跨国婚姻大势所趋:德国先生娶法国太太,英美小姐嫁西班牙丈夫_BEC初级作文

跨国婚姻大势所趋:德国先生娶法国太太,英美小姐嫁西班牙丈夫

Not all international marriages in Asia are those of poor brides in rich lands. In a “reverse migration” Japanese women from rich Tokyo have married into poor peasant families in South-East Asia—especially in Bali and Thailand—and settled down to live a more “authentic” rural life, perhaps as a way of escaping the strictness of Japanese family life. That same impulse may well be behind the surprising growth in the numbers of Japanese women married to Africans in Japan (probably as many as 3,300 in all). As one wife told Djamila Schans of Maastricht University, “I had doubts marrying a foreigner but he waited for me at the station every day. Sometimes even with flowers! A Japanese man would never do such a thing.”

在亚洲并不是所有的跨国婚姻都意味着生活在富饶土地上的贫穷新娘。在“反移民潮”中，来自日本的女人，离开东京，远嫁东南亚的小乡村，尤以巴里岛和泰国为甚，定居当地，过着“真正”的乡村生活，这也许是就是逃离日本严厉紧张的家长式生活的方法。同样的冲动也可见于数量惊人攀升的“日非”婚姻（大约总数为3300）。一个和非洲人成婚的日本新娘向Maastricht大学的Djamila Schans讲述，“我本对嫁给一个外国人持怀疑态度，但是当看到他每天都在车站等我，甚至有时拿着鲜花，我不再怀疑了！日本男人永远不会如此。”

Most demographic trends are irresistible forces. It is rare that government policy can make a big difference. But international marriage is sensitive to public policy. In the mid-2000s, Taiwan’s government, for example, took alarm at the number of foreign brides coming into the country. It did not slam the gates but started to wrap the marriage process in licensing and permits, insisting on better treatment of immigrant women. This reduced the number of foreign brides by more than half between 2003 and 2010. Malaysia also maintains an array of secular and religious permits which foreigners must get not only for marriage, but also for residence and work. It seems effective: less than 2% of all Malaysian marriages involve a foreigner, against almost 40% in neighbouring Singapore.