Cross-Cultural Couples: Edward and Chi

By: Diana van Oort

Our family of mixed couples is growing bigger and bigger. The Latitudes Cross-Cultural Couples series is a testament to the intermingling of cultures that makes this world a more interesting and colorful place. Are you a mixed couple and would you like to be featured on Latitudes? Do you have an extraordinary tale of love that surpasses cultural boundaries and geographical borders? Then e-mail us at info@latitudes.nu!

This time we meet El Salvadorian Edward and Vietnamese who live in Saigon, Vietnam. During the interview the couple constantly comment on and complete each other’s sentences. They seem very much in tune with one another, like they have known each other for decades, but still maintain their own characters and quirks. After studying together in Switzerland, they now run a restaurant. It’s a nice place with good food. This is their story.

Mixed Marriage – Is it About Love or Economic Benefit?

by Jacobus E. Lato

I boarded a worn-out, noisy bus in Tawangmangu, hoping for a decent seat where I could relax and take a nap on my trip to Solo. But, within minutes, the woman next to me started chattering in my ear and my idea of getting some rest rapidly vanished.

“My son is dating a girl from Brunei Darussalam”, she said proudly and proceeded to tell me all about him – how he works in a motorcycle shop in a tiny, wealthy state in north Borneo, makes good money in his after-hours job and is now about to take part in an intercultural marriage (with prospects of a possible larger fortune).

“My neighbor married a Dutchman and they have been living next door for more than five years,” she continued. Her following comment irked me. “Before her marriage, she had nothing. Now she owns several houses and land, some of them in Tawangmangu”.

Cross-Cultural Couples: Nonie and Egbert

By: Emma Kwee

Our family of mixed couples is growing bigger and bigger. The Latitudes Cross-Cultural Couples series is a testament to the intermingling of cultures that makes this world a more interesting and colorful place. Are you a mixed couple and would you like to be featured on Latitudes? Do you have an extraordinary tale of love that surpasses cultural boundaries and geographical borders? Then e-mail us at info@latitudes.nu!

Indonesian Nonie and Dutch Egbert Wits met on Egbert’s birthday party. It was only after the festivities that they realized there was something more…slowly but steadily the couple inched closer and closer, until now they share their lives in Yogyakarta.

Please introduce yourselves, what are your names, where are you from and where do you live?

Nonie: My name is Nonie, but actually my real name is Retno Wachyuni. The name Nonie came from my grandmother, who started calling me Nonie. It's a name once used for young girls who act or look like European girls, especially during the period Indonesia was still colonized by the Dutch. I am originally from Slawi, a little town in the north of Central Java.

Egbert: My name is Egbert, I was born in Amsterdam, but raised in Mijdrecht, a little sleepy village just outside Amsterdam. After studying and living in Amsterdam for about 10 years I moved to Indonesia. I started out in Malang (1 year) and from there moved to Yogyakarta (3 months), Tegal (1.5 year), Jakarta (1 year), Bandung (1.5 years) and now finally we're living in Yogyakarta. We both hope this will be our end station in Indonesia, although given our nomadic history, you never know.

Cross-Cultural Couples: Sonia and Hung

By: Diana van Oort

Our family of mixed couples is growing bigger and bigger. The Latitudes Cross-Cultural Couples series is a testament to the intermingling of cultures that makes this world a more interesting and colorful place. Are you a mixed couple and would you like to be featured on Latitudes? Do you have an extraordinary tale of love that surpasses cultural boundaries and geographical borders? Then e-mail us at info@latitudes.nu!

Sonia and Hung are an unlikely couple as not many Western women marry Vietnamese men. After they met, they had a wirl wind romance, married and had a cute son. They live in Saigon, Vietnam. When their son is grown up they want to travel the world. This is their story.

Indonesian Citizenship Concerns for Children from Mixed Marriages

By: Julia Tchezganova, first published in Jakarta Expat

The topic of mixed marriages in Indonesia is riddled with a considerable number of legal liabilities, regulations, and concerns. As a result, you need to be aware of your rights and obligations in order to marry an Indonesian citizen. This knowledge will only come from extensive research on your part, which should involve discussions with couples that have recently gone through a process that is of interest to you.

