Chinese guy | Speaking of China

Jewish Women & Chinese Men in Love: Article Pub’d in Asian Jewish Life

Star of David in a stain-glass window — Asian Jewish Life published my article "Chosen Women and Chinese men: a Tradition of Love?" (photo by Simon Cataudo)

I thought I’d share with you an article that was published a few weeks ago in Asian Jewish Life called Chosen Women Choosing Chinese Men: A tradition of love?

Back in February of this year, I wondered if Jewish women really were more likely to marry Chinese men. That got the attention of Asian Jewish Life, who agreed to let me explore the connection in depth through a longer article (thank you, Erica!). The piece also includes the voices of several prominent Jewish women who have loved Chinese men — Anna Sophie Loewenberg of Sexy Beijing, Rachel DeWoskin, and Susan Blumberg-Kason.

I delayed sharing this article to first request a few minor corrections in the online version, but became so busy this month that posting it here on the blog just slipped my mind. Actually, it’s probably a lucky omission since I am currently knee-deep in helping with last-minute checks on my husband’s psychology internship applications and had NO idea what I was going to put on the blog today. (Whew!)

Here’s the crux of the piece: Continue reading “Jewish Women & Chinese Men in Love: Article Pub’d in Asian Jewish Life”

Share/Save

To My Chinese Husband, I’m A Hero?

A plastic hero figurine painted in red — Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Save the planet? No, I'm just a foreign woman who had the courage to go to China -- and my Chinese husband called me a "hero." (photo by Deon Staffelbach)

Hero. My Chinese husband John used that word to describe, of all people, me. That’s what he thought of me after we first had lunch together back in 2002.

“I thought you were kind of like a great hero, because you came all the way to China by yourself,” he confessed with a quiet grin.

I usually associated the term “hero” with people who saved lives, or scaled the walls of Gotham City in tights looking for the bad guys — not a single woman from the US who made a serendipitous choice to come to China on her own. But he reserved the term for, among other people, his future wife.

I cocked my head at John. “A hero?”

“Sure,” he replied matter-of-factly, as if my “knight-in-shining-armor” quality was so obvious to everyone but me. Continue reading “To My Chinese Husband, I’m A Hero?”

Share/Save

Double Happiness: A Western Woman Walks Into A Bar

Two beer glasses lined up on a bar — Western women walked into bars, and walked out finding their future Chinese husbands (photo by gianni testore)

“A Western woman walks into a bar…” sounds like the start of a joke. But instead of coming back with a punchline, a number of Western women came back with Chinese men who they would eventually marry.

Sure, bars get a bad rap in the world of dating sometimes — yet these women show that your local watering hole just might turn into the backdrop for your “how we met” story. (In their case, the “how I met my Chinese husband” story.)

Continue reading “Double Happiness: A Western Woman Walks Into A Bar”

Share/Save

On the Kim Lee and Li Yang Domestic Violence Story

Kim Lee's bruises as posted on Weibo — Kim Lee's bruises put a new face on her cross-cultural marriage to the founder of "Crazy English," Li Yang.

Just last month, I discovered a new celebrity couple in the cross-cultural community of Chinese men and Western women — Li Yang, the founder of Crazy English, and Kim Lee, his American wife. If only it weren’t because of revelations that Li Yang beat and battered Kim for many years.

If you’re in China, chances are you heard the news long ago. How Kim brought up the domestic violence by posting photos of her bruised body on Sina’s Weibo. That Li Yang admitted hitting his wife to the public, but then offered an unrepentant response.

If there was a “model Yangxifu” award, Kim Lee deserves it. She courageously shared her private turmoil with the public, starting a national conversation on domestic violence and spurring the Chinese government to reconsider dormant domestic violence legislation.

But Kim’s relationship with Li Yang could easily play into some of the worst cross-cultural marriage nightmares — and, I might add, negative stereotypes of Chinese men.

Of course, I don’t fault Kim for anything. She did the right thing. Still, a celebrity couple in the community of Chinese men and Western women in love makes the headlines… and, unfortunately, it’s for domestic violence. I couldn’t help but wonder — will some people come away with the wrong kind of message? Continue reading “On the Kim Lee and Li Yang Domestic Violence Story”

Share/Save

What if My Chinese Husband Was The Only Child?

Family — What would it be like if my Chinese husband were an only child? (photo by Joseph Hoban)

“How is it your husband has two brothers? What about the One-Child Policy?”

The question came out this afternoon while sharing stories from my summer in China at a party — and, more specifically, photos showing my husband actually has two older brothers. One of the women at the party suddenly blurted the question out, because the idea of siblings just didn’t mesh with the narrative she’d heard all along about China.

I told them he was born in 1978, the first year the One-Child Policy began, and he happened to be the youngest in the family. “But most of the men younger than him don’t have brothers or sisters.”

I thought about this later on, long after I left the party — what would it be like if my Chinese husband were an only child? Continue reading “What if My Chinese Husband Was The Only Child?”

