Building cultural bridges with love. 洋媳妇谈中国
Advice to help you make friends with, date, or marry Chinese men. Stories about knowing, loving and marrying Chinese men. All from one Western woman with a Chinese husband.
“The feelings between my wife and I were not so harmonious. So [this past summer] we officially divorced,” wrote Huizhong, one of my husband’s xiongdi — male friends so close to him that he refers to them with the Chinese word for “brothers.” Just like that, Huizhong became a new statistic in the rise of divorce rates in China. Continue reading “Another Friend, Another Divorce in China”
It always amazes me when people judge an entire population of people based on just one date alone. But people do it all the time — including the author of this blog post.
To be fair, I give her credit for going on a date with a Chinese man. There are many women who go to China and won’t even try — women who have already made up their minds perhaps even before they’ve set foot in the Middle Kingdom. So, definitely, kudos to her.
I don’t even mind that her account of that date is largely negative and unflattering towards Chinese men. She has every right to share what happened and voice her own opinions.
What does bother me, however, is how she presents the information. Continue reading “On Dating Chinese Men — Or Why You Shouldn’t Judge After Only One Date”
Do couples of Chinese men and Western women struggle with wealth or income? That’s the question a friend posed to me by e-mail.
In the past, I’ve written about obstacles that couples of Chinese men and Western women will face in employment and earning power:
Even with a favorable visa (for example, a permanent resident card), [Chinese men] will face discrimination in hiring for jobs [in English-speaking countries] if he doesn’t: 1) know how to “perform” in job interviews; 2) have a degree from your country (remember, news about China has primed them to be suspicious about China, including Chinese credentials), or; 3) speak good English. As Jessica explains, “my husband has no marketable skills—he’s a career musician—and speaks no English. Guess where we’ll be living for the foreseeable future?”
….If your Chinese husband is not very highly educated or highly paid, you’ll almost always earn more than your husband if you live in China because of the discrepancies between expat and local salaries. A lot of Chinese men cannot handle a foreign wife as the primary breadwinner. Even Jessica’s husband, who is pretty accepting, still has trouble with the reality: “My husband is extremely unconventional and doesn’t mind being a stay-at-home dad for now. But, even for him, it gets to be a bit of a bummer that I make in a month what he used to make in a year and that he can’t contribute meaningfully to our family income at this point.”
But do these obstacles necessarily translate into financial setbacks for the rest of your life? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: On Wealth/Income for Chinese Men + Western Women Couples”
Guapa means good-looking or handsome in Spanish. It’s also a lovely word to start off a story about an equally lovely couple — Laura, from Spain, and Tony, from China.
Thanks to Laura for sharing this story, and the photographs.
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Tony calls me cariño (dear), sometimes guapa (good-looking), and other times Lauritina. It is really wonderful to have someone who calls you guapa when you get home.
We met in a Suzhou Starbucks, while I was having a coffee with a friend and he was chilling out after a meeting in Suzhou.
He came over the table and he introduced himself. He wanted to practice his English and our table was the most suitable one for that purpose. We talked for some minutes and when we told him we actually speak Spanish, he took out a book from his bag, I couldn’t believe it, he bought a book to learn Spanish the same day we met. Well, that must mean something, I thought. Continue reading “Double Happiness: “He Calls Me ‘Guapa’” — A Chinese-Spanish Love Story”
A few years ago, I remember stumbling across a post that linked back to me on the now defunct Shlaowai blog (which billed itself as “Shanghai Uncensored”). The post, written by one of their white female writers, was titled, “So, What’s the Dating Scene Like?” I can’t share any quotes from the post — unfortunately, the blog’s creators blocked archiving of their material, which means you can’t even dig up their original content through the Wayback Machine. Still, given that the post featured the infamous photo of a shorter Long Duk Dong with his head buried in the bosom of a taller white girl, you can guess what the author had to say about “the dating scene” in China.
