After Immigration, How Does a Marriage Go On: From an Irvine Couple's Announcement
On October 31, CoCo Yu, a Chinese real estate agent in Irvine with a wide online following, posted a video on her own video channel announcing the end of her 13-year marriage to her husband, Ji Chao; the same day, Ji Chao also posted a video in response. The two have known each other for about 20 years, came from Shanghai to Los Angeles, and have three children. She has often said in her videos that she is her real estate company's top seller. The two ran a real estate business together as an on-camera couple who toured homes side by side — familiar faces to many in Southern California's Chinese community.
In her video, titled "Our 13-Year Marriage Is Over! It's Been a Year!", she says the two had in fact been apart for a year; they reached the point of separating because their personalities were incompatible and their lifestyles and rhythms differed too much, and after years of mutual accommodation, they still could not go on living together. Ji Chao has left her real estate team, and she will carry on leading the team on her own.
In the video he posted, Ji Chao confirmed that the marriage has ended. He says he had stayed silent for a year for the sake of decency and the children, that this is his first and last public response, and that he hopes both of them will be well.
GSM has not looked into the specifics of why their marriage broke down; only the parties themselves know the real reasons. What can be confirmed is just this set of facts: an ordinary immigrant couple who had known each other for 20 years, been married for 13, and raised three children has, in the end, parted ways. They are not celebrities. The reason this matter has been so widely discussed among Chinese readers is that it raises a question many immigrant families cannot avoid.
After immigration, how does a marriage go on? Back home, a marriage is held up by a whole familiar environment: both sets of parents, relatives and friends, a shared language, steady work and an established place in society. Immigration moves all of that away and starts it over: status has to be rebuilt, a career has to be rebuilt, money has to be earned again, and the children have to grow up in another culture. When everything else is changing, what keeps the relationship between two people going? The experiences of the ordinary people below are different cross-sections of that question.
Feng Jingtao and Tian Li: A Divorce Finished in China, Then Three More Years in Court in Orange County
According to a published opinion of the California Court of Appeal, Feng Jingtao and Tian Li married in China in 2003 and together ran multiple businesses and held multiple properties in both China and the United States. In March 2015, the two signed a written divorce agreement in China, with arrangements for property and children spelled out, believing everything had been divided. But the agreement did not mention one California property and one business investment in the United States. In 2017, Feng Jingtao filed suit in Orange County Superior Court over the ownership of those two assets; the case went up to the Court of Appeal, which issued its opinion in October 2020: the California property was found to be Tian Li's separate property, while the business investment was community property; the opinion also found that Feng Jingtao had, without Tian Li's knowledge or consent, mortgaged her separate property, causing it to be foreclosed, in breach of the fiduciary duty owed to a spouse. A divorce that had been "finished" in China spent more than three further years in the American legal process. When a couple runs businesses together and their assets span two countries, what a divorce has to divide is never only the relationship.
Don Wong: A Lonely Life
According to reporting by the nonprofit news organization Documented, Don Wong, a long-haul truck driver from Hong Kong, said in an on-the-record interview that long-haul trucking means being on the road year-round and rarely together with family, and that it had worn down two of his marriages. In his words: "When you become a truck driver, divorce is real hard. I divorce twice. It's a lonely life." In his current marriage, he can see his wife only once a week: "The times she needs me, I'm not there." This is another version of "astronaut" separation: not a couple split between two countries, but one person kept on the road year-round by his job.
Chinese Marriages, in Numbers
Widen the lens, and Chinese immigrants in the United States are in fact among the groups with the lowest divorce rates. By American Community Survey (ACS) and Census figures, about 4.4% to 5% of Chinese adults in the U.S. are divorced, compared with roughly 10% of the overall population, and the share is also lower than among Vietnamese and Filipino Americans. But change the point of reference: academic research shows that the share of Chinese immigrants in the U.S. who are divorced or separated (3.5% of men and 5.3% of women) is roughly five to ten times the share among residents of mainland China in the same period (0.7% of men and 0.3% of women). The same population, after immigrating, sees markedly higher rates of marital dissolution.
Another study based on ACS data found that immigrants who have naturalized are at least 25% more likely to be divorced than comparable immigrants who have not. An explanation often cited in the research is this: in the early years of immigration, with status unsettled, survival pressures high and children still young, many conflicts are bound together and pressed down by circumstance; once status is settled, finances independent and the children grown, the bindings loosen one by one, and the problems pressed down in the early years surface all at once.
The structural pressures run in every direction. For husbands, a common predicament is a career and network starting from zero, a former social position erased overnight, and difficulty adjusting that often goes unspoken; for wives, a common one is the double fatigue of work and family, and, once they have their own income, changing expectations of marriage; for children, an adaptation to language and culture far faster than their parents', so that the voice of authority within the family quietly reverses. Add to this the many immigrant couples who run a business together: the boundary between business and family disappears, and friction in one place becomes friction everywhere. Back home, parents and relatives form a buffer around a marriage; in the United States, that buffer is mostly not there. And as the buffer thins, the choices grow: American society is more tolerant of personal feelings, and divorce in Chinese communities is gradually ceasing to be something hard to speak of. These changes are in themselves neither good nor bad; they simply mean that "getting by together" is no longer the only option.
When There Is Conflict, Where Can a Family Turn
How Chinese families deal with conflict is also changing. Many Chinese churches and community organizations in Southern California offer marriage and family counseling, and psychological counseling is gradually being accepted in Chinese communities; some families, before it comes to litigation, first work through a family-law attorney's mediation to settle arrangements for the children and property. No one of these paths is a standard answer; what can be confirmed is only that more and more families are coming to realize that seeking help when there is conflict is nothing to be ashamed of.
Going On, Each in Their Own Way
Back to the question in the title: after immigration, how does a marriage go on? The people above give different answers. Some divide property and business interests item by item in court; some see a marriage worn out by years of living apart; some turn to counseling at churches and community organizations, some sit down to mediate first; and some, like the Irvine couple, make the arrangements that need making and part with dignity, each going on with their own life. Staying does not automatically mean success, and parting does not mean failure. Immigration tears down and rebuilds every other part of life — status, career, language, circle of friends — and marriage is the hardest of them to rebuild, because rebuilding it takes two people willing at the same time. Taking that seriously is itself a way of going on.
Produced by: The Star features desk
Note: The portions of this article concerning CoCo Yu and Ji Chao are drawn from statements the two parties published on public platforms; the remaining cases are drawn, respectively, from a published opinion of the California Court of Appeal and reporting by the nonprofit news organization Documented, and case details follow the court documents and original reporting. If any party discussed here believes their privacy is affected, or has anything that needs correcting or a response to offer, please contact GSM; we will handle it promptly, and we reserve space for the parties to respond.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 尔湾 Mason 公园（William R. Mason Regional Park）的湖景：平静的湖面、湖心喷泉与开阔草坪，是 Irvine 居民日常休闲的一景。图片来源：GSM 供图。 The lake at William R. Mason Regional Park in Irvine: calm water, a fountain at its center and broad green lawns — an everyday leisure scene for Irvine residents. Photo: GSM.
