Fenshou: “He made me alive and dead” in Hong Kong

(photo by Steve Webel via Flickr.com)
(photo by Steve Webel via Flickr.com)

An anonymous woman writes of the Chinese man she once dated, “He made me alive and dead. He once left me sobbing on a hotel chaise lounge, naked and overlooking the Hong Kong skyline, and I remember thinking this was what it was like for an artist’s muse to become an artist’s mistress.”

It’s a powerful story of an all-consuming, passionate love between one Western woman and one Chinese man that ultimately burned out — but will never be forgotten.

Do you have a gripping story of passion or a guest post you’re dying to share on Speaking of China? Learn how at the submit a post page.

—–

I found myself falling in love with a man who amazed me. I’ll call him Richard. From his view on the world, to how he would take care of me, and how he invited me to China after only really being together for two months. It. Was. Amazing. He was intelligent, hilarious, and dressed impeccably, He had ambition that matched mine and was damn sexy. Tall, dark, beautiful. Strong, but elegant and delicate. Before this whole experience, I had never dated a Chinese man, let alone, someone who hailed from another country. I was two years older than him (26 and 24), and I was okay with it because of his deep maturity and knowledge and love for the world. All I wanted was to know more about him. Though I have been in love before, I had never felt the pure need I had for Richard. It was real and scary and intoxicating.

We met at a work party — Richard, a citizen of China, and I, a Midwestern girl. It was a whirlwind. Our first week together was spent in three different cities, jumping from hotel to hotel as we traveled with our work. His English wasn’t very good, and I speak no Mandarin. I almost liked how he struggled with the language, and how I had to simplify things just a bit. Instead of the usual nonsense I have to go through with native English speakers, he and I had to cut through all the crap and just say what we really meant.

It was refreshing.

Luckily, we found ourselves in the same city for the next month. Unluckily, our jobs considered dating a no-no, so we had to figure out ways for none of our coworkers to find out about the beautiful thing we had discovered. This entailed sneaking into each other’s rooms at night, only having midnight meals and gifts mysteriously being left in my room. One day, I had found a bottle of perfume hidden under my pillow. My good friend and co-worker, who I spent most of my free-time with, questioned where I got the scent. I struggled for an answer and internally swooned.

All of this sneaking was almost romantic, and added a sense of urgency and danger to all of our rendezvous’. It was entirely worth the rushed meal, just to be able to look into his beautiful eyes and feel the power he had over me. I still get chills thinking of our first kiss, outside of a sushi restaurant at two o’clock in the morning, no one else on the street. Our conversations were sparkling and we had this power over one another that was so electrically charged. My emotions ran so high for him, and his for me.

But still, most of our communication was via WeChat, where he was my only contact, and consisted of nearly 70% of my phone’s activity.

Just as soon as it all happened, Richard was on his way back to China. Now, being too many miles apart, things really got interesting.

The instant he landed in Hong Kong, he made it very clear what he wanted. Me. To not hang out with too many guys (but most of my friends are guys!) and not drink too much (but my hometown is KNOWN for beer!) and to text him from the moment I woke up, to the moment I went to sleep.

And I did. And he did. And we both became obsessed.

We texted from my morning, to way way into his night. I think each of us were only getting about four hours of sleep. Of course, we were still keeping things secret from our friends and common co-workers, so we had no time to Skype and could barely talk on the phone. Strictly WeChat. Our conversations were normal. Flirty, romantic, sexy. Up until a week before I was scheduled to leave.

A week before, his contact suddenly became slack. Not texting when he woke up, barely giving me details of his day. So I pulled back (with lots of struggle, of course). I was hurt and confused and couldn’t figure out where the change came from. All I knew is that I wanted to see him again so I could touch him, and kiss him, and have the bright conversations we were enjoying only a month ago.

I got angry. He got angry. And anger does not translate well on WeChat. Three days before leaving, I found myself awake at four in the morning, sobbing because he wasn’t responding to me. Richard assured me everything was alright, that he was busy preparing for my arrival. I understood.

When I landed for my three week trip, things got even weirder. I wasn’t greeted with a kiss. I wasn’t greeted with a hug, or even a ‘hello’.

“Wow that is a big suitcase.”

My first night in Hong Kong was spent kissing, then fighting, then making love, and fighting again. I felt like I was in a music video. The trip was off to a bad start and working things out was difficult. He was acting strangely. I was acting strangely, our whole vibe was different than it was before.

