Just would like to share a Vancouver Sun (the local Vancouver paper) article about diversity and Valentine’s Day
featuring Steve and his beloved 
By the way good to see LingQ plugged
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Beautiful woman and beautiful photograph. This is what life is all about. Steve, great gob.
What a lovely couple and great picture!
Am a bit worried about Steve’s short sleeves, though. Doesn’t he know it is winter (or, as we in the UK can now claim “Rain-er”)?
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A very interesting article. I especially enjoyed this line:
“…Carmen not only grew up in Latin America and Macau. Her father, a baker in the 1920s from China, had five wives, unofficially…”
Steve’s father-in-law sounds, quite frankly, like my kind of guy! 
Eaasy_Rider: Except for it is unlikely that he was a hero for the people on the receiving end of his sexual prowl: the women, the kids he may have fathered. Sounds like the guy had trouble attaching.
I really liked the article. I had no idea that so much of Vancouver was foreign born. It’s great to see how much views of inter-ethnic relationships have changed for the better. Thirty years ago the marriage of my parents was taboo, all because of religion, and they’re both European.
@SanneT
Have you seen the weather in Vancouver? I’m pretty sure that place is heaven.
@Nebulae
I think it’d be best to not speculate about these things. I’ve met children of polygamy who recognize the flaw in the practice but who love their families. In any case, I’m pretty sure Easy was kidding.
David, there is love for your screwed up family and there is “love” with many contradicting feelings. But you’re right, it’s fruitless to speculate about that man.
Agreed, David.
Now just to set the record straight.
This journalist interviewed us last summer for an article he was going to do about mixed race marriages. We told him that there was not much of a story there since most people didn’t pay much attention to this, especially those who are in such relationships. He was convinced that this was a special deal, and there was some special exotic attraction or some thing at work in such relationships.
He then didn’t do the article for some reason and revived it for St. Valentine’s Day. I think he lost his original notes and made things up as he went along, the way most journalists do.
My family background is not German-Jewish, but Czech-Jewish. I was not raised in Sweden, having left there at the age of 5.
Carmen’s Dad is from another era. He had one wife in China, via an arranged marriage, whom he left for another woman, who then left him. Then went to Costa Rica to run the family general store, his uncle having preceded him. He married there and his first wife died giving birth to their first child. He then married another woman in Costa Rica, Carmen’s mom. They then went back to Macao. But that is just a brief summary. Carmen could write a book about the adventures of her Dad in Costa Rica and then her mother as a foreign wife in this traditional Chinese hornet’s nest. But that will be for another thread.
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You’ll be relieved to hear that I do not, in fact, have 5 wives! 
(My private life…na ja…das ist so eine Sache…aber SO wild bin ich auch nicht! :-D)
EDIT
And just to be clear: no, of course, I don’t mean any kind of offense to Steve’s family. It was just a light throwaway remark.
Is it just me…or… What’s the big deal with “interracial marriage” , and “half-caste” children anyhow?! People have always been, well, just people to me, so I think it’s strange. Of course the latter expression isn’t mentioned in the thread, but I used to hear my British in-laws (first marriage) talk about their grandchildren this way. I don’t think they ever got over one of their sons marrying a Filipina (my sister-in-law was a highly intelligent, educated lady, by the way).
I was like, what the hell?! Especially when they talked like that around the Christmas dinner table…
Notice how the journalist completely misunderstood Carmen’s words:
“I didn’t think Steve was exotic,” Carmen says. “It just happened to be who I was meeting at the time.”
It’s plain that Carmen was responding to his idiotic notion that the spark was somehow just some exotic, ethno-cultural attraction. She meant that it really wasn’t like that; it was more to do with being impressed by someone she met (by his looks, personality, character).
Read his response:
“That’s the thing about inter-ethnic relationships, especially at this charged time of Valentine’s Day. The spark for cross-cultural passion happens when you least expect it, partly based on propinquity, on whoever happens to be in your circle.”
Sounds like he thinks cross-cultural attraction is out of the norm, and somehow one only gets the idea if they’re emotionally ‘charged’ (ie. ‘at this charged time of Valentine’s Day’), and happen to ‘fall’ for the next available person.
So, what are others’ take on the journalist’s response?
Good thing I didn’t talk to that journalist, I would have told him in good 'ol aussie lingo that he was a DH, lol.
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@Julz
I agree with every word.
ad Jay and Julie: (…) …I agree with every word…(…)
I would too if only I knew what DH stands for
“I would too if only I knew what DH stands for ;-)”
I posted a translation on your wall^^
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“I would too if only I knew what DH stands for ;-)”
I posted a translation on your wall^^
I prefer to call’em DHs “richard heads” instead.
ad Paul: Thanks a lot :-). I knew the word but I had not come across that abbreviation before. When I googled DH I found “dumb husband” lol.
By the way, translating that word (I mean the actual meaning of DH here) literally into German makes for some seriously weird associations lol.
My family just asked me why I was laughing out loud then!
I replied, we were talking about “Richard Craniums”! ^^
I’m English, my Mum is Spanish, my Dad is Irish, my Wife is Czech, my father in law is Slovak and my kids are…can anyone draw me a pie chart?