When you’re facing hard times as a couple, people say all kinds of things. “Hope it gets better.” “Stay strong.” “You’ll be okay.”
And then, there’s what my so-call friend told me back in December, after I told her about the discrimination against John, and how I supported him.
“So you’re standing by him? Wow, you’re so loyal.”
You’re so rude, I wanted to tell her. I also wanted to slap her across the table, but it was a holiday party and that sort of thing doesn’t go well with gingerbread and hot apple cider.
“Why wouldn’t I be? He’s my husband and I love him,” I finally said as I glowered at her.
From her perspective, “for better or for worse” just didn’t apply to us. She might as well have said, “You should have married a white man,” because that’s exactly what I heard hidden within her words — that when a white woman chooses to marry someone outside her race, in my case a Chinese man, she should throw in the towel when she faces something she’d never face with a white husband.
After her recent dating experiences in China, a woman wonders, should she expect Chinese men to have higher numbers of sexual partners and/or experience with prostitutes? (photo, a still of a sex scene from "Lust, Caution," from http://www.guardian.co.uk)
Anonymous asks:
I read your piece about dating pasts and Chinese men, but I have been having the opposite experience. I have dated some Chinese men in China. On each occasion as I became closer with the respective guy I was dating at the time, discussion of sexual history came up. Each had a fairly sizable number of partners (into double digits) and/or they had had sex with a prostitute. All other things considered, these were nice guys who treated me respectfully and didn’t seem to be players. I appreciated their truthfulness, but their sexual history combined with often poor sexual health practices (I blame poor sex-ed) kept me from becoming physically involved with any of them. My questions are these:
Are the men I’m meeting just outliers, or are higher numbers of sexual partners increasingly common among Chinese men in their 20s?
Could Westernization partially account for the higher number of partners?
A Chinese man in Guangzhou wonders, can he ever find another Western woman to love in China? (Photo by Jim Reilly)
Ken asks:
I went over to New York when I was 20 years old and I finished my BA and my MBA there. I also worked there for about one year before I decided it was time to come back to China with my classmate/girlfriend then who was from New York. I was able to make the decision of coming back to China because my girlfriend was very supportive of this decision, which, to be very honest, was really to my surprise because she never had been outside of the States except for going to Canada that one time.Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: More On Finding Western Women to Date in China”
They got me thinking, what other romantic movies should have had the sort of Chinese men-Western women romances at the heart of this blog? Here are six to start off with (including one nod to You Offend Me, You Offend My Family, who inspired this list).
P.S.: While it seems odd to file this under “Yangxifu Pride,” I see this post as empowering us out there to reimagine Hollywood into something more yangxifu friendly, even if that’s still decades away.
A woman is interested in a Chinese guy, but they work in a romance-unfriendly government organization. Should she text him to ask him out? (photo by John Lee)
N asks:
I’m interested in this Chinese guy. When there is a group of us at work he doesn’t speak to me as much as when the two of us pass each other in the office when nobody else is there. This makes me think that he doesn’t want the other colleagues to see us become friends. Our company is part of a government organisation. He has shown interest by smiling, eye contact and staring. He’s asked me questions about when I’m going away and how long I plan to stay in China.
To make your holiday to-do list a little easier, I’m rounding up all of my gift-giving advice in one easy post. Includes ideas for your Chinese friends and family, as well as hosts and even business associates. (photo by Christy Thompson)
(UPDATED February 3, 2018)
“What gift should I give?” It’s the number one question in my mailbag — and chances are, with the holidays coming, the number one thing on the minds of many readers.
To make your holiday to-do list a little easier, I’m rounding up all of my gift-giving advice in one easy post.
Giving Gifts to Your Chinese Family – A Modest Guide remains one of the top 10 posts for this site. It’s not exactly my favorite post of the bunch — which I guess is bound to happen when it’s your first stab on the subject.
Still, I feel this one does help on several counts. It’s not bad as an overview, and it offers great ideas for anyone doing their holiday gift shopping in China. So there you go. Read it, but remember it’s not my last word on gifts.
4 Tips for Giving Gift Baskets in China. What should I give to my loved ones/family in China? I’ve received hundreds of e-mails from people around the world, asking me for advice on this. Over the years I’ve discovered there can be a very simple answer to this question – the fruit basket, or even a well-chosen gift-basket.
