May, 2010 | Speaking of China

Ask the Yangxifu: How to Avoid Dating Dishonest Chinese Men

558914_17615479 — A Western woman had her heart broken, when the Chinese man she loved turned out to be married. How can you avoid dishonest men in China?

Just recently, a reader also shared with me how her friend, a Western woman, was heartbroken by a Chinese man who didn’t disclose his marriage — and pregnant wife.

Ouch.

There’s a saying in Chinese: 林子大，什么鸟都有 (there are all kinds of birds in a big forest). So, it goes for China too: there are all kinds of Chinese men. And some aren’t really looking for THAT kind of love.

The thing is, when it comes to love and dating in China, Western women are no longer in Kansas, as Jessica Larson-Wang writes in this eChinacities article: Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: How to Avoid Dating Dishonest Chinese Men”

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Chapter 64: Living in the Face of SARS

Doctor in a surgical mask — As a friend goes into quarantine, and the virus closes in on John's hometown in the countryside, I had to learn how to live with the threat of SARS, everyday.

I could have been quarantined.

One of the employees at Alibaba — the Internet company I interviewed at in Hangzhou — contracted SARS while attending the Canton Fair. On her second visit to the hospital, she discovered her illness was no typical flu. And just like that, everyone who worked in Alibaba — and other companies sharing the office building — was put under quarantine in early May, 2003, including John’s high school classmate, Douglas.

I wanted so much to stay in Hangzhou only months before, and work for Alibaba. Weeks after I moved to Shanghai and began work for the global media company, Alibaba even called to offer me the job — which of course I turned down. I came so close to this company. I could have been another casualty of SARS.

As SARS continued to spread, before long it began to touch the people you know and care about. Continue reading “Chapter 64: Living in the Face of SARS”

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Chapter 63: SARS and Scare-buying

a bottle of cleaning alcohol — First comes SARS, then comes panic, then comes scare-buying. I discover the local pharmacies are all sold out of cleaning alcohol during SARS, and I wonder -- what will be next?

It was mid-May, 2003, in Shanghai — in the midst of the SARS epidemic — and I had just stopped at a pharmacy, to buy some alcohol for disinfecting our home. Or so I thought. “Meiyou — we don’t have any.” The shopkeeper, a matronly woman with a cap of silvery curls, said the words I feared.

I trudged back to our apartment, with the news. “I can’t believe it — they’ve sold out of alcohol!”

John looked towards me, his calm face the opposite of the near-panic and frustration I harbored within. “Scare-buying.” He said it as if he was announcing what we’d have for lunch, or mentioning an interesting news story.

Except there was nothing common about it, to me. “Great.” Here we were in the midst of SARS, and an important tool — alcohol — was now out of my reach.

But it wasn’t just alcohol. Continue reading “Chapter 63: SARS and Scare-buying”

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