KZBlog

As work is piling up on me a bit, I thought I would post some things I wrote a while back. This one is dated only by it’s reference to an article on Neweurasia which is now ancient, but I think the topic—the foreign fiancee or spouse—is still relevant and interesting.

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I highly recommend Aiman’s post on Kazakhstan Neweurasia (in Russian) about the myth of the foreign fiancee (English translation here, and I am working off the English translation because I am lazy!), about her experience of having her foreign fiancee come, and local attitudes about foreigners. As a quibala amerikandan (son in law from America, yes?) I thought it would be fun to respond.

As Aiman points out, incomes in Europe (and the US) are higher, and tend to be calculated with a living wage in mind as opposed to here where incomes are much lower, often much less than what is needed to live on, and here prices of some big ticket items such as apartments, cars, and services are on a level with the West. My savings from working in the US are enough to let us enjoy some luxuries and not to worry if wages are late by a month. I must say no one expected me to rent them a helicopter (read the post, it’s funny!) for the wedding, but that is probably because her family knew me for a year before we got engaged. They saw first-hand that I was not a millionaire (However, acquaintances have asked me to buy them DVD players, digital cameras, apartments for free!).

I think Aiman was a bit unfair to her compatriots however. While Americans are richer than Kazakhs on the whole, Kazakhs live much more richly. Any Kazakh celebration will involve a ton of food. The best food they can afford. A wedding is ten times more important and will involve ten times more parties, with ten times more food, ten times better food. In some cases, I knew full well that these people were blowing their wages for months just to feed their guests, set a good dastarkhan, make the foreigner feel welcome! The rest of the month they will eat boiled meat with rice, but for us the finest beshbarmak, tables buckling under the weight of salads, presented in fine china, and a display of fresh fruit despite its being winter. If I were a Kazakh, I would not bemoan my low wages. I would be grateful for the hospitality of my family, and the skill the average housewife has in stretching a budget and cooking well with a few simple ingredients.

As for special treatment for foreigners, I am eternally grateful to my wife’s family who always buys me instant coffee when I go to visit and then gives me the rest of the jar when we leave. Even though I am quite used to drinking tea and prefer to drink tea with them so I don’t get any special treatment, they always buy me the coffee, give it away, and buy more when I come back (and coffee ain’t cheap in these parts).

I always am vaguely amused that people don’t understand that I knew what I was getting myself into when I came here (or in some cases, to paraphrase our former Secretary of Defense, I knew that I didn’t know and that was ok). I wonder if it is because Kazakhs tend to be picky eaters: a colleague of mine went to Korea and tried to ask for some bread at a restaurant, not a big staple in Korea. When they couldn’t find any, he refused to eat; another friend of mine from Almaty ate some salad here in Astana and said,
“It’s not the same as they do it in Almaty.”
“Is it good?” I asked.
“Yes, very good. But I won’t eat it!”

On the other side of the coin, one of the most common compliments I hear is that I am easy-going (prostoi), earnest, sincere, not complaining. And they usually add, “which we didn’t expect from an American.” So it is nice to have it acknowledged that I eat their food, I don’t expect special treatment, I don’t talk down to them. Really, not all Americans are snobby ethnocentric bastards, I swear.

There is a small category of people, usually older, who note the slightest criticism of anything in the territory of Kazakhstan and take it as a declaration of international war. What can you do when your wife’s older cousin who helped raise her and who fought in the Afghan war, gets mad and calls you a snobby American because you said the store was out of dish soap? Nothing.

What is annoying is the people who test you: Do you like Kazakhstan? You probably miss your food? How is the weather in Astana? Ah hah, you said the weather was cold! You think you’re better than us! But again these tend to be my seniors, so what can you do but smile and take it?

As for alcohol, I remember going out with a friend of a friend once and he insisted we drink vodka. He kept pouring me drink after drink, proposing toast after toast, insisting I drink it all down (Nu, davai vipim!). After the liter was empty and I was still standing, he said, “I made you drink a lot on purpose. I never saw a foreigner drink so much. I always thought Americans were weak, but now my eyes are open!” I would have explained something about Scottish blood and strong livers but the brain wasn’t working that fast. Many people say my wife is lucky because her husband will never come home drunk from parties with his buddies. While I’m not the world’s greatest drinker, I wouldn’t say never. I also wouldn’t say that people in Kazakhstan drink more than foreigners–everyone comes home a bit drunk from a party! I would say that Kazakhs and Russians usually drink for the primary purpose of getting drunk, to feel kef and thus tend to drink only hard liquor and when they do drink, they drink a lot, whereas in America it is common to have a beer or two and call it a night, or have a glass of wine for dinner and stop.

Many people also tell my wife she is lucky because I cook and clean and do the laundry. I go to the store to buy things. The typical Kazakh male would not dream of doing any kind of housework. Gendered labor division is much stronger here than in modern day America. It is not unheard of for a husband to wait hours for his wife to come home in order to eat dinner because he cannot or will not cook for himself. However, this has its own complications because it can be stressful for my wife to see me doing the dishes, thinking she is a bad housewife for making me do this women’s work. Furthermore, I expect her to do some traditionally male tasks, like decision-making or handling money and household finances. So in reality it can be quite difficult for a woman with an Eastern mentality to have a Western husband.

But enough about me, tell me about you. I’d love to hear your stories or observations on the foreign fiancee or spouse.