Intracultural couples are growing at a rapid pace in China. And celebrities are leading that trend.
South Korean actress Choo Ja-hyun, best known in her country for the film Bloody Tie (2006), also enjoyed great popularity in China after starring in the television drama The Temptation to Go Home (2011). She has gained a huge amount of love from fans after her sweet newlywed life with her Chinese husband Yu Xiaoguang was revealed on a reality TV show, Same Bed, Different Dreams 2 - You Are My Destiny, on South Korean network SBS.
Yu graduated from China’s top drama school — the Central Academy of Drama — with an acting major. He is the champion of the Second National "Youth Star" Television Image Contest.
The couple are so popular that they were invited to the South Korea-China state dinner, where they were seated next to South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and his wife, and shared drinks together.
Today they share their secrets for keeping their romance alive with the People’s Daily in an exclusive interview.
“We are definitely not the same, we need a process to know each other,” Choo said. “The best way is to talk, to communicate.”
They met through a Chinese drama in 2012 and tied the knot on January 18, 2017. Choo gave birth to their first child on June 1 this year and Yu hopes their boy grows up to be broad-minded.
Their story has triggered discussions on Chinese-foreign marriage. New opportunities created by China’s rapid economic growth are believed to be a significant factor in shaping the nature of such marriages in Chinese mainland in recent years. Academic and media reports indicate that foreigners marrying Chinese citizens are increasingly choosing to live and work in China, in keeping with China’s growing economic prosperity and the introduction of a more accommodating legal framework. Many foreign brides are choosing to stay in China, which suggests that such marriages may be premised on embracing foreign cultures rather than simply accepting them.
(Video edited by Zhao Dantong. Photo: VCG)