Gifts to Buy Abroad for Chinese Family and Relatives. This post isn’t just for people with Chinese spouses/significant others and/or extended family on their list. It could be helpful for almost anyone doing their holiday shopping outside of China. When in doubt, stick with the more general suggestions such as chocolate or coffee (or see my final advice below).
Birthday Gifts for Chinese Men. What? Birthdays? Okay, the title sticks out — but the content fits right in. We could even rename this post “Christmas/Holiday gifts for Chinese boyfriends, husbands and other special men in your life.” In addition, some of the suggestions — such as the business card cases, briefcases/messenger bags, and unique electronic devices — could be great gifts for Chinese men and women who happen to be your China business associates.
Do you have a question about life, dating, marriage and family in China/Chinese culture (or Western culture)? Every Friday, I answer questions on my blog. Send me your question today.
When Jemma arrived in China in 2008, she expected to stay two years and then move on to another place. But that was before she met her Chinese boyfriend. (photo by Penny Mathews)
As Jemma’s story reminded me, I’m not the only one that never expected to find love — and more — in China. I’m also not the only one who had a few friends intervene on my behalf to find a better man. 😉
—–
When I arrived in China in 2008, I figured I would stay two years and then move on to another place. But that was before I met my Chinese boyfriend.
I dated a few men, all Chinese, and had some horror stories and some that just didn’t work out. One night, I happened to share my latest bad date with friends. The date was a nice guy, but seemed only interested in me because I was a foreigner. After hearing this, one of the friends decided to give my e-mail address to a man he met at the gym, a guy who had jokingly asked him to set him up with a foreign woman.
At first, this man and I only spoke on the Internet, until he finally got the courage to ask me out for dinner. When we met that night, I liked him straight away — maybe not tall, but definitely handsome. He was a perfect gentleman in the corny, traditional sort of way. He opened doors for me, pulled my chair out, always checked to see if I wanted more food or drink, and refused to let me pay even though he was still a student. After dinner, we went for a walk in the local park and talked for hours, until he finally walked me home and said good night.
…I feel compelled to mention how disappointed I am that “foreign” girls are always white girls…. I live in China, and I’m quite attracted to Chinese guys, but my dark skin and less than European features seems to mean that I’m destined to be forever alone. It’s quite sad that no one’s aware of this growing problem, the plight of the forever forsaken non-white girl…. There are many of us out here, and every once in a while, we’d like some love, too.
After reading these words, I immediately thought of Chenyin Pan. He and I struck up a conversation this past summer at the Shanghai reading for Rachel DeWoskin’s latest book, and he happened to mention he once dated some non-white women as a university student in the US. In previous e-mails, he even mentioned the striking words of a Korean friend (who wrote them with respect to dating non-white women): “The world is getting smaller and we should try new things.”
Discrimination. I never realized just how intimately I would come to know this word and what it really means after marrying a Chinese man. (photo by ayleene de monn)
Discrimination. I never realized just how intimately I would come to know this word and what it really means after marrying a Chinese man.
I’ve thought about this word often in the past few days because of something that happened. I can’t write about it in any meaningful way, though I desperately want to. Like so many things, I feel condemned to carry this pain around with me in silence. I guess that’s why I needed to write this entry — to at least come forward and acknowledge what has happened, if only in a general sense.
When I married my husband, I never really thought much about the prospect of discrimination that would come with our decision to return to the US. I guess I suspected some people wouldn’t agree with our relationship or would have difficulty accepting John. But I always assumed the discrimination would remain obvious, like the one time when a White supremacist group linked to this website during a forum discussion about a “Chinese takeover.” Continue reading “On Discrimination and Marriage to a Chinese Man”
Samantha tells the story of how a free online dating account she never intended to use ended up connecting her with her future husband (photo from Samantha Mead).
When people ask me why I chose to live in China, my answer usually includes one of my favorite words: serendipity. Happy accidents, such as my decision to move to the Middle Kingdom, sometimes end up changing our lives — and love — forever. That’s why I love this story from Samantha Mead, where she describes the serendipity behind how she came to meet her Chinese husband. Continue reading “Double Happiness: The Accidental Online Dater”
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