Sometimes, I think the love of a Chinese family is one of the best kept secrets in the world. And if ever there was an example of that, it’s our upcoming move to Hangzhou. As we trade the countryside for city life, I still can’t believe how my husband’s family has gone out of their way to help us make the transition.
Okay, I know rice cookers, pressure cookers, dishes, woks and bedding don’t appear out of thin air. But when my mother-in-law suddenly pulled out all of these brand-spanking-new things (and more!) from storage in our house, it felt like some magic trick. Or the wedding registry I never imagined I had signed up for.
Because, after all, we never asked them to buy any of these things. But they bought them anyway!
My mother-in-law has continued this apartment hocus-pocus almost every day leading up to the move, trotting out new things during lunch, and has even pulled a few extra-special surprises out of her own proverbial hat (including honey and even veggies from her garden).
Making it an auspicious move
“It’s not superstition. It’s the Book of Change, a Chinese tradition.” Whether or not you agree with my father-in-law, the fact remains that good luck matters to my in-laws in every important aspect of life — including moving house.
So naturally, once we announced the news on Saturday, my father-in-law whipped out that indispensable little red book in his library — the Chinese Farmer’s Almanac, based on China’s Book of Change. It lists every date in the year, recommending what you should and should not do on that date. According to his almanac, the best upcoming date for our move (and preparing our new bedroom) would be this coming Tuesday, May 27.
And believe me, this stuff counts to them. How much? Enough for my mother-in-law to make a second phone call to my husband’s oldest brother (who initially said he couldn’t move us on Tuesday), convincing him to do it earlier in the day!
Money? We didn’t ask for money!
Compared to so many Americans I know, Chinese families seen to operate on a completely different wavelength when it comes to money — and my husband’s family is no exception.
You don’t even need to ask them, “Could you lend us some money?” It’s a given they will, which I still haven’t quite gotten used to (yes, I am a bag of nerves whenever John has to borrow cash from his family — and John always thinks it’s so funny).
And more often than not, you don’t even need to bring up the topic of money with them — because they’ll do it first.
That’s exactly what my father-in-law did the other day when he sauntered over to John and me in the yard. John’s dad had this serious look on his face that made me all nervous inside, as if he was like my dad and about to lecture us on something we messed up in his house. But this “serious talk” turned out to be nothing more than him saying, “You’re going to need some money for your move. How much?” (A question that, of course, I felt too embarrassed to answer. I mean, here’s my father-in-law approaching me with a gesture that seems too generous to be real, and expecting me to give him a number?)
Days later, I discovered a thick stack of crisp, red bills lying in the corner of our room — an amount that turned out to be more than three times more what I expected!
Sometimes it’s not even a question, but an order. Like, yesterday John’s oldest brother phoned him out of the blue just to say “Open an account so I can send you some money” when John hadn’t even asked for it. After my husband recounted this to me, I was shocked (in a good way)…and then almost wanted to pinch myself.
Nope, it wasn’t a daydream.
In the end, it’s all about the love
My Chinese relatives will never hug or kiss us, or say how much they love us the way my American relatives do. But they’ll pony up brand-new apartment essentials and money without us asking them, and make certain we move on the luckiest possible day. It all comes down to one simple idea — this is how they show us their love.
Now if you excuse me, I’ve got a move to get ready for. Hangzhou, here we come!
In Hangzhou, the city where John and I fell in love — and love with all our hearts!
We’ve all heard about yellow fever and the associated stereotypes. So what happens when you’re a Western man dating or married to an Asian woman and you’re supposedly living the stereotype?
That’s the heart of this thoughtful guest post by Gerald Zhang-Schmidt, who is married to a Chinese woman.
It’s my own fault, after all. I’ve known Jocelyn, at least via Speaking of China, for years and read of her thoughts and travails with great interest. The way that Chinese society puts everyone into place, in their gender roles and in gendered expectations about behavior and the course of a life has fascinated me.
How could you not be fascinated? While public displays of affection are still viewed askance in many places, the requirements for an ideal partner are proudly and straightforwardly proclaimed in ‘marriage markets’? (“Westerners” may also see these advertisements as superficial and appalling, but one could just as well call them honest.)
How about a place where the women are portrayed as if they would prefer (and be preferred by) foreigners over their own men, whereas the men hardly even seem to stand a chance with anyone anymore? That’s where I’m caught squat in the middle. Speaking of China is all about the rarity of foreign woman – Asian man couples, draws readers because of that same rarity, and has lots of issues to talk about. Meanwhile I’m living all of those other, wicked, dominant, problematic positions.
