparently it's illegal to get him both passports- but some parents do that.) Do we put him on the Chinese parent's hukou?

(There's nothing *wrong* with having a child in this situation- plenty of people do. The government employees never treat us like we've done something wrong, they just often don't know how to handle it because my son doesn't fit nicely into any of their categories.)

Okay, so I had to think through all of those options and figure out what would be best for our family. I'm really glad there are social media groups with other moms in this situation, because most people in China have no idea about any of this. I had no idea it would be so complicated.

But, when thinking through all these bureaucracy things for my son, it wasn't just about "how much of a pain is it to apply for a pro-forma visa vs a Chinese travel document?" I was also advised by the other moms to think very seriously about what it would mean for my child custody rights if we divorced.

Basically, the issue is, China considers the child to be a Chinese citizen- not recognizing dual citizenship. If you divorce in China, the Chinese court will give custody to the Chinese side of the family, and the foreign parent doesn't have rights. This is what I've heard- I don't know the exact details. If you're in that situation, talk to a lawyer, don't take this blog post as legal advice.

I've heard a lot of bad stories, in these social media groups for international moms married to Chinese men. Women posting things like "I want to divorce my husband, but I know that I would not be able to get custody of my child" [often followed by "and he never actually does any of the work of being a father- he'll just send the kid back to his hometown to live with her grandparents"]. Or "my husband says he will divorce me when our child is over 2 years old, because if the child is under 2, the court is more likely to award custody to the mother." Just really scary stuff. I've heard stories of women who divorced their husbands, and then the woman went back to her own country without her kids- oh god, don't do that, don't leave China without your kids if you're on bad terms with your husband- you might never get those kids back. I even heard about a woman who made plans with her husband that she would move to another country first, and then later he would come and bring their kids, but instead he suddenly cut off contact with her after she had left China. Oh god. 

I've heard that, if the husband runs off with the children without your consent, Chinese courts will not hold that against him, and actually will award custody to him because the children already live with him and it would be difficult for the children to suddenly have to move- whereas, if you take the children and get the hell out of China, and then your custody battle is in a court in the US/Canada/Europe/etc, it's likely the court will say you kidnapped the children and that will look very bad for you.

Power dynamics.

If you really want to protect your rights as the non-Chinese parent, to the fullest extent that you can, here's what you need to do:

• When the baby is born, put an English name on the birth certificate. This way, it will be impossible to add the child to the Chinese family hukou. Only people whose names are Chinese characters can be added to the hukou.
• DO NOT allow the Chinese side of the family to put your child on the hukou. (If you did the previous step correctly, then you don't need to worry about this.) I have heard of cases where the Chinese side of the family put the child on the hukou without the mom's consent- yikes. (But honestly this is because for Chinese people, it's simply unimaginable to not have a hukou- they likely never even thought that *not* putting the child on the hukou was an option.)
• Renounce your child's Chinese citizenship. (If your child is on the hukou, there is an extra step you have to do first: remove the child from the hukou. The hukou is likely in the grandparents' possession, so now you have to talk to them and convince them to remove the child from the hukou- yeah, good luck with that. This is why the previous step is important.) Renouncing the child's Chinese citizenship requires a bunch of paperwork and consent from both parents- so you have to do this when things are going well in your marriage, not when you're about to divorce.
• Good job! If the child is not a Chinese citizen, then in the event of a divorce, it's likely the the Chinese court will award custody to the foreign parent.
• If you've failed to do the above steps, and you want to divorce, you should move out of China, together with your husband and child, and after you've established your life in a different country, then file for divorce. You'll likely have a better time there than in a Chinese court.

Before my son was born, I talked to a bunch of moms about this, and got advice like "do NOT put your baby on the hukou" and "before I got pregnant, I made my husband agree that we will renounce the baby's Chinese citizenship as soon as possible" and less intense ones like "yeah we put our baby on the hukou, *shrug*". There are women who are extremely serious about advising other women to protect their rights, and also women who are aware that these risks exist but are confident they won't get divorced, so they don't worry too much about it.

