Handy Man SKills – Cultural or Personal?

I can’t say being a handy man around the house is one of my biggest strengths.  I’m sure there are plenty of guys like that out there, but I am particularly sensitive about it. For starters I didn’t grow up around a handy man father. Also, the homes in Nepal are very different. And not to mention that when things broke around the house we always had a local fixer upper guy who showed up and did stuff for us in exchange for a very reasonable price (to my family).

So the reason  I get a bit sensitive about this is  because my father-in-law and his brother are very handy and can fix things around the house. They know a lot about tools and techniques and can eye-ball things and get things done around the house. When they come to visit they normally get a few things done around the house for me and end up being a huge help in so many ways. I appreciate that but also feel a bit inadequate at times.

My wife’s uncle for instance has pretty much been the one who set up all the storage units in my garage, put in new light/fan fixtures in one of my daughters room, trim the trees, keep the bushes and stuff trim etc. In fact I make a list of stuff for him and when he visits we do it “together”. My father in law is like that as well and has been responsible for helping with appliances and maintaining stuff in hard to reach places.

This is not to say I have no skills. I am certainly capable of learning. The first house Shreemati and I bought together needed quite a bit of work. It wasn’t a fixer upper per se, but it needed some upgrades. So we thought. Once the work began we realized it was a lot more. In fact, the first four months were spent fixing things up. It didn’t help that we bought in late Fall and being in the midwest at the time, things got pretty cold while major work was still being completed. We ended up having to sleep in the basement near the furnace while working on the floors upstairs (stories for another day).

This experience proved to be very valuable (we did get our money back when we sold for those interested in knowing.)  I had some hired help during this time, but to save money did a lot of the work myself. So, I learned to put dry wall, fix the flashing in the chimney, put in the garbage disposal, pain, peel off wallpaper, dig holes to fix leaks in the foundation, install bathroom fans, install a toilet and the list goes on.

So, over the years I’ve learned quite a bit, but I can’t say I enjoy it. But at the same time I want to really learn and be good at it. Sometimes I wonder how other Nepali guys (South Asian guys too) deal with this. Do their American/Western wives have expectations that their man will fix things when they break. Is this expected? I’m  curious to hear about this and learn to what extent this is a cultural thing and not a personal thing. This is interesting to me considering how manual labor is looked down on in South Asia.

Blogging About Relationship is Hard Work!

I think I am now realizing why its hard for most men to blog, talk, and communicate on relationship issues. I often find myself wondering what I should blog about on this space. I don’t usually have this problem on my other blogs. There I talk about subjects that interest me or things I work with on a daily basis. Here my focus is on my inter-cultural relationship/marriage. Plus its more of a journal for me and staring at a screen seems to make it hard to talk about relationships. I wonder if that is something a lot of men face since I find very few relationship blogs written by men.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy talking to Shreemati about our relationships. We often spend time in the evenings talking our hearts out.  At least that is my side of the story, Shreemati may disagree (I say this because sometimes I feel like we’ve spent a lot of time talking and later found out that wasn’t the case).

However, all this to say I’m finding it hard to blog about relationship issues!

The Road Less Travelled

Well here it goes, yet another blog. I’m a fairly experienced blogger, but my blogs have never been personal.  I’ve blogged about business topics such as marketing and finance. Heck, I’ve even built up a blog that eventually was bought by a relatively big finance company (note – it didn’t involve a huge amount of money, hence I’m not blogging from a beach front property somewhere in the Bahamas).

So, why am I doing this? Well for starters I want to share my story over the “Interwebs” and take out a position on a few things, particularly on the topic of inter-racial, inter-cultural marriage, child rearing and such. I will say, I am not the first to do this. There does seem to be a vibrant blogging community focused on this topic.

My focus will be primarily on Nepali-American relationships. Since that is my situation. However, my story and experiences should fit the broader Nepali-Western category.  I’m sure those in relationships with other nationalities will have a different experience, but there should still be some point of reference nonetheless.

Another reason why I’m starting this blog is because I’ve been reading a few blogs on this topic for a while and they all seem to be from the persecutive of the woman, never from the man. This isn’t a bad thing, but I’m sure there is room for a man’s view as well. I’ve been looking for a while and I have yet to find a blog from the man’s side on this topic (Nepali-American/Western relationships). I figured I might as well get it going.

Without sounding too presumptions, I want this blog to be the voice of “that man”. The South Asian male living far from home, married to a Western woman, raising kids and living in some twilight zone of an existence. There are issues of communication, love, discipline, religion, children, education, in-laws, family-visits etc., that make this combination of marriage particularly fascinating, heart-breaking and exciting all at the same time.

Finally, I will say I expect this blog to also be a place for me to share some of my political, social, economic and general life views as well. So, stay tuned and thanks for stopping by.