Hello everyone! I'm new here. I joined Raoul's specifically because I heard that this site has an extensive "love and marriage" forum. I'm glad to be here.
I'm an American guy living in Guangdong Province. I've lived in China altogether around 10 years and continuously since April, 2006. (I did go home for 15 days in the summer of 2011.)
My Chinese girlfriend and I have been together since January, 2010 and have lived together since July of that year. (Not in her hometown. That would be scandalous. It's a small, not very sophisticated sort of place.) We want to get married. We're not in any great hurry, mind you, but would like to do it relatively soon. What I was not aware of until recently is that her parents have a local guy picked out for her to marry. He's the son of a friend of her father. He has made it pretty clear he doesn't want to marry her and she has also made it as plain that she doesn't want to marry him, either. Neither of them has any intention of ever moving "home" again but neither can bring themselves to tell the parents this. They fully expect this guy and my girlfriend to return to their home city to settle down forever, marry, and have kids. I've given up trying to understand why they just can't honestly explain to the parents that they don't want to do this. That's a whole other issue. So, in a nutshell, my girlfriend and I cannot return to her hometown and get married. It could quite easily become an ugly scene that both of us want to avoid. We've kicked around a few scenarios where on the day we're ready she absconds the family hukou, we dash to the office in the afternoon and get the deed done before anyone notices. She has concluded it will simply never work because she has an auntie who works in the same building where marriages are registered and there simply aren't many foreigners going in the building getting married. We will undoubtedly draw unwanted attention. What we've decided to do is get married in Hong Kong. From what I have researched it seems like a pretty painless process. Once it's done there isn't a thing her parents can do about it. (Legally at least.)
My question is this: Has anyone here gotten married in Hong Kong? Is the process as simple as it sounds on paper? Any insight anyone has would be welcomed.
As a newcomer here I want to be as polite as possible but I have one small request: Please don't offer advice as to how I can win her parents over. Every time I ask this question anywhere people do this. My girlfriend has tried and it is simply never going to happen. She doesn't want to "disappoint" her parents because she is, at heart, a "nice" Chinese girl who adheres to all the filial piety stuff but she also wants out of her hometown and, having lived there for a year, I completely understand why.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.