I mean, according to all the talk about white male privilege – and its experience – I must clearly be privileged. I’m not supposed to talk, for it just reflects my attempts at staying on top and maintaining my privileged position. As the WM part of a WM-AF (white male – Asian female) relationship, I’m living the stereotype. “Oh my, clearly one of those guys with an Asian fetish and one of those stupid and/or calculating women dumb enough to fall for him.”
The privilege of being in a majority is that you’re questioned less. As a friend recently put it, “you are given more second chances.” For the same reason, though, you are also less visible — for better and worse. You don’t have to explain yourself nearly as much as the unusual Western (or other) woman who marries an Asian man or the lucky Asian man who was able to attract a Western woman. Because they are considered unusual, they attract attention. They get questioned. They have to explain themselves and live with the puzzled looks. But, they also get much-visited blogs and book deals for their memoirs. And so, they have a need, but also get a chance, of explaining themselves. In breaking the mold, they are viewed askance, but also as avant-garde.
Such observations of upsides and downsides all too quickly devolve into nothing but discussions of who’s got it worse or better, “the culture of shut-up,” as it was recently called. So who does have it better? The one in an extraordinary situation beyond usual stereotypes, yet facing more scrutiny because of it? Or the one barely noticed because the situation is so stereotypical, no one even bothers wondering?
It’s similar to how feminism and stereotypes are discussed in general terms rather easily, but then suddenly turn personal and get vicious, until the discussion turns into something that has nothing to do with them. The likes of a “sure, there is a privilege to being a white male, but *I* am hardly privileged (or do you see me becoming rich just so?)” even as the systemic difficulties of the not-privileged (and advantages of the privileged) certainly are there, or the “yeah, I’m all for feminism, I like strong women” from men, as if feminism were all about strength, let alone one person’s likes.
But that’s not what I want to discuss. I don’t want to discuss anything, really. I just want to provide my observations and make a humble suggestion. Relationships, be they romantic or otherwise, will always be influenced by ethnic, cultural, and other backgrounds and the views they give rise to. But relationships are, at heart, not between ethnic groups, not between social groupings, nor even between men and women. They are between individual people.
The trouble starts when we don’t want to see individual people and individual situations, and don’t suspend judgment. When we see someone who fits into a stereotypical opinion and immediately think we have a handle on who they are.
We should remember that we tend to not even understand ourselves half as well as we may think we do.
Gerald Zhang-Schmidt is an ecologist and cultural anthropologist who spent three years living in China, and now resides with his wife in his native Austria where he writes about the ecology of happiness, chili peppers and being at home in the world.
I’ve spent a total of six years in China and married a man from Zhejiang Province. So of course, whenever I return to the US, invariably the subject of China surfaces in conversations with people.
For the most part, I love this.
I love it when approach me with curiosity about the country, whether they’re just fascinated by the sky-high wonders of Shanghai, interested in the history behind the Great Wall, or simply want to know if China has Pepsi. And there’s nothing like watching my husband hop into the conversation — it’s as if the very mention of “China” flicks a switch on and he’s suddenly as animated as a talk show host.
But on occasion, the conversation strays into a sort of forbidden city I’d rather not visit. Ever. And it goes something like this:
“Wow, you live in China? I once visited China. But boy, all that [negative thing about China] made me so grateful I live here in the US.”
Or this:
“I’ve read about that [negative thing about China]. So glad I’m an American.”
In other words, “China makes me feel so much better about myself and my great first-world country.”
Usually, I’m gobsmacked when I hear something like this. It’s not every day you encounter someone so smug over where they live after traveling to or reading something about China. But more than that, this sort of thing hits me personally — because China is where I live, it’s where my husband grew up, it’s the country we both love deeply despite its flaws and imperfections. It’s like just telling someone all about your great new house, only to have them crap all over it.
Sometimes I wonder, whatever happened to world travel or even international news as a means for enlightening people and opening them up to new cultures? And is it something about Americans, that somehow certain people there need an ego boost and get their fix through slamming the developing world?
What I want to tell these people is that their perfect little piece of American isn’t all that perfect. That there’s more to a great life than their squeaky-clean homes in the suburbs and the shop-till-you-drop malls and outlets they visit on the weekends. That my family’s home in the Zhejiang countryside might look rough on the outside, but in fact is a family that has a wealth of resources, money and even the most important thing of all — love.
