JEWISH GRANDMOTHERS

I have had to, for several reasons, articulate that I have a boyfriend back home that I have no intentions of cheating on. Now, as this is a communist country where everyone knows everyone else’s business, the moment one person knew about it, fifty people knew that “lao-she m’guaren” (American Teacher) was claimed. For them, it’s not so much gossip as simply new information with which to understand the Western female. For me, it is an effective deterrent to the males interested in a trophy mistress (they would NEVER consider a relationship with me seriously but their need to experience my super white, soft skin is more than a little evident; I’ve even been compared to “fresh, delicate like ripe fruit”). As it is unfathomable that a man would take a larger woman as his girlfriend, whomever my boyfriend is, he must be at least my size, if not bigger. Granted, there is no talk of whether or not a woman wants a man who is larger than she.

Creepy old men aside, everyone here wants to know if my boyfriend will marry me, if he has a good job and if we are a “good match.” It’s nonstop. Everyone who knows me has turned into my Jewish grandma. Teachers I have barely met want to know if I’m getting married forthwith, why I’m not already married and why I’ve waited “too long” to have children.

And I think it has to do with the idea that American women are known to be utterly independent. I get the sense that everyone is fascinated by the idea that given the multitude of options, we all eventually choose the more traditional route of a stable life partner. America has the reputation of a place where any and everything goes. American women may take female lovers, multiple lovers and never get married. Our free will choices (in theory) does not effect the way the government treats us, our family and our friends. (In other words, as bad as we have it in America, if we are openly gay or “loose”, the government [thus far] will not come in, take our job, our home, our parents’ jobs, our parents homes and heavily tax us.) And, while I admit that in your teens and early twenties, those “unlimited” options are nice, don’t most of us settle down eventually? Why is the notion that one would want off the Ferris Wheel and start a life so surprising? Granted, I’m a romantic and I’m not saying the minivan lifestyle is for everyone but even George Clooney lives with a woman from time to time.