After a good talk and couple days of me wandering this foreign city by myself, we were better. But looking back, maybe we were faking our happiness. The controlling side of him took over, and my people-pleasing side was brought to surface. Our personalities clashed. Without the secrets, and sneaking, our ‘love’ was different than before. I thought he was urgent before to keep us from getting caught. But as he rushed me through a fantastic dinner, I saw a side of his personality that I didn’t like. And when I protested, he would call me selfish. I would fall to my knees and give in, abandoning half of my food.

We had our ups and downs, and told each other we loved one another. We fought passionately, made love passionately, and I felt pain in my gut when I made him mad. It was a dangerous relationship.

After three weeks of traveling, it was time to part. I think we both knew it was our end. When I landed, he messaged me making sure I made it home okay. I
told him I had.

And that was it.

Though the specifics in my tale are lacking, the feelings stirred up just by writing this assure me the experience ever even happened. It makes me want to message him. But I know I can’t. I know we are both better off. This whole ordeal is two months old, and I still feel like my life is lacking a certain something, something toxic.

Maybe it was the lust, the passion. The way he would hold me at night, like I was a life-raft. He made me alive and dead. He once left me sobbing on a hotel chaise lounge, naked and overlooking the Hong Kong skyline, and I remember thinking this was what it was like for an artist’s muse to become an artist’s mistress. I wanted to think I had the power, but if I really thought that I was a fool. He didn’t have it. I didn’t have it. The power was in us, together.

And I think letting go of that power is the worst thing I have ever done.

Though preferring to remain anonymous, the author is a young professional with bad luck in love.

—–

Speaking of China is always on the lookout for outstanding guest posts and love stories! If you have something you’d like us to feature, visit the submit a post page for details — and then submit yours today.

Is “yangxifu” (foreign daughter-in-law) a magic word in China?

13925672946_4c22373bed_z

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.

What is it about yangxifu that makes us popular in China? As I’ve written before:

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.

Still, it’s not like being a yangxifu will guarantee you a “magical life” in China all the time. I’m reminded of what fellow yangxifu Charlotte once wrote in a comment on this site:

No, being married to a Chinese gives me nearly no benefits when it comes to living here….

And after all, nothing — not even a marriage — can shield you from every sorrow in life. I should know, because my husband and I have experienced a lifetime of them together!

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!

How rare are Chinese men/Western women? Enough to be “nonsense”

One villager in John's hometown in China couldn't believe we were married
One villager in John’s hometown in China couldn’t believe we were married

As the wife of a Chinese man, I’m used to attracting attention when I’m out and about in China. The stares, the questions about where I’m from, the way cars slow down to gawk at us — it’s all par for the course.

So during one of our evening walks in the village, I wasn’t surprised when an elderly woman walking in the opposite direction suddenly began asking my husband questions.

“Where are you from?” she inquired in the local dialect.

John mentioned the name of his village, nestled right in the heart of the valley.

“Where is she from?”

“America. She’s my wife.”

The woman grimaced at him in disbelief. “That’s nonsense!” Yes, she refused to believe that someone from John’s little mountain village could have possibly married a woman from America. And she walked away, not to be bamboozled by us.

When John translated the whole conversation for me (I’m still working on my local dialect) I nearly doubled over in laughter. “Are you kidding? She thought you were lying about me?”

Hiking the mountains in John’s hometown

It was the first time anyone in China doubted the authenticity of our relationship. But as strange as it sounded, I could understand why. In John’s hometown, it’s not uncommon to meet people who have spent their entire lives, knowing little else beyond these mountains thick with hardy bamboo and fragrant Chinese red pines, and the rice paddies and terraced gardens sculpted into the hillsides. Who could imagine that one of their hometown sons would meet and marry a foreigner, let alone spend years in her country? As rare as it is to find Chinese men and Western women together in China’s urban playgrounds, out here in the Zhejiang countryside such a coupling sounds impossible and even ridiculous.

The Chinese government advises foreigners to carry their passports with them at all times in China. I have to wonder, should I also carry around my Chinese marriage license so I’m prepared for the next time someone calls my marriage “nonsense”?

Fenshou: “Everything Was Perfect” Until Texas Tragedy

(photo by compassrose_04 via Flickr.com)

Would have, could have, should have. We all have moments in our lives where we look back sometimes and wonder, if I only did this or that, would things have been different? Better?

That’s what “Lisa” wondered about her “perfect” relationship with a Chinese man she met in the US (a fellow who, incidentally, joined the US Army after 9/11 and while he was still a Chinese citizen). Their romance suddenly unraveled after tragedy struck during her stay with him in Texas. Read on for the entire story, and my thanks to Lisa for sharing.

