Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Inter-racial Marriage

On Monday I got a pleasant visit by an old time friend Nisa. She told me she just got married and is currently 3-month pregnant. Of course the first question was "where's your husband from?" She said "I am in a similar situation with you because I married a foreigner".

So, that was the reason for her visit, to get "an expert" opinion and advice. Hahaha. Well, marrying a foreigner is not as simple as it looks, especially in Malaysia where laws and rules are male-biased. When we were first married, we received all kind of "advice" from those who have no experience whatsoever with inter-racial marriage! Not to mention the sarcastic remarks from those with authority. I was thinking "if one of these days your daughter meets and marry a foreigner, you will find out how I feel". Some of them said, "why can't you marry a Malay man?" or "a wife should be where the husband is". That's right! My husband wants to be in Malaysia, so I must stay in this country and just give me the necessary papers!

Alhamdulillah, after 13 years of waiting (patiently) and after 5 kids , 4 applications, 4 rejections and 4 appeals later, we finally received the long awaited PR card. So my advice to my friend Nisa, and whoever wants to do what I did, be PATIENT. One more thing, if you want your kids to have Malaysian citizenship, never ever deliver them outside of the country. Once you do that your kids will automatically follow their father's citizenship. But if you are a Malaysian male, the situation is totally different.

No comments: