- The types of challenges, Sibling rivalry, ADHD, anxiety, Autism, anger management

- The tough times, shouting matches, terrible mistakes, defeated, self blame

- What brought on? My time vs now.

- What can be done? My experience

- My chinese discipline methods vs Hubby’s German discipline methods

- Male vs Female style

- Spanking, caning, yelling vs taking things away, reasoning, 

- Learning 3 languages: English German and Mandarin

- Dirt vs Cleanliness

- Filial Piety vs independence

- Compromises

- Over confident this time round. First try and we hit the jackpot. Didn’t know I’m so fertile.

- The challenges of being pregnant and still have to take care of a baby.

- Chinese character “Hao”, means good.

- Challenges as a baby. Reflux, respiratory challenges, asthmatic symptoms

- What it was like for me as a child when I thought about children

- Never thought I would be a mother. Past experiences didn’t give me much confidence.

- Surprised when I got pregnant. My husband’s reaction. Changes to the wedding/ honeymoon plans

- Connection with my unborn baby

- Breeched position. Horrifying trip to the hospital.

- Behaviourial challenges

- How to set a good example for her.

- Trust and trusting others

- Childhood experience with friends, with change, with friends leaving

- Is it a girl thing that we don't trust easily? My brother has friends from kindergarten till now

- Why is it so?

- Boils down to the different types of friendships.

- How often do we meet up with friends

- The excuses we make being busy with ours respective lives; husband, kids, work

- A conversation made me rethink my stance

- My guilt, Friend’s father passed on and yet I wasn't there for her 

- Selfishness or is there something more than meets the eye?

- What can you do? The key is in the question.

• FB reminder about a documented conversation between hubby and me. He spoke the truth but I was secretly hoping he'll say something nice.
• Speaking the truth vs stating the obvious on my pregnant body
• Difference between Communicating vs Telling. The difference is in the back and forth and a key ingredient, listening with full intention not thinking about how to respond.
• Fighting fair, there is such a thing. Not being truthful about you are expecting and the adopting of different tones will affect the entire conversation exchanges.
• Pick a time, have an agenda, be open, and listen. Agree to disagree so that allows both parties to be completely honest with each other without repercussion.

Book a clarity call with Carol at http://bit.ly/BookCallCG

Ep. 5 Keeping Marriage Alive: Honesty between Partners

Burned, crashed, reduced to dust then rise on the ashes. In this episode, we have a very special guest whose dream is to inspire and empower people around the World. 

She is a confidence coach, speaker, author of the book Breakthrough with the legendary Les Brown, I’m a mum of two, a loving daughter and a devoted wife. A model woman can juggle life, work and have it all, you too can have it all.

Welcome to Rise From Ashes Hi I’m Carol, in this episode, I’ll be sharing about honesty between partners.

Honesty in Marriage

Is complete honesty always the right choice in a marriage? Are white lies okay?  Here, Carol shared a discussion about honesty between partners.

(0:43 - 1:09) What’s honesty? Well there’s a reason for this podcast recording is Facebook. Facebook gave me a reminder of a post that I did when I was pregnant with my daughter, approximately eight years ago. This time when I was actually, you know, waiting to give birth. 

(1:15 - 1:49) When I look at myself in the mirror and I told my husband, ‘Oh my god, I feel ugly and fat’. He looked at me, being the truthful and honest person that he is,he say ‘No, you’re not ugly, and you’re fat’. So thinking back,I had mixed emotions. First thing I was like, ‘I can’t believe you just called me fat in my face’, like of course I’m carrying a baby, right put on weight.

(1:52 - 2:16) I would prefer that he is honest because what will it become if he were to say, ‘No you’re not fat, you know, you’re only looking this way because you are carrying a child and you know you’re putting on weight because you are nourishing the body of our unborn baby and that would be so fake from the way I look at him, from the way I know him rather. 

(3:08 - 3:17) That really brings to this thought about this today’s podcast about being honest. Honesty between partners.

Communicating Versus Telling

A good marriage thrives on the open exchange of emotions, desires, and beliefs and when spouses no longer communicate, a marriage nurtures no one. Carol shared:

(3:18 - 3:23) Well, there’s actually a difference about speaking the truth versus stating the obvious.            

(3:31 - 3:56) A lot of people thought that communicating with your partner is just, you know, me telling you something, you just give me an answer, giving me a response so yeah there you go we are communicating. You know, communicating versus telling, are two different things. When you are telling someone say, ‘Hey this is I wanted to do, this is what I wanted to hear’, and you’re actually creating a one way communication. 

(3:57 - 4:36) Communicating is you state your intention, you state your case and then listen for the response. Most of the time, a lot of people between couples in particular, we do not listen. We are actually waiting, you know when the other person is responding and you’re actually thinking and just waiting and see how you can actually catch what they are saying and form a response immediately. So you’re not really communicating if you are not listening so there’s a difference between communicating versus telling.

(4:37 - 4:43) The difference about speaking the truth versus stating the obvious are also completely two different things. 

Big Communication Problem

Fighting in a relationship is normal, an opportunity to learn more about your partner and how you can work together as a team and Carol totally understand that:

(5:09 - 5:46) But of course, I totally understand that sometimes when it comes to communicating with our partners and especially when you have a partner for a very very long time, you know, you sort of like forget to be courteous and polite when communicating with each other, you’re like, ‘You know, you asked me this and I gave you the answer so what the hell do you want, what else do you want?’ And you usually if we each party, I would say women, each party, because when we ask for something, we’re hoping to get a response and if the response doesn’t fit into the idea of we want to have, and what we want to get, we will end up fighting. 

(5:48 -  6:01) Fighting is also a type of communication as well. I don’t know if you actually heard of it, that is actually a particular way of fighting, it's called fighting fair.

(7:54 - 8:15) Sometimes, this miscommunication or this so called second guessing or jumping the gun, some of them might actually explain. This whole thing about communicating becomes non communicating because you are feeling this way but you’re not telling the other person.

For a better relationship

It's important to make your partner feel how important he is to you and your family by telling your partner what Carol shared:

(8:23 - 9:03) Rather you know, have the better understanding and by asking ‘How is your day?’, and ‘How are you feeling?’ And it’s very important because we all have feelings right, most of, for us moms, you know we have feelings and we want to talk to our man about our feelings but for men, they’re not really that good about sharing their feelings. And it will be good for us to, rather just, ‘How you feel?’ or rather say, ‘How did your day go?’, ‘What is the best thing that happened to you today?’ and ‘What is the worst thing that happened to you today, would you want to talk about it?’ and if they don’t want to talk about it just leave them be and ask him look, ‘Do you want me to leave you alone?’, ‘Do you want to tell me when you’re done?’, rather than just, ‘Sure I’ll leave you be I’ll just walk away’.

Men will always be men

If your partner isn't ready to share their feelings at that time, this might mean scheduling a time when they are, here, Carol shared:

(9:03 - 9:17) Sometimes you know, men, they are like kids unfortunately, then they do want to have a bit of time of time to process that emotion before they go try to tell you how they really feel.

(9:20 - 9:36) I realized that when it comes to effective communication and being honest between partners is you know, you have to be honest and respect their space and when it comes to communicating is like picking a right time because you have to read the situation.

(9:54 - 10:06) Pick a time and say, ‘You know look, can I s...

• Kids flying on their own for the first time as Unaccompanied minors
• The journey time of 13 hours though long, but not their first time
• The preparation, temperature difference, buy new clothes, kids grow up too fast.
• The worry and assurance before departure
• The hiccup, son vomited 
• The result, kids feeling accomplished. Parents need to give kids space to expand to become confident, independent individuals.

Book a clarity call with Carol at http://bit.ly/BookCallCG

Ep. 4 13 Hours Flight Alone. Trust your Children

Burned, crashed, reduced to dust then rise on the ashes. In this episode, we have a very special guest whose dream is to inspire and empower people around the World. 

She is a confidence coach, speaker, author of the book Breakthrough with the legendary Les Brown, I’m a mum of two, a loving daughter and a devoted wife. A model woman can juggle life, work and have it all, you too can have it all.

Building a relationship with grandparents

Establishing a bond with grandparents is great for kids in many ways because grandparents can be positive role models and influences, and they can provide a sense of cultural heritage and family history. They provide their grandkids with love, have their best interests at heart, and can make them feel safe. Carol shared:

(01:43 - 2:39) So for us, my husband and I we decided that if, as long as they want to spend time with they grandparents, they should go and see them as often as possible because my in laws are a little bit high in age, travelling for them can be a bit of a chore, they are already in mid and late 70’s and for them to get from the village to the airport, it takes a few hours drive and then the entire distance of 13 hours flight, it’s a bit a lot to take for them especially for my father in law who has got a heart condition. So and of course, you know because my children are the only grandchildren they have, so we want to make it a point that they have a very good relationship with their grandparents so as long as they are still young and they are still willing to go back to visit their grandparents, we will make it a point to go back.

Productive Parenting

Parents have the best of intentions and really care about their kids and Carol wanted to do everything in her power to encourage and support her children especially during a long school break:

(2:52 - 3:23) In Singapore, the year end school holidays is actually a six week break, it will start from the middle of November all the way to the end of December and then the school term will start usually on the second or the third of January the following year. So it’s a six week break, and you know, for those of you who are parents I’m sure you understand that if you gonna have kids during the holidays, you need to really entertain them and there’s a lot of activities that you need to line up so that they have, they’re entertained and then can spend time with you.

(06:12 - 6:20) So when the kids requested that they wanted to go and travel to Germany on their own, we decided to look at this as an opportunity, as an option. 

(6:51 - 7:26) So the entire preparation for us was a lot of paperwork, document, disclaimers, agreements and photo IDs and passport that we have to submit to the airlines, for verification of the identity of the person whose gonna pick them up which is my parents in-law and my in laws, my mother-in-law in particular so we had to get her ID, her passport and we fill out forms that you know, we agreed to allow the airlines to take care of our children and you know, and all this disclaimer about liabilities and so on.

Start of a Journey

Traveling by plane can be a scary experience for people of all ages, especially for kids. Being in a flight can get you feel anxious so here’s what Carol did:
 
(08:17 - 9:05)  They were really, originally, very very excited, they were jumping up and down since morning, “We are flying over the Germany to see our grandparents, yeeeey! I’m so happy!” and then when they were at the airport suddenly, my daughter got a little scared and she said, “Are you sure this is safe for us” and she has always been the bold one, and she was worried and we of course we had to talk to her and say, ‘you know look, you wanted to do this and we know that you’re independent so you can definitely do that and because you’re the older sister, you have to take care of your little brother, you can, you can definitely’. And this is not the first time someone has done it, many many other children have done it before and they’re all safe, they have arrived safely, nothing happened to them, there’s nothing to worry about. 

(9:29 - 9:50) So the preparation for me that I did with the kids was a lot of talks in terms of dos and don'ts especially bathroom breaks and also you know, not to fight because my greatest fear was that they will fight, because you know parents, you know kids when they are together, they get upset and then they fight.

Unaccompanied Arrival

Letting our children go to far places on their own is a very brave decision to do. Carol shared:

(9:59 - 10:13) The arrival was smooth, cause my parents, in-laws, they were ready at the airport the night before, they actually stayed at the airport hotel.

(10:21 - 11:08) So they were there waiting and very overjoyed to see the children, but that’s a little bit of a hiccup, from what I know once my mother-in-law picked up the kids she called me and she said, ‘Oh you know the kids are up with me right now and they’re happy, they’re fine and slight little hiccup, so the hiccup is that my son have vomited on the plane, it wasn’t during when he was sitting, it was upon, you know when they were waiting to disembark. So turns out he refused to eat and you know during the flight as you know, there’s a lot of movement so the stomach will produce quite a bit of gastric juice, then he ended up having to let everything out.

Roots And Wings

Before we give our kids every freedom imaginable, we need to think carefully about the limits. It can be scary to watch our children spread their wings to fly, but it will make all the difference in their life. Carol shared her experience:

(14:06 - 14:19) I think back to the experience that I’m putting my kids through on flying on their own. I realized that you know, we don’t give our children enough credit. We don’t give opportunity to spread their wings 

(14:20 - 14:44) A lot of people look at me and say, ‘How do you do that, why do you want to put your kids up to this thing, you know flying on their own, that is too much for anyone to bear, but then if you think about it, if this is too much for a kid to bear, why would the airline be offering this kind of unaccompanied minor service for kids as young as six years old?

(15:04 - 15:14) A lot of parents, we tend to be a bit of overprotective and we should, we should protect our children as parents and especially with all these negative things going on.
 
 (15:23 - 15:43) But end of the day, if there’s actually a proper protocol in place, and we should...

• Childhood message of my worth
• Different from my peers, the misconstrued idea of beauty
• Lack of Confidence from the skin condition
• Bad choices in boys, ended up losing myself after my divorce.
• Why I started coaching and why the podcast is called Rise From Ashes

Book a clarity call with Carol at http://bit.ly/BookCallCG

Ep. 1 Rise From Ashes with Carol Gockel 

Burned, crashed, reduced to dust then rise from the ashes. In this episode, we have a very special guest whose dream is to inspire and empower people around the World. 

She is a confidence coach, speaker, and author of the book Breakthrough with the legendary Les Brown. She is a mom of two, a loving daughter and a devoted wife. She believes that a model woman can juggle life, work and have it all, and any woman can have it all, too.

The danger of stereotyping

Stereotyping can be dangerous. Once fed to the mind of a young girl it will shape her future and will lead her to be in a box thinking there is no other way to be loved and accepted as she is. This was what Carol shared heard growing up: 

(00:45 - 1:21) Now have you heard this, go to school, study hard, meet someone nice, get married, have kids than live happily ever after? Does it all sound familiar to you? That was what was taught to me since young, find my happily ever after. My own fairy tale. You see I was told to study hard, but don’t be too smart or I will not be attracting the attention
of the opposite sex. Take care of your looks or at least, you will look decent next to a man. Basically the message that I’ve got was “My worth is how well I look and how well I can marry”.
(1:22 - 1:50) I was told to stay away from the sun, tan skin is unattractive, for this girl who enjoys being in the
outdoors, I had to stay in the shade. But the disadvantage is I have yellow undertones, so I’ll look extremely sickly If I was fair. Behave like a girl, sit still, cross your legs, eat with your mouth closed, brush your hair, brush your teeth
properly, and dress properly. All common etiquettes parents throw to young kids became like a chore to me.

Living Up To Society

Society’s standards vary depending on time, culture, gender and preference. Beauty and self-worth become so intertwined that most women would just decide to conform, even at a young age. Every girl thinks she’s pretty until society starts telling her she’s not. Carol was not exempt from this, she recounted her experience: 

2:32-55 You know what’s funny thinking back I thought I was beautiful when I was a young child. As far as I can remember before the age of 5 or 6, I didn’t think there was any different from the girls around me. When did people start telling me why are you so tan? You’re not Chinese? And then they give me the look of disapproval of my skin tone after they found out that I am. 

2:56-3:29 My grandmother would say, you should eat more, you’re too thin, thin girls are ugly my friends call me bugs bunny because my front teeth were sticking out so much I couldn’t close my mouth properly. I was so conscious of myself I started to shy away from people in order not to stand out. At the age of 15, my parents got me braces to fix my teeth. It was at the time when my friends are getting attention from boys and there I was during the awkward teenage time walking around with wires in my mouth. 

Gaining Power 

Unless you find a way to conquer what makes you insecure it will haunt you and pull you down. We do our best to protect our self, to survive without being hurt by others, this is what Carol did: 

5:10 Because I wasn’t really a girly girl so I didn’t try to become like a girly girl and I behaved more like a boy to make myself tougher so that mean girls won’t get to me. 

5:24-6:00 I tried to
talk tough behave like a no-nonsense straight-talking authority figure. To me having the power means I was somebody I would rather people fear me than to have them bully me. So I sort out boys with authority that boys so I can get protected from those who are mean to me. 

5:45 If I was someone’s girl I would be the queen you see bad boys don’t negotiate they don’t listen and they certainly don’t respect the opinions of others they take and take and when they don’t get what they want resort to bullying.

6:01-14 Being young I have at least some kind of self-worth since when  they start becoming mean I would really walk away from the relationship. But to be frank I was still a child what do I know about relationship right? 

7:28-35 To be better I have to change everything that I am that statement was effect I need to change to be better. 

Turning point

Not all who seem to want to empower us, mean well. Sometimes this backfires and will lead us in a place worse than we started. But in Carol’s case after her marriage ended, she used it as an eye-opener, to build herself up and other women as well.

9:16-10:14 After this experience, I told myself there must be many women who are going through these experiences. Divorce, someone who has lived under the shadows of their partners being under their thumbs, women who reduced to little to nothing, demeaned and lost. They need someone who have been through something similar to walk with them on the journey to self-discovery, rediscover their light and confidence within. That’s why I got into coaching to help women uncover their inner power to be the shining star they are meant to be the shining being that they want to be. I have been beaten, trashed and burned, reduced to ashes and have risen from the ashes like a Phoenix. And I want other females who have been through similar situation in order to do so. 

Key Takeaways:

1.    Focus on creating an overall positive image of yourself.

2.    Your worth is not defined by society.

3.    Realize that you can shine as you are and you will be powerful.

4.    Have the confidence to face and overcome your fears.

5.    Always decide to change for the better.

Key Resources:

Visit Carol’s site:https://www.carolgockel.com/

Connect Carol’s LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolgockel/

Follow Carol on Instagram: @carolgockel

Check Carol on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/carolgockel

Check out Carol’s Podcast site: https://shor.by/carolgockel

• Daughter experienced a biting incident on the bus
• The precedent the year before
• Raising strong girls
• Trigger bad childhood memory of bullying for myself
• Handling the situation with a clear mind
• Involving the school
• Behavioural education starts from home
• Lesson learned
• Communicating with minors

Book a clarity call with Carol at http://bit.ly/BookCallCG

Ep 3. Raising Strong Girls At Home. A Biting Incident with Carol Gockel

Burned, crashed, reduced to dust then rise on the ashes. In this episode, we have a very special guest whose dream is to inspire and empower people around the World. 

She is a confidence coach, speaker, author of the book Breakthrough with the legendary Les Brown, I’m a mum of two, a loving daughter and a devoted wife. A model woman can juggle life, work and have it all, you too can have it all.

Being a parent
Being a parent is a role that can bring you great joy and happiness, their own unique person can add meaning and purpose to your life. Here’s what Carol said: 

(1:01 - 1:36) Well, life as a parent has been quite a bit of a journey. To be very frank, in the beginning, I have never thought that I would be a parent. I was never, ever good with kids, to begin with, to be frank when my friends have kids, the baby look at me and they cry, so I thought I was destined never to be a mom, and of course from my past relationship and my past marriage, my ex-husband told me that I will not be a good mother because I behave a bit more like a kid myself so I will not be able to be responsible for other young beings.

(1:41- 2:02) Being a parent, it doesn't come with an instructional manual, I’m still learning and I’m still gaining experience and wisdom as I go along so if you have any parenting wisdom for pre-teens, come to me and share with me and I really,really, really would love to hear about it.

The biting incident

(2:03 - 2:36) What I want to do for this episode is about this incident that my daughter has on the school bus home, it's actually a biting incident on the bus, yeah, a biting incident and for a girl, being bitten, it’s quite a traumatic experience and the perpetrator is actually a boy. A boy that is actually on grade 4.
 
 (2:41- 2:57) So this biting incident came as a surprise and it was something that I, it left a very very heavy imprint in my memory and I thought that I would like to share this with all parents.

(3:00 - 3:36) So if you are a  mom like myself, I think I might be able to relate to this incident, well the thing is, there’s actually a president before right, when my daughter first started primary 1, grade 1, just put on the school bus, being new, being clean, most of the time, the older ones were the one to try, try bullying them and I’ve always taught my daughter to be outspoken, if something that she didn’t like it she should share and say it and so that was what happened.

Protect them at all cost

Getting bullied is hard to deal with, it can cause lifelong psychological damage and that’s what Carol is trying to prevent, Carol shared:

(9:36 - 9:46) I never wanted my daughter to go through the same thing as I went through myself and so I always say if someone will do something to you, you fight back.

(10:38 - 11:19) So we decided to involve the school because it seems to us that the mother wasn’t really involved in the discipline with the child and before we leave the apartment actually I told my daughter I said, ‘look, you know, if you were the one who threw the first punch and you did this to somebody else, I will rip your head off, and that boy was actually quite scared. I thought you know maybe involving the school will be a better idea, because for me, I felt that 

(11:20 - 11:22) Behavioural education really starts from home.

(12:22 - 12:34) For me, the lesson learned about this entire situation, incident, was that I need to be a lot calmer despite the whole situation.

The Power of Communication

The ability of children to manage stress, feel confident and motivate themselves in later life has a lot to do with their early childhood experiences.
 
(13:27 - 13:34) The lesson learned from this is there is always a good way of communicating with minors.
 
(13:40 - 13:37) I don’t think violence can solve any problems at all but I felt that communicating with minors is very important for them to understand right and wrong and for them to understand that their emotions can get in the way of their behavior.

(13:48 - 14:37) Because if you don’t manage the emotions when the children are young all these pent up frustration, anger is gonna come out somehow in their life and it will be bad and when their an adult and this would be a devastating situation in the future. So my communication with my daughter is being a girl, unfortunately in this society is to view her as a weaker sex, she should very much try and learn how to protect herself, protect her honor and you she should still continue being her, be outspoken and if that gets her into trouble, so be it.

(15:07 - 15:32) Communicating is, its very very important as a parent especially communicating with minor I hope that by sharing this episode in my life, you know, what helped you to think about how you gonna build confidence in your children and by communicating with them and so that they can be a good communicator, to communicate their emotions, their needs.

Key Takeaways:

1.         Don’t let other people tell you what you can’t do.

2.       Always be there for your kids.

3.       Be calm, think before you make a decision that you will regret.

4.       Have a good way of communicating with minors.

5.       Be a good role model for your children.

Key Resources:

Visit Carol’s site:https://www.carolgockel.com/

Connect Carol’s LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolgockel/
Follow Carol on Instagram: @carolgockel

Check Carol on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/carolgockel

Check out Carol’s Podcast site: https://shor.by/carolgockel

- What Gockel means, history of the surname

- Traditional person

- Relationship history 

- The difference between the two cultures

- Communicating Challenges

- Being understanding and patience

- Lessons learned from past relationships

Book a clarity call with Carol at http://bit.ly/BookCallCG

Ep 2. Why do women change their surname with Carol Gockel

Burned, crashed, reduced to dust then rise on the ashes. In this episode, we have a very special guest whose dream is to inspire and empower people around the World. 

She is a confidence coach, speaker, author of the book Breakthrough with the legendary Les Brown, I’m a mum of two, a loving daughter and a devoted wife. A model woman can juggle life, work and have it all, you too can have it all.

Welcome to Rise From Ashes Hi I’m Carol, in this episode, I’ll be sharing about my surname.

The traditional way
Carol shared the history of her husband’s surname and why she made a decision to use it:
 
(00:42 - 1:24) So what’s in a name? What does Gockel mean? Gockel is actually a German surname. Now, the history of how surnames came about in the German history is, related to the profession of the person. So Gockel actually means cockerel in other words, it means rooster. So somehow, the ancestor of the first person who has gotten this name is actually or was actually a rooster breeder, pretty funny right? So think about it Carol Gockel, Carol Rooster, so that’s exactly what my name meant.

(01:50 - 2:00) So why did I decided to take on my husband’s surname as you can guess,the reason is because I’m a bit of a traditional person or a traditional girl at heart.
 
