Why I Have an Imaginary Husband

It has been very difficult for me to be here in China and not discuss politics and certain aspects of Chinese life --- the one child policy, living in a communist country, living without liberties that you know people in other countries enjoy, etc. But I do not want to have an occassion to publish a post on what it is like spending time in a Chinese prison or re-education camp. So I've promised myself that I would keep my mouth shut unless and until someone brings it up.

I just had a very offensive conversation with a colleague. He is a department head of a division in our company. Luckily, its a division that we are about to spin off so my contact with him will be limited. He shared his many opinions with me -- everything from Chinese-Japanese relations to Americans are lazy to I'm brainwashed by America. That doesn't offend me --- you can't talk about cultural issues without expecting other people to have opinions about your culture (good or bad).

Then he asked me if I was going to go out and meet a handsome man in Shanghai this weekend (there's no sexual harrassment laws here --- I'll have to post about that later). I replied that I was too tired from working and taking care of a 13 month old to go out. He asked if I was married, and I said no. He was shocked (and a bit vexed) to find out that I was a single mom, even though it was through an adoption. He said I was crazy and asked (actually demanded) to know what the point was in doing so. I responded that I wanted to raise a child and there were many babies in orphanages that needed a home. He strongly recommended that I take Sydney to an orphanage and leave her there so that she can be raised by people who could take care of her. It took me a couple of seconds to process what he just said before I saw red. I commented that he obviously has not visited an orphanage and that he would not say that if he did. He admitted that he hasn't visited an orphanage but he believed that there were good ones out there, but good or bad, Sydney would be better off being raised by an orphanage because I was unmarried.

Luckily, I had to jump on a conference call and he had to leave my office. I don't want to say that everyone in Shanghai feels this way, because I strongly believe that it is not the case. I had a conversation with the assistant of the head of our Chinese operations about the one child policy (she brought it up) and she thought it was great that I adopted. She heard about my adoption from someone but I don't know who. We didn't talk about my marriage status but if someone told her about the adoption, I'm sure it came up. It's not a man vs woman thing because when I told Effie, our in-house counsel in Beijing, about the adoption last year, she was very discouraging about it. She clearly didn't think I should do it and came very close to saying so. Effie is typically obliging, supportive and accommodating so for her to be negative about my adoption, it must have really pushed a button with her. To be fair, I know that there are people in the US who think that single women shouldn't have kids too. This is why I had no qualms about letting my ayi think that I'm married, especially if she was lying to me about putting Sydney in her crib for naps. I just know that China is a very traditional, conservative society, and there are still certain stigmas. I probably should give her more credit and assume that it wouldn't affect how she conducts herself with me or how she treats Sydney. But I don't want to have to deal with it, with everything else that I have to deal with here. By the way, I told my ayi a couple of weeks ago that my husband works in Singapore now and commutes to Shanghai on the weekends. The subject of my husband has never came up since. Actually, my ayi seemed a little relieved when I told her, considerating how particular he can be:))