I can’t recall her exact wording when she referenced my site, but I remember how I felt. That I somehow couldn’t be trusted to understand her experience. After all, I crossed the line she somehow drew there in Shanghai by dating and marrying a Chinese (and then daring to write something positive about it).
You might wonder, why do I even care about an obscure post from years back on a now-defunct blog? It’s because I’ve increasingly encountered a similar perspective in e-mails from some readers — e-mails that ask, in a suspect tone, why I’m not writing enough negative things about dating Chinese men? Continue reading “On My Negative Dating Experiences With Chinese Men, and Why I Still Kept Smiling About China’s “Dating Scene””
Nerve.com, which remains one of my favorite places for smart writing on sex, inspired me to compile a list of Chinese men who love Western women in the movies (including those who portrayed Chinese men, such as Daniel Henney) and rank them by sex appeal. Now, some of the sexiest guys on this list (ahem, Daniel Henney) didn’t get the highest ranks — that’s because I considered the kind of sex appeal they conveyed through their characters in specific films (and not just, say, their hot washboard abs).
I file this one under Yangxifu Pride — because who in our community wouldn’t be proud to know we have some seriously sexy studs to watch on film, in relationships just like ours? 😉 Continue reading “Six Chinese Men in the Movies Who Loved Western Women, from Least Sexy to Most Sexy”
How far would you go to change your life? For Hao, his journey took him all the way to Mexico, where he found a new career — and a new love.
I’m really excited to share his story, and hope you find it as inspiring as I did.
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It all started back in 2006, when I met this lovely Mexican family (not related to my love) living in California. In that same year, my fortunes took a turn for the worse. I couldn’t find a decent job in the States, and I struggled for years not knowing what to do. Then my Mexican friend suggested ever-so-casually, “Why don’t we go to Mexico?” Continue reading “Double Happiness: Chinese Man Moves to Mexico, Finds Love”
“I’m not at all a typical Chinese!” That’s what a Facebook friend, a guy with a European wife, wrote to me in a message. But his words could easily have been spoken by my own husband.
When I first met John, he was anything but “typical.” I’d never known anyone in China with such a passion for psychology, or such chutzpah (he once threatened to file a lawsuit against polluting factories in his village).
As we dated — and eventually married, I discovered just how unconventional he was. Whether he confronted an exploitative boss in China or the US institutions that discriminated against him, John displayed a courage most would never have imagined in a man who only stands 5’4” (1.65 m) tall. While most Chinese would covet US citizenship and a life abroad, he wanted to keep his Chinese passport and return to China to start his career. He even loves my curves, something you probably wouldn’t expect from a Chinese guy — especially one thinner and lighter than his wife. Continue reading “Are More Unconventional Chinese Men More Likely to Date/Marry Western Women?”
When Lauren submitted to me, she wrote, “I’m writing to share my story with a Chinese boy, although not all fairy tales have a happy ending.”
Even though I call this series “Double Happiness,” sometimes that happiness doesn’t last forever. Lauren’s story reminded me of the joys I experience with past loves, if only for a short time. Sometimes it’s good to remember.
Thanks for sharing your memories, Lauren. Continue reading “Double Happiness: A Brief, But Beautiful, Spanish-Chinese Romance”
A asks:
Now, I see a lot of positive things on Asian men here on this blog and I do appreciate that, but what about the not-so-positive ones? There is one thing in particular i’ve been thinking about for a while lately: the cheating and the tradition of having xiaosan [mistresses] here in China. I can’t even remember how many times I have been approached by married men or guys who have been with their gfs for 8 or 9 years! Not to mention the fact that dating someone is actually quite complicated because a good part of the guys in their late 20s are already married!!
I know a lot of foreign girls who do get in troubles eventually for starting relationships with men who are already taken and it just becomes a mess…
What do you think about this? Why is it that so many seem to prefer cheating than leave their ‘safety net’ (aka gf)? Why does it seem that foreign girls are their preferred choice when they look for xiaosan? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: On Married Men in China Seeking Extramarital Affairs With Western Women”