Career over relationship

There’s nothing wrong with choosing to build yourself first before entertaining someone who wants to be more than friends with you. A relationship should not be rushed. This was Carol’s experience: 

(2:23 - 3:06) And as fate would have it, we met on the very first weekend when he got here to Singapore. That sparked of our friendship. It worked well for me because I had just been divorced and I wanted to have some kind of a distance. So a friendship was formed, and because of our distance gave me a lot of opportunity to really find myself after being in a 10 year marriage that didn’t end well.

(3:27 - 3:58) I wanted to concentrate on building my career at that time, I wanted to be self-reliant, sufficient, so the distance really helped and really helped me to actually build this foundation of a friendship and to know this other person more deeply. Most importantly, I want to be able to present myself to him, as who I am, not the person that has, that was shaped, not the person who has got previous baggage in her life. And that really gave us a lot of opportunity and space for growth.

(3:59 - 4:06 ) So we ended up having a long distance relationship for about a year and a half.
 
The journey towards marriage
 
All relationships require a certain degree of commitment and commitment might sometimes require sacrifice. But you will both sort it out to make the relationship work. When faced with the choice on where they should reside, this was what Carol decided:
 
(4:07- 4:50) so when he finally proposed to me on our one year anniversary, we had to make that decision, a decision whether if I move or he move to Singapore. After a lot of  deliberation, I realized that I can’t speak the German language and I was still building my career and is going very well, I didn’t know if I was able to find another job and I never wanted to start a new all over again, especially for a female who’s in her thirties and my husband, he wanted an opportunity to work and live overseas so the decision was quite clear for him to come.

(5:30 - 5:58) So instead of allowing my in-laws to sort of like lose a son in a way, cause they won’t see him as often as they want, I wanted them to know that I am marrying into the family, and commitment to the family, to my husband. And at the same time that they have gained a daughter instead of losing a son, so that was a decision of me taking on the surname and of course subsequently, after I found out that it would be much easier if I should take on the surname.
 
Different cultures

Marrying into a different culture has its ups and downs but it’s not impossible, here’s what Carol experienced:

(6:21 - 7:13) So this journey was also a little bit, has its ups and downs I would say, one of the big major thing about relationship is I have never dated someone outside of my own culture and race, not my ex or no ex-boyfriend, rather as well, that they were all Asians, they were all of Chinese origin, so in terms of culture, we knew each other in a way, right, being all Asians, there’s no introduction, there’s really nothing to think about and when he came into my life, there’s was a lot of things to, for him to understand about the Asian culture, about the manners and then there’s a lot of tradition and things that his culture that I have to get to know as well.

(7:13 - 7:57) The first big major difference were actually food, so if you think about it, you know, for this common conception of food, for German cuisine has been sausages so there was what I was exposed to and I was actually being exposed, introduced to a whole different culture besides sausages that’s quite interesting, something that I’ve learned and for him was the discovery, the discovery of spicy food in Asia, the famous Laksa of Singapore, he fell in love with it the moment he took a sip of the beautiful, wonderful, fragrant gravy.                

(7:57- 8:47) So we were able to actually marry both cultures and become a part of our lives as well, well of course this whole union wasn’t without any challenges, first of, that English wasn’t his first language and English is somehow my first language in school but back home I speak Mandarin with my parents. So for him communicating with my parents was a little bit of a challenge and in the beginning of our relationship there was a lot of things that I would say that he really didn’t understand, so there’s a lot of clarification, there’s a lot of simplification and because we were doing long distance there was a lot of writing back and forth, there’s a lot of waiting and that require a lot of understanding. 

Love is what’s in a name

Taking on her husband’s surname was more than just Carol being traditional, it is her being committed to her new life with a man who gave her a new beginning. This is what she shared:

(9:48 - 10:11) One of the lessons learned from past relationships is actually open communication and that was also something that we discussed with regards to me taking on his surname because it’s not a surname that is easy to pronounce in the Asian arena, Gockel.

 (10:42 - 11:21) That also become part of our open conversation in terms of what is the repercussion of an Asian woman adopting a foreign surname in Singapore kind of a little bit of a no no, more like a bad connotation, it's like when an Asian woman marry a foreigner or a cacausian in particular. If y...