Wang Yuanyuan

    HAKA ASUKA, 28, moved to Shenzhen when she was 17 and finally married her love in the city this year.

    Haka married a Chinese man surnamed Zhuang in February after a three-year relationship. She said Saturday that after living in Shenzhen for more than 10 years, she could manage to become the perfect, traditional Cantonese wife.

    Haka was introduced to Zhuang, a native of Shenzhen, in 2004. “At the beginning, I did not see any future in this relationship because I was still a little bit worried about the cultural gap,” she said. “Although I did not see this as a problem in becoming friends, marriage would be a whole different story.”

    Fortunately for them, Haka and Zhuang managed to bridge the gap, partly because Haka had become more localized than she’d realized.

    “I think it is not that difficult for a Japanese woman to become a good Cantonese wife,” she said. “The requirements are more or less the same. I quit my job (in a trading company) after getting married and do all the cooking and dusting at home during the daytime. I am so looking forward to the day when we have a baby.”

    Haka now sees herself as a local girl rather than a foreigner. That is probably because she attended Xin’an Polytechnics in Nanshan District with other Shenzhen students.

    “When I first arrived here, my parents sent me to Xin’an instead of other international schools, which gave me opportunity to hang out with the locals. I hardly know any Japanese people here in the city, but I have friends all around the city,” she said.

    Haka could speak fluent Chinese before she came to China because of her Chinese grandmother, and now she can also communicate with people in Cantonese.