Share/Save

Ask the Yangxifu: Should I Tell Chinese Boyfriend I Have Asperger’s?

A journal tied up in string, filled with someone's secrets from the past — A Western woman wonders, how should I tell my Chinese boyfriend about my dark secret -- Asperger's Syndrome? (photo by Zsuzsanna Kilian)

Alhana asks:

I feel embarrassed asking this but since you mentioned your husband is PhD, and since he is a psychology major, I’m positive that he is familiar with Aspergers, otherwise known as high functioning autism. In May a psychologist diagnosed me with Aspergers, and around the same time I did some research and found out that Aspergers is genetic, which means if I have a child then there is a high chance of them having Aspergers. Also, ironically, I’m in kind of a long distance relationship with a Chinese guy. (I haven’t told him.) If he and I should ever get together and if he proposes to me, I feel that I must tell him about it because I know that there’s a possibility it will bite me back in the future and will create resentment. The thing is I don’t know how to go about it. I doubt that he has heard of it or is familiar with it. How can I make it seem normal or casual without making me seem like a freak or whatnot? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Should I Tell Chinese Boyfriend I Have Asperger’s?”

Share/Save

The Sanshi’erli Scare: Over Thirty and Still A Student?

A desk with a textbook open with a pen and ruler on it. — "Won't you graduate already?" That's the pressure my Chinese husband felt from family and friends, wondering why he was over thirty, with no career or children. (photo by shno)

My Chinese husband John shot me his weary, it’s-way-too-late-on-Sunday look. I expected him to vent about his PhD studies the way he always did when he appeared tired — the homework, the papers, the feeling that you’re always, despite your best efforts, just a little behind. Behind it all, though, I always felt his passion, his love for the path he’d chosen — to become a clinical psychologist.

But not tonight. “I’m tired of being a student,” he sighed.

I dashed into the living room, as if his words signaled some emergency, that his lifelong passion needed life support. “What do you mean?” I asked, staring into his eyes for signs of something, anything, that could tell me what was wrong.

He hid himself behind a generic smile, the kind that doesn’t really mean he’s happy. “My cousin is my age. He is settled down and has a family.”

“So? Your cousin also will never be able to do what you can do after graduating.”

He grinned, and with just one glance I had a feeling this problem went far beyond his cousin. “I’m too old,” he said. Continue reading “The Sanshi’erli Scare: Over Thirty and Still A Student?”

Share/Save

Ask the Yangxifu: Language Barriers in Love

An English Dictionary — Sara Jaaksola offers insight from her own relationship with a Chinese man on what to do when language barriers get in the way of your love.

Over a month ago, Jin Feng asked me if I could share some advice on a special kind of relationship between Chinese men and Western women — where language poses a problem.

I said “sure, I’ll do it.” But then faced a problem of my own. How could I write about this? After all, the closest I came to this happened in my relationship with Frank — but even then, I spoke decent enough Chinese that communication didn’t really get in the way.

So I decided to turn to Sara Jaaksola at Living a Dream in China, who you might call an “expert” in this — she and her Chinese boyfriend literally have trouble speaking the same language. Many thanks to Sara for stepping in to help out! Read on for her advice. Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Language Barriers in Love”

Share/Save

Finding Friends With Married Chinese Women

A Chinese girl sitting next to a Western girl — A birthday dinner in August reminded me of the value of friendships with Chinese women. (photo by ophelia cherry)

In early August, my Chinese husband and I invited five of our closest Chinese friends to celebrate my birthday a week late. We met at a Thai restaurant in Hangzhou. And while I longed for the piquant curries, I never realized I longed for something else even more until that evening.We happened to discuss the wedding between Min and Lao Da, who just married at the end of May. I really wanted to know about what they did to plan their ceremony. I had asked Lao Da about this almost two months earlier, but he dismissed the subject by saying his wife handled most of this.

When I approached Min about the process, she started dressing down Lao Da before she even got to the topic of dresses.“He did almost nothing to help!” she moaned, her eyebrows furrowed behind her geek-chic black frames. “I kept on trying to get him involved, but he didn’t. He always told me not to worry, that it wasn’t a problem. But we had all of these details to take care of and it was hard not to worry!” Continue reading “Finding Friends With Married Chinese Women”

Share/Save

Ask the Yangxifu: Six Western Women of the Past who Married Chinese Men

Louise Van Arnam Huie, with husband Huie Kin (photo from http://www.huiekin.org)

mali asks:

I just came across this book Grace an American in China with a foreign woman marrying a Chinese man in the 1930s and going to China. I thought it was pretty cool that they had their relationship then…wow that must have been so hard!! So I wondered if you knew about other actual women like her that married Chinese in the past?

—

I sure do. You might call them our “yangxifu grandmothers,” the Western women who paved the way for the rest of us to love and marry Chinese men (and often at great cost to their own lives). Here’s a list of six prominent women I know of — including Grace: Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Six Western Women of the Past who Married Chinese Men”

Share/Save