—–

I met a Chinese man while I was living in California and he was visiting from New York. He had moved from Northern China to the US when he was 15, and held a job in sports management. We came to find we had so much in common with each other. Our favorite sports teams were the same, and we shared the same life goals and values. He even related well with my family.

As we continued talking to one another over the phone, I came to understand he had a troubled life because of a tumultuous past marriage that later left him a widower. He felt guilty about the relationship he had with his lost wife and as a result pushed good people out of his life. He also had trouble sleeping at night, which I had noticed.

One day, he was given the opportunity to move to Texas for a job transfer — an opportunity that meant we could live together eventually. It was the first time a man ever spoke to me about marriage. Five weeks later I came to Texas to visit with him for two days. We had a great time together. His parents loved me even though their English was limited. He told me that they were just happy that he had found someone he cared about and made him happy. I honestly believe they thought I would be a future daughter-in-law. Everything was perfect.

On my last night there, it was raining outside. His dad wasn’t feeling well, but he still drove to work that night. Unfortunately, he got into a horrible car accident that was his fault, which we learned when he called us. We dealt with the insurance claim since our English was better. Later that night, when we picked up his mother from work around midnight and told her what happened, she mentioned that her dentist had passed away that day. So much tragedy in one day. I felt so guilty. If we hadn’t been out that day visiting the city, maybe we could have convinced his father to stay home?

Still, that night his mother told me how happy she was to know me. She then gave me a lot of her clothes to wear, and had me try on everything. I flew home the next day and everything still seemed okay. I received a text from him telling me he couldn’t wait to talk later when I arrived home, and that he was still working with his father to deal with the insurance claim.

I landed three hours later and called him, only to discover his attitude had changed completely. He seemed frustrated and wouldn’t tell me anything. I was so confused, and every call became shorter and shorter. One day later, he sent me a text stating he didn’t want to speak to me or anyone. I just didn’t know what to do.

Then I did something really impulsive. I flew to Texas one week later to confront him because I felt like I needed answers. Finally, he told me what happened in a text. His family lost a lot of money from the accident, and he wanted to end our relationship because he had to worry about his family.

I stayed in a hotel that weekend, and he came to visit me there once to give me some money for the plane. He looked defeated as he sat down on the bed. He wouldn’t look me in the eye when he explained what happened, and said I deserved better. I yelled at him and told him not to tell me how to think. But he said it wouldn’t be right to keep me in the relationship during that time. He didn’t want me to wait for him because he didn’t know when he would be ready for me. He sacrificed himself because he wanted me to have a better life with someone else. There was so much guilt and shame in his face. I never saw anything like this. I took out his army tags that he had given me and he told me he wanted to keep them (I still have them to this day). He suggested what to order on the hotel menu and turned on the TV. Then he kissed me and I told him for the first time that I loved him. Before he left, he held me and kissed me again. He said quietly that he wanted to make it work.

I was forced to go back home without him. I felt horrible and alone. I thought about it every day and just didn’t know why he had to leave me over this. It was awful but it wasn’t our problem. I think I was even angry at him for ending something so beautiful. He moved to Texas without me. And from what I have heard about him he hasn’t tried to make a life for himself there and instead lives like a hermit. I heard from a friend that he tried dating but nothing ever worked out. Since moving he has closed up. He told me that once he ends things, it is over. There is no chance he would come around even if he still loved me.

I’ll always wonder what might have happened between us, had his dad not gone to work that night.

—–

We’re looking for a few good stories from Chinese men and Western women in love — or out of love — to share on Fridays. Submit your original story or a published blog post today.

Fenshou: Algerian Muslim Falls For Chinese Atheist, But Love Doesn’t Last

(photo by openDemocracy via Flickr.com)

I receive e-mails from people all over the world with tales of love, and one of the most unusual ones comes from Soulef. She’s Algerian and Muslim, and falls for a Chinese atheist she meets in her home country. Thank you for sharing this story, Soulef!

—–

My name is Soulef. I am from Algeria, North Africa. I have always been interested in Asian culture, especially Japanese culture. I’m a big fan of manga and watched many manga shows and movies in their original version. But I never thought of being in love with Chinese men. China was for me the barbarian side of Asia. Yes, shame on me.

