Across Germany & China: An Intercultural Love Story

Jude and Xiaohan have been together 5 years, traversing across the world between her home of Munich, Germany, his home of Anshan, China, and in between to Edinburgh, Scotland where Jude lived for 10 years before. They got married in 2020 in a beautiful low-key affair during the pandemic, and are currently living in Chongqing. 

Jude shares with us more about how they met, humorous language misunderstandings they've had, and how they have alternating language days where they only speak Chinese or German together. She also talks about why it's important for intercultural couples to try and abandon cultural expectations and build something new and unique together. 

What city do you currently live in? 

We travel all over the place haha. We've set up "home bases" in Anshan (his family home), Munich (my family home) and Edinburgh (my home of 10 years after I moved out from my mum's place). We're still trying to figure out where to settle down.

How did you and your partner meet? Who made the first move? 

We met on a dating app. He sent the first message but it was just a generic, friendly "how are you?" type of message. After we met up a few times it all happened quite naturally, I can't really say who made the first move. Actually, after our first meeting (which was just for coffee) he came to my dad's gardening centre where I was working at the time and cooked me lunch there while I was watering the flowers. On the way back, a random stranger on the subway said we made a really cute couple which was awkward because nothing had happened yet at that point, it was just our first date. So maybe she made the first move? Lol

Have you had any misunderstandings or funny moments happen because of cultural differences? 

I'd say language related misunderstandings more than culture related ones. I can't really think of any cultural misunderstandings just now but plenty of language issues at the beginning because both my Chinese and his German were pretty broken when we first met. Eg once after playing basketball, I was really exhausted (and sweaty) and wanted to go home to get some rest and take a shower etc. I wanted to meet him again at night but I said 以后见 instead of 一会见, so I said "see you at some point in the future" (以后 indicates a long period of time) rather than "see you in a bit" and he thought I was really annoyed with him. Stuff like that.

Had you dated a Chinese guy before, and had Xiaohan dated a foreign girl before? Have you noticed any differences in dating culture between your home country of Germany and his country China?  

I had dated a Chinese guy in the past, but it wasn't very serious and if anything it kind of put me off dating Chinese people because I attributed the differences in our expectations and attitudes to cultural differences when really, they were just personal preferences. 

I had already started learning Chinese at that point because a lot of my friends in Edinburgh were Chinese (I was in a Chinese basketball team at the time). I don't think Xiaohan had dated German women before, and I don't think he had any intention to - we matched on Tantan, a Chinese dating platform, so he was probably expecting to match with a Chinese girl there lol. I was only using it because I was spending my first summer in 9 years back in Munich again and was preparing to go to China and study Chinese at Fudan university on a scholarship. 

Since I didn't really have any friends in Munich anymore and I wanted to practice Chinese, I thought it'd be fun to try Tantan and practice Chinese that way before going to China. Yes, I'm fully aware how that sounds and that statement never fails to elicit lots of "study partner" jokes (fair though - I'd laugh if someone said that to me too) but I genuinely wasn't expecting to meet my future husband one month before going to China for six months!

How was it meeting each other's families? 

Both really supportive - my mum loves him like she loves her own children and his parents are amazingly sweet to me. If anything they're too nice and it makes me a bit uncomfortable when his mum wants to give me money but they have welcomed me into the family immediately. My one gripe (if you can call it that) with his family is that they want to feed me ALL THE TIME when I'm there and I don't know how to tell them I'm full.

How do you and your partner primarily communicate? (English, Chinese, other language?) Did you speak Chinese before you started dating, or when you started dating did you start speaking and studying it more?

At first we mainly spoke Chinese, with bits of German or Dnglish mixed in whenever I reached my limits. Then my Chinese improved really quickly while his German was kind of plateauing so a year or two ago we decided to have alternating Chinese and German days where we only speak Chinese or German when we're alone.

What kind of stereotypes or difficulties have you faced (Either or both partners) in a WWAM relationship? 

I guess mainly outside expectations more than anything between us. His parents wanted us to get married and have children more or less immediately and are getting increasingly anxious because we still don't have children. For him it was a bit strange getting used to the fact that we keep our money separate (to an extent, we obviously have joing spending money for groceries and dinner etc too but we still have separate bank accounts). Unsurprisingly, he seems quite happy with this solution.

 Do you often see other WWAM couples? Is it becoming more common now?  

I only know one other WWAM couple in person, though I've seen quite a few vloggers obviously. Our best "couples friends" in Germany are a WMAM couple (I guess would be the acronym?) We love hanging out with them because their experiences and struggles are so similar to ours and we don't really have any other couple we know that we could hang out with and relate to in that way (the other WWAM couple I mentioned above is a very recent acquaintance and since we're in China right now and they're in the UK we can't really meet and hang out just now).

Any advice for others who are dating interculturally or in a WWAM relationship? 

It's hard to give any kind of generic advice I think because neither he nor I are very typical examples for the stereotypes of our respective nationality. He came to Germany to study art, I left Germany after high school and lived in the UK and France and had already started learning Chinese. 

So, the issues we encountered won't be very relatable for most Western women and Chinese men. But maybe that's the best way to do it really, try and abandon as many of your cultural expectations as possible and start building something new and unique together rather than constantly having to look for compromises between your respective cultural expectations and demands on what a relationship should look like. 

One thing I will say (though it's not exactly advice since everybody feels differently about these things) is that for me, I couldn't imagine dating a Chinese person who can't speak any English or German and has no interest in understanding UK or German culture - basically, I wouldn't want to completely abandon my background and only be able to share their life in China with them, even if we decided to settle in China. It's important to me to be able to meet half way.

Where can people follow you and Xiaohan? 

We've actually started a vlog a couple of years ago - 保护野菠萝 or Protect Wild Pineapples on all video platforms (YouTube, bilibili, douyin, xigua…) and Instagram. Our content is mostly in Chinese but we've started adding bilingual subtitles a few months ago! Xiaohan's art Instagram account is @xiaohan.de

Read more intercultural love stories: 

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