(Please note that there are some other benefits to renouncing the child's Chinese citizenship. It's not just about the foreign parent not wanting the Chinese parent to screw them over in a child custody battle. Remember how I said that China doesn't "recognize" dual citizenship, so it makes things more complicated? A lot of bureaucracy stuff for the child is much simpler if the child is a fully foreign citizen, rather than being "both." For example, registering for school.)

I didn't know how to think about it. I had never considered marriage in those terms- like, how to make sure your spouse doesn't have the legal right to screw you over. Honestly, I don't want to think about marriage in that way. I don't want to think about *my* marriage in that way. 

And, society tells us that we're not supposed to think about those things, because that means you don't have confidence in your marriage, and it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy and you'll end up divorcing. But the immigrant women in these social media groups, they know how it really works. They know there are very real risks of losing your children, if you don't consider these things and you end up getting divorced. I was told "you can't be naive and romantic about this."

I eventually came to this conclusion: I want to make the choices that are best for my son, rather than doing things that are sub-optimal for him, in the interest of protecting my own rights. He lives in China, so it will be more convenient for him if his legal name is in Chinese characters, rather than English. And we didn't want to renounce his Chinese citizenship- we want to let him make his own decision about that when he's old enough. I want to follow the law in China, so we didn't get him a Chinese passport, only a US passport. To enter and exit China, instead of a visa, he can use a document called an "entry exit permit" or "travel document", this is basically a passport issued to Chinese citizens who can't have a Chinese passport for whatever reason. (This is the workaround that the Chinese government invented because you're not supposed to have a Chinese passport and foreign passport.) We did not put him on my husband's hukou, because there's no benefit to it- it's not a Shanghai hukou, so it doesn't do anything for us, living in Shanghai.

Anyway, that's what we're doing. Uh so, I guess I didn't really take the advice to protect my own rights for child custody... I just really don't know what to do with that advice. It's very... game theory... like *not* choosing the option that's better for everyone overall, because it would put me as an individual in a position where other people could take advantage of me if they wanted.

I don't want game theory in my marriage. But am I too naive and romantic? I can say "marriage shouldn't be like that", but in reality it sometimes is like that, so, if you do end up in that situation, don't you want to be in a position where your rights are protected? Divorce IS real. Seems like a bad idea for me to just pretend that it's not. It's real, and it can be very bad. Especially for immigrants.

Long ago, when we were engaged, I remember reading a blog post where the writer said, "I wouldn't marry someone that I wouldn't divorce." Okay, that's worded confusingly, let me explain: What they meant was, you should marry someone that you trust will still treat you fairly, even if you divorce. Not someone who's going to fight dirty. I understand the point they're making, but also, I don't really know what to do with this advice either...? Nobody thinks they're going to get divorced, so does it even make sense to plan for that?

But in everything else you do, it's wise to have a backup plan in case it doesn't work. Is marriage different? Well, I think it is... because it's about love... uh right?

And here's another thing: International marriages require more trust than a marriage between 2 citizens who live in their own country. I don't know if it would really be practical, to think "the law doesn't protect my rights, so I need to set additional boundaries in order to never be in a situation where I'm vulnerable and my spouse could take advantage." In practice, it needs to be the opposite- it needs more trust, not less.

People in an international marriage frequently find themselves in situations where they have to depend on their spouse for help with navigating the language or culture. Suppose you're traveling together in Spouse A's country, and Spouse B has no idea how things work, so Spouse B has to trust Spouse A to basically handle all the decisions. And then of course, sometimes it works the other way, you're in Spouse B's country and Spouse A needs to listen to Spouse B's expertise on how to do things. This is super normal in an international marriage. You have to depend on each other like that.

(Is that a power dynamic?)

And there have been several times that I traveled to the US with my son, and my husband didn't come with us. This is also incredibly normal for immigrant families. Taking a trip to the other side of the world is a big deal- plane tickets are very expensive, and you have to take 2 weeks off work (2 weeks is a good amount, if it's less than 2 weeks it's not really worth it, you won't even be done with jet lag and your vacation will already be over). So, it's often the case that one parent isn't able to come on the trip, or feels it wouldn't be worth the cost. Again, SUPER normal for immigrant families. 

