Love beyond borders: Cross-cultural ties in Nagaland

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Feb. 13 (EMN): Globalisation over the years has widened people’s outlook and they are now placing priority on love over inter-community-based marriages, with more acceptances of cross-cultural relationships.

This Valentine’s Day, Eastern Mirror spoke to people who have married beyond the borders and their experiences and challenges of a cross-cultural relationship.

Valentine’s Day, which falls on February 14 every year, may have its roots in Christianity marking the feast of St. Valentine, but it has turned into a global event with people across regions and religions celebrating the day to express their love to their special ones.

Limaonen Imchen from Mokokchung is married to Hannah Imchen from the United Kingdom. Imchen told Eastern Mirror that they first met in 2012 in a small town in Karnataka where he was working with an organisation, and Hannah was in the same town for a short-term training course. They got married in 2015 and are blessed with two children.

Hannah shared that initially, there was some reluctance from her now husband’s family as they were concerned that she may find it difficult to adjust to a culture that was different from her own. However, once they got to know her personally, they accepted her and believed she was destined to live in Nagaland.

Imchen said that Hannah's family were sad to know that she would be living on the other side of the world, but their fondness for him made it easier.

“Unlike many cross-cultural couples, we didn't have any issue with deciding where we would settle.  When Hannah came to Mokokchung for the first time, before we got together, she knew it would one day be her home,” he shared. 

Imchen, Hannah acknowledged, also has a deep love for his town and people, ‘so it made sense to settle here, and till now we are both content’.

“Having had different cultural upbringing and resources available when we were children, we often have different expectations and understanding. This brings unexpected challenges. We struggled more when we were new to parenting, but still face different challenges from time to time as the children grow too”, they shared.

Love, they opined, is not always easy.

‘You learn to work through the storms, accepting each other’s weaknesses and mistakes, forgiving each other and appreciating each other. It's not easy, but when you work on it, it comes,’ they shared.

They also shared that love comes when you put Christ at the centre of the relationship.

As partners coming from different countries and cultures, they said they have both learned not to ‘consider one’s culture as better than the other, but rather different’. They try to understand how things are done in each other’s culture and not to undermine their way of doing things.

They have a YouTube channel “The Imchen Family” where they update/vlog about their life, often speaking about the cross-cultural aspects of their family and the things they do in Mokokchung.

Another cross-cultural couple from Dimapur, Aki and Katrin Kinimi, who is from Germany, believes that a relationship and especially marriage is not only about being in love but also practical, and with God's guidance, ‘it can be beautiful’.

Katrin said they met in 2011 during a revival where her husband Aki performed with his band UDX. “With his long hair, he was significant”, she described.

‘We lost touch as I went back to Germany. After I came back in 2012, we met at his restaurant in Dimapur again. He asked me to make German style coffee and as we were busy in his kitchen his mother walked in, totally surprised about this foreigner in her son's kitchen,’ chuckled Katrin.

“We kept on catching up and fell in love with one another and this year we'll be married for six years,” shared Katrin.

She said that her husband’s family wished to have a Sumi daughter-in-law but as they got to know one another better, ‘there was no opposition anymore’.

Aki said that since Katrin lived in Nagaland already before their relationship started, it was obvious that she would be settled here.

The real test of their cross-cultural relationship came in when they became parents. They are parents to two boys.

They believe that to be married and to be parents are different experiences, and they try to adjust.

Katrin added that with Aki, she has learnt to be more relaxed and flexible ‘as they are very tight in their ways of life and planning in Germany’.