Most of all, I’d like to tell them they make me feel grateful too…that I’m not their neighbor, and I never will be.
I have been reading your blog for some time now and the majority of your female readers are independent, intelligent women whom have (some) “feminist” values/ideas such as equality, rights, freedom of choice.
I would like to know has being married to a Chinese man and to the Chinese “extended family” changed your…“feminist” ( independent ) views? Did you have to change your way of thinking and adapt to situations, traditions, culture that may not share your own ideas and beliefs? Do you accept things in China that you wouldn’t accept back in your own country? If so how did/do you handle this? How does it make you feel?
—–
I thought about this question for many weeks and could never seem to come up with the right answer. And then I realized the issue here — the thing is, my marriage to John hasn’t really changed my core feminist/independent views all that much.
See, I married a feminist guy who just happens to come from the countryside of Zhejiang, China, as I’ve written before:
Over the years, from dating through marriage, John continued to blast stereotypes about Chinese men, that they’re so sexist. He loved my larger, curvier body in all of its beautiful imperfections, and never suggested I change a thing. During all those times when I was the family breadwinner, he always felt proud of me and my ability to make a living. He grew up in a household where no one hit women and children, and condemned domestic violence in all of its forms. He kept doing the dishes and his share of the housework, and never assigned a gender role to any household chores.
John has always loved me just as I am and always supported me in my endeavors, even when it comes to writing about him and our marriage together. In fact, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be writing this blog at all!
As for his family, sure, not everyone is as progressive as he is. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve had to somehow change myself to fit their expectations. We can disagree. And if we do, I usually say something to them. It might surprise you, but I find it far easier to speak up in front of his family as opposed to my own in the States. Perhaps it’s because foreigners in China are expected to be a little weird and get a pass when we do things differently. Maybe it’s because I’m speaking to them in a foreign language, which liberates me because it’s not the language I grew up with. And it probably helps that John’s parents (and most of his family) don’t fit those stereotypes of the strict and conservative Chinese family.
Of course, there are things about Chinese culture that, on the surface, seem to clash with feminist/independent views. Take for example the dependency among family members in China and the expectation that children should care for their parents when they’re older. Yet, some families in the US do these things too. My dad invited his father (my grandfather) to spend his final years living together with him, and my aunts and uncles take care of my grandmother so she doesn’t have to stay in a nursing home. As independent and feminist as I am, I still believe these are good values and would want to do the same if John’s parents needed our help.
And ultimately, there’s a difference between understanding a culture and completely overhauling your own views for someone else. It’s important to know and respect your partner’s culture, but that doesn’t mean you have to hide who you are to do it. Otherwise, you’re just dealing with a one-sided relationship and those are usually doomed to fail. Just as I’ve become closer to John’s culture, he’s also become closer to mine — and the whole process has only made our marriage that much stronger. Yet when it comes to our beliefs and our way of thinking, we’re still pretty much the same as we were all those years before when we first met.
Maybe my marriage really is unusual. And maybe to some people I might not seem “independent enough” or even “feminist enough”. But then again, that should tell you that there are no hard or fast rules for cross-cultural marriages in China or even what defines a woman as independent and feminist.
Sometimes, you really can find happily ever after in the most unlikely places in the world. 😉
How about you? How would you respond to this question?
—–
Do you have a question about life, dating, marriage and family in China/Chinese culture or Western culture? Send me yours today.
As John and I stopped to admire a patch of yellow daisies while hiking through his village in Zhejiang, a voice speaking Chinese reached us from across the creek. “Aren’t those flowers beautiful?”
I looked up to see two smiling yet unfamiliar faces staring at my husband and me, both filled with a friendly curiosity. After all, it’s not everyday they find a white foreigner hiking across from their fields.
The warmth from their gazes made me do something so uncharacteristic in China, something I rarely do with strangers here: I waved at them and smiled.
“Yes, they’re very beautiful,” I said to them in Chinese. “And fragrant!”
Soon, we fell into a brief conversation — about why we were hiking around the creek (for fun), about what they were doing (planting some crops in the fields). Even though it was all just small talk, by the time we left and continued on our way home, I felt as if we just made a couple of new friends. And it’s not the first time this has happened.
A woman in the mountains always invites us in for dinner or a little small talk whenever we hike past her house. While cruising down the hill on our bicycles, one fellow standing outside his house with a bowl of rice and bamboo also asked us to come over for dinner. A farmer picking cherries in the fields suddenly pushed his basket of sweet red bounty in front of me, insisting I must take some home — and even forcing the cherries into my hands when I hadn’t taken enough. And then there are the countless individuals who crack an unexpected smile at my husband whenever he greets them in the local dialect with a question like, “Off work?”
