The story of Mr Tan Soo Ren and Madam Raelene’s romance was first shared in a touching video on Facebook by the Singapore Memory Project. The project by the National Library Board aims to collect the personal memories of Singaporeans.
In the 11-minute video, the Australian-born Raelene shares how she met her Singaporean husband Soo Ren, and how they maintained their cross-cultural marriage for 46-years. They are now in their 70’s. The video quickly became very popular. It was shared more than 6,200 times on Facebook, and got more than 437,300 views. Raelene said that she was ‘humbly surprised how people want a good story, not a story of bravado or wonderful escapades but just the simple story of a happy marriage’.
Their marriage had its challenges – as they were from different cultures – but Raelene says in the start of the video, ‘For us, we’re not different. It’s that simple. We’re just Soo Ren and Raelene.’
They met in London in 1965 when they were staying at the same boarding house. Raelene had moved there for work, and Soo Ren to study architecture. Raelene recalled one early memory of their relationship, when Soo Ren met her at the train station with a spare umbrella to keep off the unexpected rain. Cross-cultural relationships were quite unknown in the 1960’s, and they initially found society quite disapproving of their close friendship.
They married in London in 1968, and not long after – at the request of Soo Ren’s parents – travelled to Singapore. When they arrived in Singapore by ship, Raelene met Mr Tan’s large family for the first time. She recalls around 20 family members had turned up at the dock to welcome them. Soo Ren’s parents could not speak English, and she used sign language to communicate with them. “It worked,” she said, “because I respected his parents, and they tried their best to make me feel welcome.”
They lived with his parents in a big house, with fourteen rooms housing thirty residents. She soon adapted to the life in Singapore and learned about Asian values and culture. As there was a language barrier, much of her learning was through watching. She learnt to cook traditional dishes, such as ‘mee sua’ (thin white noodle) which her mother-in-law told her was the Chinese way of celebrating a birthday and for longevity. The family also made efforts to make her feel welcome and even prepared a surprise Christmas celebration for her the first year she arrived.
Back then it was difficult to find and cook western food. Raelene usually had Chinese food for her three main meals. She remembers that “Eating at the table was a bit of a drama for me… because everybody would ask everyone else to eat. Father, mother, brother, sister… have your meal. [The family was so big, that] by the time I asked everyone to eat, they’d finished and left the table.”
From their experiences she realized the differences, and that it would be helpful if information about the different cultures of Singapore was available. Following some research and her own observation, she wrote a series of four books covering Chinese, Indian & Malay, Western and Japanese table etiquette. She also started the Cosmopolitan Women’s Club, with a friend in a similar relationship, so women in cross-cultural marriages could socialize and support each other.
What was originally a “short visit” to meet Soo Ren’s family, became a life in Singapore. More than 40-years on their son and daughter have both married Singaporeans and they have four grandchildren. The couple now help each other through their illnesses: Raelene’s eyes are damaged following radiotherapy for skin cancer; and Soo Ren has cognitive loss after a stroke.
When asked for her advice on marriage, Raelene claimed not to be an expert, but said: “If we marry the people we love and we respect and we are friends, anything can be overcome. It truly is compromise, genuinely loving that person and wanting the best for that person.”
What are some of the lessons we can learn from Raelene and Soo cross-cultural relationship?
Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTPeghjUOmw and http://www.singaporememory.sg/contents/SMA-c8420b9d-30fe-461e-8a03-e7a325e0a6ec
