Vol. 3 No. 2 (2026)

Research Article

Falling Leaves, Unrooted Lives: Media Use, Power Asymmetries, and the Cross-cultural Adaptation of Vietnamese Brides in China

Published 2026-03-31

  • Tsun Wong
    • ,
  • Xufan Chen
    • ,
  • Felong He

Tsun Wong
Xiamen University image/svg+xml

Xufan Chen


Felong He


Abstract

The increasing flow of marriage migration from Vietnam to China has drawn scholarly attention to the figure of the Vietnamese bride, women whose lives are suspended between two nations, cultures, and systems of belonging. While prior studies have examined their economic adaptation and social identity, less is known about how their everyday media practices shape and are shaped by underlying power asymmetries. Through a year-long ethnographic study in Daxin County, Guangxi, including in-depth interviews with 12 Vietnamese brides, this paper explores how media serve as both a resource for and a constraint on cross-cultural adaptation. We introduce the twin lenses of strategic and affective media engagement to analyze how these women navigate the double bind of host-society exclusion and home-society stigma. Findings reveal that media use not only facilitates linguistic acquisition, social networking, and identity re-articulation but also reinforces structural marginalization through digital divides and symbolic violence. The study identifies three distinct patterns of media engagement: strategic integration, affective preservation, and resistant appropriation. By framing media practice within a hierarchy of citizenship and cultural power, this research contributes to a critical reappraisal of cross-cultural communication, one that situates technology within the geopolitics of intimacy and the political economy of marriage migration. The findings challenge linear models of migrant adaptation and call for more nuanced understanding of digital agency within constrained circumstances.

Keywords

Media engagement, Cross-cultural adaptation, Vietnamese brides, Strategic and affective practice, China-Vietnam borderlands

PDF

References

  1. Bhabha, H.K. (1994). The Location of Culture (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203820551
  2. Charmaz, K. C. . (2006). Constructing grounded theory: a practical guide through qualitative analysis. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being,1(3). https://doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v1i3.4932
  3. Chiu, T. Y., & Yeoh, B. S. A. (2021). Marriage migration, family and citizenship in Asia. Citizenship Studies, 25(7), 879–897. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2021.1968680
  4. Chiu, T.Y., & Yeoh, B.S.A. (Eds.). (2023). Marriage Migration, Family and Citizenship in Asia (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003391869
  5. Constable, N. (Ed.). (2005). Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia. University of Pennsylvania Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fhv66
  6. Dyrness, Andrea, and Enrique Sepúlveda. Border Thinking: Latinx Youth Decolonizing Citizenship. University of Minnesota Press, 2020. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctvz0h9tq
  7. Fortier, A. (2017). The psychic life of policy: Desire, anxiety and ‘citizenisation’ in Britain. Critical Social Policy, 37, 21 - 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0261018316655934
  8. Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. University of California Press, Berkeley.
  9. Harpaz, Y., & Mateos, P. (2019). Strategic citizenship: negotiating membership in the age of dual nationality. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(6), 843–857. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1440482
  10. Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press.
  11. Iwabuchi, K. (Ed.). (2004). Feeling Asian Modernities: Transnational Consumption of Japanese TV Dramas. Hong Kong University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jc5b9
  12. Kim, G. and Kilkey, M. (2018), Marriage Migration Policy in South Korea: Social Investment beyond the Nation State. Int Migr, 56: 23-38. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12350
  13. Liao, S. (2019). Wang Hong Fashion Culture and the Postfeminist Time in China. Fashion Theory, 25(5), 663–685. https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2019.1638158
  14. Massey, D. . (1994). Power-geometry and a progressive sense of place.
  15. Nguyen, T. H. et al. (2023). Climate Impacts on Hydropower in Vietnam’s Red River Basin. Energy for Sustainable Development, 75, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2301.10343
  16. Peng, Y. Migrant Mothering in Transition: A Qualitative Study of the Maternal Narratives and Practices of Two Generations of Rural-Urban Migrant Mothers in Southern China. Sex Roles 79, 16–35 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0855-7
  17. Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. Yale University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1np6zz
  18. Schild, Veronica. (2015). Emancipation as Moral Regulation: Latin American Feminisms and Neoliberalism. Hypatia. 30. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12162
  19. Shen, H. H. (2008). The Purchase of Transnational Intimacy: Women’s Bodies, Transnational Masculine Privileges in Chinese Economic Zones. Asian Studies Review, 32(1), 57–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357820701870759
  20. van Dijck, Jose, The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media (New York, 2013; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Jan. 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199970773.001.0001
  21. Wang, H. (2001) Academic mentorship: An effective professional development strategy for medical reference librarians. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 20, 23-31. https://doi.org/10.1300/J115v20n02_03