It’s amazing how a simple walk through my husband’s village in rural Zhejiang suddenly opens up unexpected doors and hearts. There’s a brilliant friendliness here that shines upon us like the golden sunshine. Maybe it’s because my husband always called these mountains home — and whenever he speaks the dialect of this region, he announces his hometown roots. Maybe it’s in part that the curious presence of a foreigner in a remote mountain village inevitably opens up even some of the shyest people to a little conversation.
Yet I know we would never enjoy the same friendly welcome in a big city like Hangzhou, Shanghai or even Beijing. After living in big cities in China, I know all too well the watchful distance between strangers on the streets — where there’s no such thing as waving hello or asking someone, “What are you up to?” It’s a world where people worry about helping up a fallen little old grandmother in the streets for fear of getting sued…where you automatically assume “swindler” or even “thief” if someone you don’t know approaches you.
So of course, I assumed the same rules applied to us when we moved to my husband’s hometown in the countryside…and how wrong I was.
I’ve also watched my husband transform from the shy wallflower he once was in the US to the confident social butterfly who could charm almost anyone into a smile, even the most impossible grimacing grandfathers on the streets. Even after all of the hardships we’ve faced in the US, my husband still greets everyone in this village with a cheerful optimism that is so inspiring, especially to me.
My husband reminds me that, no matter what difficulties you’ve encountered in life, there’s still room for a smile, a nod and a little small talk. Sometimes, it’s also the best remedy for those sad and lonely days I experience here in China, where the world seems crazy and unfair and impossible. It’s like slowing down to enjoy a patch of yellow flowers — realizing the beauty and love that’s already around us, but that we’ve forgotten in our daily routines.
Someday, John and I will leave his parents’ home for bigger things. Yet a part of us will undoubtedly remain among these welcoming mountains in the countryside, which have taught us to believe once again in humanity and the power of a smile.
Until 2014, that is. He had plans to travel to Hong Kong in April and decided to trying fixing up his nephew once again. So, will Fred’s nephew finally find love in the US this time? Read on for part two of this fascinating story.
About two years ago, my wife and I went to Hong Kong to visit my half-brother and half-sister and their side of the family, all of whom are Chinese. My cousin Yew was my half-sister’s oldest child of three. When my wife and I visited him in 2012, Yew was single and approaching his late thirties, unattached and unmarried.
My half-sister was concerned that he still had no marriage prospects in sight. So I offered to help him by arranging for him to date four white American girls if he came to visit me in the US. Before traveling to Hong Kong in 2012, these four ladies had agreed to meet and date Yew if he came to the US. However, before he could even consider this proposition, Yew subsequently developed a strong case of kidney stones and was hospitalized, preventing him from coming to the US.
I then when to Hong Kong myself to visit him and also do some sightseeing, and it was then that I once again proposed the idea of dating these four American girls. He quickly rejected this notion because he felt he was not their equal.
Just recently, my wife, children and I visited Hong Kong from April 2, 2014 to April 12, 2014. We once again proposed that Yew should come to the US and try dating some American girls.
This time, I had hoped that things would be different.
Two of the four American girls from 2012 had since moved on and found boyfriends of their own, making them no longer available or interested. The other two (the nursing student who is my secretary’s daughter and another female lawyer) were still single, available, and interested. These two ladies once again were happy to meet Yew and give him a chance. But again, I did not tell these two ladies about each other, lest they think my nephew is a philandering playboy and refuse to date him. I promised that I would approach him and invite him to visit me this summer so that they could meet each other and seal the deal.
While last time I was the only one recruiting prospective dates for Yew, this time I had the help of my wife. She looked within her circle of single friends and knew of a handful of single girls, a group comprised of white American girls, white Brazilian girls, and Latina girls. She could not promise they would be available when Yew came or that they would give a foreign Chinese man a chance. She would not approach any of them with the idea of dating a foreign Chinese man who is not even in the US until Yew showed he was serious about dating them. She did not want a repeat of the 2012 debacle, where those four American girls agreed to give Yew a chance only to be let down by his refusal to come to the US and date them. My wife was very leery of raising false hopes within her circle of friends for fear of losing credibility. Besides, the girls in her circle could refuse to date him even if he agreed to date them.