I work as a translator in an American company, which is located in a building with many other foreign companies. Two years ago, while I was waiting downstairs in the building for a friend, I noticed the most beautiful — yes, this word suits him — man that I have ever seen in my life. I was petrified. I couldn’t even look away as my heart skipped a beat. I was literally staring at him. He was Chinese and was with his colleagues. I remember that I spent two hours in the car waiting for his return. I even had lunch in my car. Stalker? Yeah, definitely.

When I got home, I told my sisters that I had “the coup de foudre” for a gorgeous Korean, as I thought he was from Korea. I spent the entire weekend thinking of him.

Upon returning to work, I was downstairs in the building at 12 noon — lunchtime — to wait for him. He saw me that time and kept staring at me. The day afterwards he sent me his phone number. I called him immediately, but he couldn’t even talk. He told me later that he was unable to speak, and that his name was Bo.

Everything was so evident and so obvious. We fell in love at the first glance, we talked about marriage and kids few days later. Of course, there were some obstacles as he said. Language. Even if we both speak English, we couldn’t express our real feeling through it. Religion, too. I am Muslim and he has no religion. Physically he had issues at the beginning as I am more curvy and not like Chinese women (we had to have a long discussion to overcome this). In age, he was four years younger than me. But it didn’t matter. We were in love, totally in love.

A few months later, he had to return to China to see his parents and to tell them about us. He was a little worried, and kept telling me he will say that I was pregnant so they would accept our marriage. I found the whole thing funny because I didn’t have a clue about his inner turmoil. I thought that since my parents agreed with it, so his parents will too.

Then my sister died and I was living a family tragedy. Bo left three days later. Then things went worse when Bo sent me an e-mail two weeks into his visit to China, saying his parents were against our marriage.

He returned from China and the guy before me was not the one I once knew. He was cold, tough and rude. He avoided me. I remember once I touched his face and cried, “Look at me! It’s me! I am the one that you love!” He was crying, but never he loved me again. Despite all this, we spent some time together. Sometimes he said he would miss me. He told me once that we would meet at the end of our lives, and that he would take me to a Chinese mountain ( I don’t remember its name). The last day, he made a video for me that I recorded. He said he was not happy. He wished I will be happy, and that I will forget him. The day after, he left forever.

Later on, sometime after returning to China, he sent me an e-mail saying he was a married man. I felt as if I was living in a real-life drama, with the loss of my sister and the love of my life.

After one year of mourning, I was still in love with Bo. But I decided it was time to meet another guy — Chinese, of course. I’ve recently been flirting with another Chinese man who also works in my building. I don’t know where things will go with him, but I’m certain of one thing. Bo changed my life forever.

Soulef is a translator in Algeria, North Africa who hopes to one day marry her true Chinese love.

—–

We’re looking for a few good stories from Chinese men and Western women in love — or out of love — to share on Fridays. Submit your original story or a published blog post today.

On Chinese Parents “Enjoying the Benefits” of Their Children

(photo by Jason via Flickr.com)

“Your parents raised you up to such a big age, and they still haven’t enjoyed the benefits of having you.” That’s what the mother of one of my husband John’s best friends said to him a few years back. By then, John was already over 30 by then (30 is an age where, according to the saying that comes from Confucian ideals, a man should stand on his own feet and earn a living) and still a graduate student — meaning, no job, no owned apartment and not much money — with no children.

“Didn’t you feel invalidated when she said that?” I asked John the other day.

He giggled, but even still I sensed the anxiety hidden within his laughter. “Of course! But I also understand her. Her view in fact is very traditional.” Continue reading “On Chinese Parents “Enjoying the Benefits” of Their Children”

Double Happiness: “Enter Zhao Ming…China’s Answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger”

Ming and Rosalie at their wedding in 2007 (Photo courtesy of Rosalie Zhao)

I love stories that challenge stereotypes about Chinese men. Well, you can’t get much better than this love story, where a white American woman goes to China and ends up falling for a guy she considers the Chinese version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thanks to Rosalie Zhao for sharing her amazing story, which just might inspire more Western women out there to give Chinese men a chance.

—–

Thanks to a relative’s cute Chinese neighbor, I went through a brief phase of yellow fever in high school. It came and went in the same fashion as most things (Josh Hartnett, Doc Martens) I pined after during my teenage years. I didn’t think my attraction to Asians would resurface, even as I packed my bags for my post-college teach in China stint. Just a week before I left, in February 2005, my cousin Nicky called it, “You’re gonna fall in love in China.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

Fast-forward a couple months later and you’d find me in China, sweating it out at the local gym. I’d never been much of a gym rat, but with a 12 hour per week teaching schedule, virtually no English-language television, and no home internet (remember—this was 2005 and I was in a small Chinese city) all that was left to do was hop on a treadmill.

