Japanese and Chinese Picture Bride System

I think that the movie that we watched today in class was an eye opener for me.  I asked my father how my family ended up in America.  Come to find out, both Great-grandmas’ on the Ching (Chinese) and Teruya (Japanese) sides were picture brides.  I think that it would have been really tough to come to a whole new place and leave everything behind to get married to someone that you don’t even know and have only seen in a picture. 

In high school, I took a similar Asian American history course and my teacher simulated the picture bride system with us.  Each female had to turn in a letter written to their “soon to be husband who was already living in Hawaii and waiting for her” about all the hopes, dreams, expectations they had for their new life in America.  And each male wrote a letter to their soon to be bride about how his current life in America is, expectations, hopes, and dreams he has for and with his new wife.  In addition to the letter we each turned in a baby picture of ourselves because it wasn’t what we currently looked like and so on the day we each met we would have to see the our spouse for the first time.  Our teacher handed out a letter and a picture for us to look at and read, that was the only thing that we had to see before we met up for the first time in person.  On the day we met, we were supposed to have lunch with the person that was our “husband” or “wife.”  We each had to use the baby picture that we had to find our spouses.  I was very nervous going into this because I had no idea who I was paired up with or how I a was going to find the person who had my picture.  After all the searching was over it was time to sit down and have lunch.  It was one of the most awkward lunches that I have ever had.  I had no idea what to talk about or what to say.  I'm pretty sure that I was currently a junior and the guy that I was paired up with was a sophomore that I had never seen on campus before.  I think that it was a pretty good simulation of what the picture bride system was like.  I truly give a lot of credit to the Japanese and Chinese women who came to America as picture brides.