So this time we had two white American girls who would certainly give Yew a chance and potentially a handful of other Western girls.
On the third day of our trip to Hong Kong, we met my half-sister, my half-brother and their children for dinner — but Yew was noticeably missing from the table. I couldn’t understand why he was absent. I had informed them over five months ago that I was coming and we had planned well in advance to meet on at least two occasions for dinner.
I asked my half-sister, “Where’s Yew?”
She said, “He’s much too busy with his work and studies to join us.”
I asked her, “When will he be available to meet me and my wife? I have great news for him about how to solve his singleton problem.”
My half-sister said, “Perhaps next week you will be able to see Yew.” We were scheduled to dine with the whole family then before returning to the US.
Next week came. We once again met the family and once again Yew wasn’t there.
So, I asked my half-sister, “Where’s Yew?”
Once again, she said, “He’s too busy with his work and studies.” She added that, “His company’s business had improved much since 2012,” when I last saw him. “His firm wants to promote him, but he needs to pass a course and test in IT. He’s embarrassed since he failed the test and must study again to repeat it.”
I then asked my half-sister, “What about his singleton problem? Does he have any prospects or solutions in mind?”
She said, “Yew is quite secretive about his dating life. Whenever I bring it up with him, he shuns me.” I could not believe it!
I said to her right then and there, “Call him on his cell phone.” I wanted to talk to him immediately about why he was not with us at these two family dinners and also discuss how to solve his singleton problem.
My half-sister called him and then I spoke to him. After we exchanged greetings and salutations, I cut to the chase.
I asked Yew, “Why weren’t you at these two family dinners? We planned them over five months ago.” He had initially promised to attend both of them.
He apologized and said, “Things at my company are so busy that I must work late and study to pass this course.” He never mentioned he failed the test and was repeating it, nor did I want to embarrass him by saying I knew about it.
Then I tried inquiring about his dating life. But wouldn’t you know it, Yew cut me off before I could even tell him about all the girls awaiting him in the US.
I told Yew, “I’m proud that you’re so diligent, hardworking and loyal to your company. I’m glad you’re trying very hard to advance in your career. But what about your future girlfriend or wife?”
As soon as I brought this up, he cut me off. He said, “I’m very busy right now and have to go.”
I tried asking him to give me just a few more minutes, but he insisted he had to leave and then hung up.
I could not believe it. How someone could be so disrespectful to his uncle? How dare he cut me off in the middle of a conversation?
I asked my sister, “What’s his problem?”
She said, “Honestly, he’s embarrassed about his failures in life. Not getting a promotion yet, failing that course and the test, still being single, and not being able to buy his own flat. He even shuns me when I try to discuss something serious with him.”
My sister had suggested he should go to Mainland China and find a woman in a remote village, someone willing to leave her hometown for Hong Kong. But Yew insisted he cannot find a wife until he has attained a certain level of financial comfort, including owning his own flat and having a large bank account. He believes he cannot call a woman his girlfriend or wife without having these things first.
I reminded my sister, “Western women don’t have that kind of mentality, where she’ll only date a man if he’s financially successful. Instead, she will work together with the man and reach success together as a couple. So he really should give Western women a try.”
Plus, one of the two girls I wanted to introduce to him is a lawyer in her mid-thirties with a well-paying job in the legal department of one of California’s largest insurance companies. She also owns a Mercedes and a two-story home. And best of all, she is willing to give Yew — a non-resident foreign Chinese man — a chance. That’s pure bravery and courage! This girl is willing to take a chance with him if has the courage to come to the US and meet her.
But my sister said, “Yew cannot even look a woman in the eyes unless he has some level of financial success.” She then abruptly cut me off and said not to talk about this any longer. It upsets her too much.
In the end, I left Hong Kong without even being able to see Yew or have a meaningful conversation with him. I also had to break the bad news to the two American ladies. From now on, when it comes to dating women, I guess I’ll let him fend for himself.
Fred practices employment law in Torrance, California.
There’s one topic in the foreign blogosphere in China and Asia that I just don’t understand. Why do people make such a big deal about Asian men carrying certain bags?
For those of you who missed the hoopla, the complaints fall into two different camps:
#1. Why do Asian men carry their girlfriends’ or wives’ purses? It makes them look effeminate, unmanly and/or “whipped”. #2. Why do Asian men carry “manbags” or “man-purses”? It makes them look effeminate, unmanly and/or “whipped”.
Note that while the two complaints are slightly different, the conclusion is essentially the same. In other words, if a guy does one or the other (or, god forbid, both!), he is forever exiled out of the kingdom of masculinity.