Before the discussion on children’s nationality, it is useful to explain the importance of the new immigration law (Undang Undang Republik Indonesia 6 – Tahun 2011), which came in effect on 5 May 2011. This law allows foreign spouses of Indonesians to apply for an ITAP (five-year residency permit), after having been legally married for two years. This development has been celebrated ever since the House of Representatives and the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights have agreed on a draft bill that would no longer require foreign spouses to annually renew their residence permit abroad and would give them a right to work.

In the Mix: Meet Half Korean/Part Hawaiian Laura

By: Emma Kwee

This new series is a sequel to Cross-cultural couples, a series on mixed relationships we featured the last 2 years. Over 20 couples of mixed cultural backgrounds shared their stories on Latitudes.

Now we want to take it a step further and look what happens when mixed couples have children. In this series we talk to people with a mixed Asian background. Have these colorful roots entangled them? Confused them? In what way has their heritage formed their identity, how they look at the world and the world looks at them?

Are you mixed Asian and do you want to share your story? Then just e-mail info@latitudes.nu!

In this first installment we meet Laura, who is half Korean and part Chinese.

Cross-Cultural Couples: Gerard and Komang

By: Emma Kwee

This next portrait in our cross-cultural couples series came to us from an unexpected corner of the world. Yours truly was enjoying a nice mother-daughter weekend on a small, windy island in the Netherlands, Ameland! While on a cycling trip we decided to stop for lunch in the village of Nes. The girl working there looked decidedly Indonesian. That's how I met Komang, from Bali, who turned out to be married to Gerard. They met on Bali 9 years ago and one thing led to another. Now they divide their time between their two most loved islands: Bali and Ameland.

Do you have an equally inspiring story to share? If you want to be part of this series, all you have to do is e-mail info@latitudes.nu!

Cross-Cultural Couples: Tommy and Leaksmy

By: Gabrielle Yetter

Cross-cultural couples is back! After a hiatus we decided to pick it up again and continue this amazing series about the lives, love and tribulations of mixed Southeast Asian couples. Do you want to be featured and share your story with our readers? E-mail info@latitudes.nu for more info!

This story takes place in Cambodia where, On April 22, Tommy and Leaksmy tied the knot, Cambodian style, after a courtship which began two years ago during a chance meeting while Tommy was on holiday. Here is their story.

Cross-Cultural Couples Valentine’s Special!

By: Emma Kwee

It's Valentine's Day, the day that couples all over the world celebrate their love, surprise each other with flowers and chocolates...or forget to and will be reminded by their partners. Let's see what some of our couples have been up to since we last met them in our cross-cultural couples series!

Happy Valentine's from our couples and Latitudes! You can still join our cross-cultural family and get featured on Latitudes, by simply e-mailing us at info@latitudes.nu. Share your saga with our readers! In the meantime: Spread the Love...

Mixed Marriage? Try brokerage!

By: Sita van Bemmelen

There are a thousand ways of falling into the abyss, dividing people of different cultures. But you can also view being of different countries and cultures as an opportunity and try capitalizing on it. Over the years in Bali, my husband has become a trusted partner of several Dutch businessmen or people who wanted to build a villa in Bali. Oka has five assets that make him ideally situated for this role: his accounting skills, his mastery of the Dutch and English language, his Indonesian way of dealing with people who work for him, his access to the Indonesian bureaucracy (partly due to his family background) and, last but not least, his honesty.

One often finds, that foreigners like to work with locally based foreigners because they are inclined to trust a fellow-country man or woman more than a local. However, foreigners rarely possess all five assets mentioned. Of course, at first foreigners do not always realize the benefit of working with a local person like Oka. It takes time and word of mouth to build a good name. I do not know whether the fact that Oka has a Dutch wife, has helped him gaining trust. But I am sure, that it has not played a significant role, because I have never been part of his projects with foreigners, let alone interfere with it.