My Longkang

Marriages between borders sound romantic but one should tread the path with caution. The problem is the different cultures, norms and values.

Case 1
I met a woman today. She is a grandmother but misses her grandchildren. She last saw them last Harvest Festival ( Gawai Dayak ) or June last year when the youngest was two months old.

What happened? Her son met a pretty Indonesian woman. They fell in love and got married despite parental protests. She was a worker in a factory and bore him two sons. The problem was she had to leave the country every now and then because of visa problems and this caused extreme financial hardship to the husband. The children were beautiful.

In the end, the husband gave up. He sent the wife home with the two kids. The kid should be one year old and three years old today. He promised to send her money on a regular basis. But when he wanted to send her money, he found that it wasn’t easy to go through the banks in her remote village.

In the meantime, the husband has married a nurse. She is out of the picture. But the grandmother says she misses the grandchildren and she knows the mother is suffering immensely.

Case 2
Mr Confirmed Bachelor married a young Indonesian woman. He had a grand celebration. Hundreds of guests were invited to a grand wedding reception. Thousands of ringgit and a few months down the road the woman disappeared. He went to Kalimantan to look for her. He couldn’t find her but was told the woman was pregnant with his child. He was elated and sent lots of money while searching for her. He never found her. He then sent some body anonymous to look up the case. The child couldn’t be his. If he was, the the child would be very premature but the child wasn’t premature.

His money had been used to build a house for the woman and her husband. He had been her husband all along. The child belonged to the both of them. The woman had all she needed to set up a happy home now.

Case 3
This case is almost similar except that she emptied the husband’s bank account and valuables before fleeing for home ( Kalimantan )

I am not saying I am against marriages between borders specifically Sarawak and Kalimantan but one should know the perils involved before taking such a gigantic step. I know the mother in the first case and her kids must be having a very difficult time. She has no means to come over to seek help from her husband. At the same time, she has the two kids to take care of and this hinders her from being gainfully employed. For the second case, I believe the man will be traumatized for life. It is unlikely he will marry again. For the third case, he has picked up the pieces of his life and moved on.

Play it safe. Marry somebody you know well. You should find out all you can about his/her background. Marry in haste, regret in leisure.