I’ve lived a total of almost six years in China and have seen my share of Chinese men carrying their girlfriends’ or wives’ purses — or sporting what some might label as a “manbag” of their own. But I’ve also experienced them on a personal level through my marriage to a Chinese man.
Whenever my husband and I go out shopping, he always offers to carry my shopping bags…and, at times, he might even hold my own bag or purse for me. I never thought of him as “less than a man” just because he did that. To me, it just seemed like gentlemanly behavior — like opening a door or pulling out your seat for you, a simple way to show he cares for you. And besides, whenever we shop, I’m the one who’s usually rifling through the clearance racks and dashing in and out of the fitting rooms more than him, and I’m the one with the list of stores to hit and things to buy. Honestly, it’s nice to have someone to take care of the bags so my hands are free to sift through the shelves and racks without worrying about forgetting or losing the bags. (I am, after all, incredibly absent minded!)
As for so-called “manbags”, my husband’s oldest brother just bought him a brown leather bag as a gift. It was square and had a sturdy shoulder strap. My husband ultimately wasn’t interested in it (he’s prefers backpacks or computer bags) but neither of us judged his brother for the gift.
What I’ve learned from my experiences is this — there is no such thing as a universal definition of what it means to be a man. Different countries and cultures have different ideas of what men should and should not do. So we shouldn’t automatically assume that our country’s definition of “how to be a man” applies everywhere around the world.
We shouldn’t assume that when an Asian man carries a woman’s bag or purse for her, or carries what some label as a “manbag”, he’s somehow not a man. Maybe it’s not something you or the men in your life would do, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. So why should anyone make a big deal about it?
Personally, I love the fact that, here in China, men can carry all kinds of bags without thinking, “Will this compromise my masculinity?” Sadly, that’s not true in the US, my home country. For all of the talk about freedom and being yourself in the US, our definition of masculinity is frighteningly restrictive.
Ultimately, the measure of a man is not in what bag he has under his arm or on his shoulder. It’s about who he is as a person. And you’ll never know that from a casual glance on the street.
For everyone who still insists that carrying a woman’s bag/bags for her or toting a so-called “manbag” undermines your manhood, let me ask you this. Who told you so? Where is it written that “Thou shalt not carry thy woman’s bag/bags or carry a so-called ‘manbag’”? And why is it okay for men to carry certain bags, like laptop bags or backpacks, but not others?
Kumbum Ta’er monastry at Xining, Qinghai China (photo by Remko Tanis via Flickr.com)
This week, I’ve stumbled upon a number of incredibly unique stories in the blogosphere about Chinese men and Western women in love. While I’m on deadline these days (and need a break from my usual posts) I thought I would share some of these fantastic blogs/posts with you. Enjoy!
A Tibetan-American love story in Qinghai
Earlier this week, a reader tipped me off to a few new AMWF bloggers — and one of them fascinated me the moment I read the short intro in her blog’s sidebar:
I’m Kimberly, an American lady living in western China with my Tibetan husband and our beautiful baby girl
Following my stint in the home of Peking Duck, I went back to the states to get my Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science. (That’s right, I am a certified librarian.) By then I was itching to get back to China and decided to make my home out west, where the air is cleaner, the food is heartier, and the people are diverse.
I used to joke with my parents before I left that I was going to find a nice man there and settle down. To my surprise and delight (and my mother’s disappointment) it really happened. K and I were married on July 28th 2012…
…and on August 2nd 2012. We had two weddings, one western style in the city and one Tibetan style in the village.
I’ve had my share of relationships with Chinese men (including my marriage to John), but I’ll never know — as Hannah Lincoln has reported on Beijing Cream — what it’s like to date a Chinese pop star:
Xiao Li was part of a gang of pop-folk musicians that included not just his band mates, all singers, but also their brothers and cousins and mentors and girlfriends and gal pals.
I had gone that night to get my culture on and enjoy some folk music. Awkward but uninhibited, I picked off one of the shy ones to practice my Chinese. We were having a pleasant conversation until his strikingly handsome friend cut in. He said I was really pretty and clinked beers with me. When I replied in Chinese, he slapped his hand on his face – “Wah! I didn’t know you’d understand me!” He then asked for my number, said he wanted to treat me to a meal.
…After a few weeks, I looked up Xiao Li’s band on Baidu. Apparently they had won China’s version of American Idol and were a go-to choice for the Party at official events.