Me exercising is no picture of grace and beauty, nor is it a time during which I enjoy critique or idle chit-chat. Enter Zhao Ming, seemingly China’s answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger. As I made my feeble attempts to use five pound free weights, Ming took it upon himself to criticize my form. While I understand now that Chinese people often offer unsolicited advice as a gesture of kindness, at the time I was thoroughly annoyed. Who did this meathead think he was? And he could hardly speak English!

Ming and Rosalie in June 2005 (Photo courtesy of Rosalie Zhao)

Though awkward, I was relieved by our failure to communicate. It meant Mr. Muscles would leave me alone. It wasn’t but a few days later, while I was on the treadmill jogging, thoroughly red-faced, that he made his second approach. I tried to politely ignore him, but as anyone living in China knows, you cannot politely ignore a Chinese person who really wants something. This guy was on a mission. In a tone that sounded a bit rehearsed, he asked, “Can I with you walk home?”

I decided it was best to stick with honesty. “Oh, sorry. I have to go home and take a shower,” I replied. His face was thrown into a state of utter confusion. He really didn’t understand English. Continuing my jog, I began to pantomime while yelling, “US, NO WALK. ME, GO HOME. SHOWER.” His face lit up; he understood. But a second later his expression collapsed, realizing I wasn’t willing to walk with him.

Over the course of the next two weeks we repeated the same song and dance—him asking to walk me home and me gesturing my refusals. It wasn’t until one night that he cornered me at the gym exit that I finally decided to give him a chance. What was the harm in letting him walk with me?

So we walked, with few words, just his bicycle and our foolish grins between us. He stopped and bought us each a yogurt, then carefully unwrapped the straw and stuck it in the drink, smiling at me widely. I felt my insides melt. When we reached my apartment I decided to run upstairs quickly to grab my Lonely Planet phrasebook. Somehow we fuddled through an hour’s worth of “conversation” before it started to rain lightly. We quickly ran into the building’s stairwell, laughing. Then he kissed me. In that moment I somehow knew that I could, in fact, find love in China. And here we are, eight years later, five years married, and still very much in love.

Rosalie with Ming and his family in December 2011 (Photo courtesy of Rosalie Zhao)

Ming later revealed to me that his approach at the gym exit was going to be his final attempt to ask me out. I’m so glad I didn’t turn him down. Looking back, I’m not sure why I found the thought of finding love in China so humorous and inconceivable. In a country of 1.3 billion people, the majority of them male, why did finding a boyfriend seem so implausible? My closed-mindedness and arrogance nearly cost me the love of my life. A cautionary tale? Maybe. But more importantly, just a reminder—anything is possible, even love for the single foreign female in China!

Rosalie Zhao resides with her husband in Hebei, China, where she writes a blog in Chinese and English called An American Woman in China.

—–

We’re looking for a few good stories from Chinese men and Western women in love — or out of love — to share on Fridays. Submit your original story or a published blog post today.

Ask the Yangxifu: When Chinese Men “Disappear” in New Relationships

(photo by Maria Conejo via Flickr.com)

Mary asks:

I’m…wondering about the “disappearing” as I had it happening not long ago with a Chinese guy that I had come to really really like … Not really disappearing in my case, but withdrawing any sign of romantic interest completely and abruptly decreasing communication after six months. I think what makes it hard and confusing is that those Asian men seem to be so caring, reliable and seriously be interested (compared to the men I see where I live) that when it happens it is very very surprising, hurtful and disappointing. Maybe Jocelyn could have a post that elaborates on this behaviour, possible reasons, and how to deal with communicating or acting around those men when it happens? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: When Chinese Men “Disappear” in New Relationships”

Fenshou: Dreams of a Romantic Fairy Tale Kiss

(photo by ♥ L i l a c ♥ via Flickr.com)

Longtime readers will recognize the name Sveta, who is one of the most active commenters on this site. She also blogs about her latest reads on her book review blog (where she reviews a variety of books , including titles featuring with Asian men and Western women in love).

She shared with me this story of how she met a young Chinese PhD student via myspace, which eventually led to one extraordinary kiss — and, later, a sudden end to their month-long courtship. Thank you for submitting your story, Sveta! Continue reading “Fenshou: Dreams of a Romantic Fairy Tale Kiss”