I frequently see people posting in social media groups "I'm traveling to another country with my kids, and my husband isn't coming, do I need to have him sign something to give me permission?" Yes, many countries require some kind of signed document from the other parent. And there are always people in the social media groups ready to help- "yes, here's a template you can fill in and have him sign." This is super normal. 

And if your marriage is good and you trust each other, then no big deal. I guess I would say, maybe don't let your spouse take the kids and go to the other side of the world, if there are warning signs that maybe they're planning to not come back? But normally, of course you trust each other, so it's not an issue.

There was even one time I was traveling to the US with my son, without my husband, and I had to get some paperwork for my son from the Chinese consulate in the US, and it took longer than expected. It took so long that I had to cancel my return flight because the Chinese consulate hadn't mailed me my stuff yet. (Bureaucracy!) I cancelled our return flights (from the US to China), waited a few more days till I got the documents in the mail, and then bought tickets for the flight back to China.

And all of that is no big deal. Yeah my husband missed us, and wished we could come back sooner, but, it was fine, it was only a few days. But I guess if you feel you should never be in a situation where your spouse can screw you over, it would be different... you realize, I *cancelled* our return flight. If you didn't trust your spouse, would you insist that instead of cancelling, they rebook for a different day immediately, despite not knowing exactly when the required documents would come in the mail? But, plane tickets are expensive- is it practical to live that way?

My point is, in an international marriage, it's very common that sometimes one spouse takes the kids and goes on vacation to the other side of the world. (Is that a power dynamic?) You see what I mean, an international marriage requires more trust- it's not going to work with less.

The way marriage should be is, you treat each other right because you love each other and want to have a good relationship- not because the law forces you to. But, when people divorce, they no longer have an incentive to treat each other right, so they do need to be forced by the law. And in an international marriage, well, you should be aware that the laws regarding divorce are different in different countries. And as an immigrant, you're at a disadvantage compared to a citizen. There are many stories of very ugly things that happen, when international couples divorce.

But, what do you even do with that information? Should you really make decisions proactively to protect your own rights in the case of divorce, even if those decisions aren't what's best for your child/ your marriage/ your family? I'm sure that the women who lost custody of their children in a Chinese court wish they had made those decisions, instead of trusting their partner. Is it unwise for me to live like I'll never be at risk for that, so I don't have to worry about it?

I don't want my marriage to be like that- I want to be a team, a family. But of course that's what everyone thinks when they get married- nobody expects they're going to divorce, but the reality is that some couples do divorce. (And maybe, when a marriage is breaking down, there is a transition point, where you no longer prioritize the marriage, but you prioritize your own rights, at your spouse's expense.) I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this information.

The overly-romantic view of international marriage is "our love is so beautiful, it transcends the boundaries of culture, race, language, and nationality" but the reality is more complicated than that. If you divorce, the immigrant spouse is likely to be in a situation where they don't have the same legal rights as the citizen spouse (in particular, in China, a foreign parent is very unlikely to be awarded custody if the children are Chinese citizens). A divorce can be ugly and painful in ways that wouldn't happen in a divorce between 2 citizens. At the same time, the practical reality of being from 2 completely different cultures will frequently require the 2 spouses to trust and depend on each other in ways that citizen couples don't have to. And it's very common that one spouse will take the children and travel to their home country, without the other spouse being present- which is totally fine, unless your spouse happens to be the kind of person who is going to take the children to the other side of the world and then disappear, in which case, what would you even do???

I guess marriage is a lot of things- it's love that reaches across cultures; it's trusting and supporting each other in practical ways every day; it's a legal arrangement where the exact details of what rights you have may or may not matter, depending on whether your spouse is a decent human being. How to reconcile all of this? That's a big question.

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Related:

Why Marriage as a Private Contract is a Bad Idea

On "Unjust Marriage" 

Paperwork for My Immigrant Baby

Shanghai is a good place for immigrants. (And I have feelings about it.)

If your relationship isn't seen as "Marriage", not sure what green card options you have 

US Immigration and the Definition of Marriage 

This "Do Not Intermarry With Them" Stuff Hits Different Now

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I love this song because it's called "International Love." We played this song at our wedding. Please ignore all the other lyrics except the part that says "international love."