One Red Hot Country Mama!

A programmer at work is leaving our team and taking the break between jobs to go back to Taiwan. He moved here originally when he was seven. Now in his late-twenties, he is going back for the first time to visit his relatives.

"Tell the truth," said one of my colleagues originally from Vietnam. "You are going back to Taiwan to find a wife! Look at him, tall, good looking, a great job… and a Canadian passport! He will be a hit!!!!"

The 19-year-old co-op student of Chinese background giggled at the passport comment.

"It is funny because it was true," she said. According to her, Canadian men are bringing back Asian wives "all of the time".

She knows a 20-year-old guy who went to China and brought back an 18 year-old wife. He quit school and started a small business to support her. He is average looking,where she is gorgeous – from what the co-op student told us, her looks were clearly her "assets" in that relationship. During the conversation, it was if we were in a Jane Austin novel where the only chance at success for women was through marriage. We were just joking, but it felt like the joke was on these International women, and Canadian men were just taking advantage of them.

Further, according to my colleagues, many of the women who choose this route simply go into having babies right away – since they don’t have job skills or English skills. Getting married to improve social status is one of the oldest stories in the book for women, but somehow the difference in power (1st world vs. 3rd world, English speaking vs. non-English speaking, working vs. non-working) is disheartening to me.

Then we started talking about Filipino nannies. I brought up a story of a co-worker’s brother who made his nanny work six days a week and only paid her only $60/week plus room and board. Meanwhile descent daycare in Toronto costs $60 + dollars a day. This is an example of International women using nurturing "assets" to get ahead but getting taken advantage of in the process. It doesn’t exactly seem like the "Canadian Dream" replete with hope and potential.

That being said, my best friend’s mother started as a Filipino nanny and is now a nurse and a pillar of her community with two very successful daughters. One of whom is a writer and has her third-level black-belt in Jiu Jitsu (and just happens to be very beautiful as well). This is an example of someone who got her foot in the door based on her nurturing "assets", giving her a chance to make a better life for herself and her family.

As a business women, I too use all of my "assets" to get ahead. In my mid-twenties, I got into meetings that my male colleagues would never have a chance to go to since some of the PhDs we were pitching to liked to "look at me". Also, look at the female singers from Madonna to Diana Krall who use their sexuality to sell hits. So… why would it make me uncomfortable to hear of these international women doing the same?

So during that lunch-time conversation I proposed a new option for these international wives and nannies. After the programmer’s new Taiwanese bride used her marriage status to come to Canada, she could come to my apartment where I would empower her.

"Yes…" I would coach her,  "you can make your own life here. No… you don’t have to listen to everything your husband says. Yes… you can use your mind, your passion and your strength as well as your attractiveness and nurturing to get ahead."

I could give her lessons on English since that is the greatest predictor of success as an immigrant. I could teach her how to go to school or to become an entrepreneur. Then the joke is not on her, it is on the people who do not see her potential.