Hannah recounts her time as the girlfriend of a pop star in China with honesty about it all, including her own missteps in the relationship. It’s a long post, but also worth reading and discussing.
What one Chinese man thinks of his foreign girlfriend
It’s no secret the the vast majority of stories about Chinese men and Western women in love are written by the women. And if we do hear from the men, rarely is it about a relationship that blossomed in China — one that, for that matter, is still going strong.
But Marta changed my point of view. She knows what is the real happy life, she prefers traveling to different countries rather than buying a CHANEL, she thinks we do not need to buy a house of our own(sorry but that is still one of my shot-term aims), she prefers walking more than driving a car, she is so kind and so nice to every member of my family, she is always so kind and polite, and she loves music.
While a cold, misty rain hung over Hangzhou that February morning, in my mind there was nothing but sunshine. A feeling of happiness surrounded me as John and I left that building, a jubilant couple bounding down the street hand-in-hand.
“How could it have been so easy?” I wondered.
We recalled the smiles from the woman at the front desk, who helped us rearrange our materials. We remembered the uniformed officer who told my husband how to write up an invitation letter, word by word. And when we left, both of them offered us a warm farewell, with the officer even complimenting my husband on how outstanding he was.
To think that we had just left Hangzhou’s Public Security Bureau (PSB), and felt as if we were VIPs once John introduced me as his foreign wife needing to get a residency permit.
And what about those calls John made in advance to the PSB? The moment John mentioned he was inquiring about residency permits for his foreign wife, that person on the other line transformed instantaneously. They became a friendly and helpful voice on the phone, as if John had just dialed customer service.
All it took was one magic word: yangxifu.
In Chinese, yangxifu (洋媳妇) means foreign daughter-in-law. But people here — including my husband — commonly use the term to refer to any foreign woman (like me) married to a Chinese man. And sometimes it seems like the very mention of a yangxifu can light up some of the toughest people you’ll encounter in China. Meanwhile, my husband’s friends have called him a “legend” from the time he married me, and his cousin even wanted us to find him a yangxifu.
And if you turn to the Internet, there’s even more evidence of the popularity of yangxifu. For example, Baidu has two entire forums devoted to discussing yangxifu: Yangxifu Ba (洋媳妇吧), with over 5,000 followers and over 180,000 threads, and Waiguoxifu Ba (外国媳妇吧), with over 1,500 followers and over 40,000 threads. A Baidu forum devoted to yangnǚxu (洋女婿, foreign sons-in-law), however, has only 3 followers and 42 threads.
To many Chinese, having a foreign girlfriend or wife is the best bling money can’t buy. Like cruising in a BMW or popping open a bottle of Moet (part of the worship of all things foreign in China, chóngyángmèiwài or 崇洋媚外) , we suggest he’s truly “made it.”
With a foreign woman by his side, that Chinese man casts a powerful aura around the world in China. People crown him as lihai (厉害, awesome), gaping in awe at his good fortune — and his social status soars.
My husband also believes that China’s love of yangxifu has something to do with how his country views marriage. The traditional view is that when a woman marries, she leaves her family to join his for good. So from this perspective, while a yangnǚxu will theoretically take his Chinese wife away from China to his foreign family, a yangxifu marries into a family in China (and thus, it’s a “gain” for China). Yangxifu are also much less common than yangnǚxu (as I’ve written before and a reader recently confirmed during a trip to Hong Kong), making us more of a novelty in China.
But really, when I think about it, the real wonder of being a yangxifu is not in enjoying a little VIP treatment from the PSB or making my husband a “legend” among his friends. To think that I could travel thousands of miles to from the US to China — a country I barely knew most of my life — and find a wonderful husband here, living happily ever after in his rural village. Now that’s magical!
Well, Fred returned to Hong Kong earlier this month and decided to do an informal “study” so to speak. Specifically, he wanted to know whether interracial couples of Asian men and Western women were really as rare as I had written before. Keep in mind that this is not a scientific sampling by any means — it was simply one person’s observations during a vacation in the city.
So what’s the verdict on interracial dating between Asian men and Western women in Hong Kong? Read on to find out! And thanks so much to Fred for filing this report! 😉
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When I first sought to date Western women over 14 years ago, I found that it was often a lonely experience because I rarely encountered couples of Asian men and Western women (hereinafter “AM/WW”). I could not consult with anyone except my full brother who himself was married to a White woman and so I had tremendous difficulties bouncing ideas between couples of my equal.
On the other hand, I saw plenty of couples of Western men and Asian women (hereinafter “WM/AW”) like my younger sister and her husband. Often times, I did not find the advice useful or applicable when I consulted with WM/AW couples.
1) Why are there so many more WM/AW pairings as compared to AM/WW? 2) What are the statistics? (i.e. how many WM/AW pairings versus how many AM/WW pairings can be seen in a typical geographical area given a typical day or week?)
I found Jocelyn’s website and read On the Rarity of Foreign Women and Chinese Boyfriends/Chinese Husbands in China. I felt she did an excellent job explaining why AM/WW pairings are so rare. Among the reasons that she gave were stereotypes held by Chinese men against Western women and by Western women against Chinese men, the media (i.e. portraying Asian male as asexual and lacking masculinity), Western perceptions of the relative physical size of a certain intimate part of Chinese men that makes it unattractive to Western women, etc.
However, there are no statistics on the number of WM/AW versus AM/WW pairings. There were some statistics I read once from the Shanghai Marriage Bureau showing the number of marriages between Chinese men and foreign wives compared to Chinese women and foreign men. However, they did not account for the couples that are not married and dating but nevertheless still a couple.
Jocelyn wrote in her article that it was not uncommon to see an expat walking hand-in-hand with a Chinese (or other ethnically Asian) girl. But neither Jocelyn nor any source told me the numbers. So, I decided to investigate the matter further. In order to answer question number 2 above, I decided to take the matter into my very own hands. I was also curious to see if Jocelyn was really right when she averred that AM/WW pairings are rare. I wanted to prove or disprove her article.
If AM/WW pairings are so rare as she wrote, then how rare are they? What is the proportion of WM/AW over AM/WW pairings?
So, I decided to take the matter into my own hands and do my very own personal investigation. My White Western wife and I, along with my two children, were heading to Hong Kong between April 2, 2014 and April 12, 2014 for a brief vacation to visit my half brother and half sister and their families and to do some sightseeing. So I made it a top priority during that trip to use my very own eyes to count how many WM/AW couples we saw compared to AM/WW couples. Every day I brought a sheet of paper and a pen with me, and I drew a vertical line in the middle. On the left side of the paper I wrote the heading “WM/AW Team” and on the right side I wrote the heading “AM/WW Team”. Then every time I saw either a WM/AW couple and/or AM/WW couple, I would mark a vertical stroke on the corresponding side of the paper. On the fifth stroke, I would mark it as a horizontal stroke. I would continue counting this way until my return to the US. This would be like a game for me; it started when I first entered the plane in the Los Angeles International Airport and would end when I returned to LAX International.
(Please note that my personal study is by no means scientific as it is not done by random sampling or any type of representative sampling method. It was purely my personal daily observation not predicated on any scientific basis whatsoever.)
My team was “AM/WW” and when I entered the airplane on April 2, 2014 en route to Hong Kong I wrote a stroke on the right side of the paper (i.e., one point for AM/WW team) as my wife and I constituted a AM/WW couple. So, our team was immediately leading the game by one point versus zero for the WM/AW team. “Hurray for us!” I said to myself filled with confidence that our numbers may not be so rare after all, contrary to what Jocelyn wrote.
Well, guess what? My team’s lead was very short lived.
No sooner after landing at the Hong Kong International Airport, the other team WM/AW immediately scored 3 points and now the score was 3 to 1. As time passed between April 2, 2014 and April 12, 2014 the score was skewed more and more in favor of the WM/AW team. In fact, when I visited my half-brother and his side of the family, I had discovered that on his side of the family his youngest of the two daughters is engaged to a White European man (Arnold) from France, and they are both living and working in Hong Kong. Furthermore, Arnold’s father, another White man from France, divorced his French wife many years ago, moved to Hong Kong, and now is dating and living with an Asian woman in Hong Kong. It seemed that the WM/AW pairings are incredibly ubiquitous, just as Jocelyn wrote. Well, all of my hopes of winning the game were dashed.
So, here is the final score from Hong Kong between April 2, 2014 to April 12, 2014:
1) AM/WW Team: 6 couples (including me and my wife)
P.S.: Please note that Hong Kong is considered quite Westernized. If the AM/WW couples are so rare in Hong Kong, I can only imagine how rare they must be if we conducted this study in mainland Chinese cities such as Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing.
Fred practices employment law in Torrance, California.
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Do you have a “field report”, guest post, or even love story about Asian men and Western women that’s worth sharing? Submit yours today!
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