Western women | Speaking of China

Ask the Yangxifu: Western women in China are NOT all sluts

Samantha Jones from Sex and the City — Despite what you might have seen Samantha doing in "Sex and the City," all Western women are not sluts.

[This is an excerpt from a series of e-mails from a Chinese man. He met a British woman, who he ended up having dinner with, and later spending an afternoon with her and her friends.]

For a while, I have gone crazy with western girls [in the past]. It’s like I blindly go after any western girls that are pretty, and forget what a relationship is really meant to be. So I calm down and thought for a while. Actually I don’t know this girl Tracy enough yet, so going too fast might actually hurt our future possibility, unless I just want something like fast sex or what. I think I have watched too much US drama [or got that impression from the bars and clubs]…

I found out that I just have a better understanding about Tracy, and I now know that she’s the kind of person who doesn’t like things go too fast. (For example, she mentioned to me that she met a girl yesterday the first time, and then the girl kept asking her to hangout to this place, that place, and then Tracy said she doesn’t like that, as it’s the first time, she doesn’t even know her yet, so she doesn’t feel comfortable, she said she prefers to take some time and get to know the person) When I heard that, I thought, Äre you telling me as well? :)….

I am a bit worried that I will fall into the friend zone, is there any particular precautions you would like to give me? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Western women in China are NOT all sluts”

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Ask the Yangxifu: Chinese (and Asian) Interracial Wedding Dos and Don’ts

kissing my Chinese husband at our Chinese wedding — Tip #7 on my list? Have fun -- or, in our case, steal a kiss at your Chinese wedding. 😉

For those of you with a Chinese wedding in the works for the new year, this article — titled 7 Interracial Wedding Dos and Don’t for Your Asian Groom — is for you.

Published in the AMWW Magazine, this article, written with the Chinese/Asian men out there in mind, covers what you should keep in mind before you say “I do” to your lovely bride. Here’s an excerpt:

Once my Chinese boyfriend and I became engaged after a long courtship, visions of an interracial Asian wedding in his whitewashed, bucolic country home in China danced through my head. I longed to experience a traditional, intimate Asian wedding, just like his mother and grandmother had done years before. But with a personal twist — a Buddhist vegetarian banquet, prepared by a chef from one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants in Shanghai.

Little did I know, I would end up having a big, fat Asian wedding banquet in an urban hotel in China, with more than 200 guests and a menu of carnivorous delights, including a turtle standing on all four legs.

While this isn’t the usual Q&A I feature on regular Fridays, it does provide a lot of answers to any interracial or cross-cultural couple planning a Chinese wedding. To learn more, read the full article at AMWW Magazine.

P.S.: The Q&A will be back next week, promise. In the meantime, keep those questions coming in, and, as always, thanks for your support. 🙂

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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.

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Ask the Yangxifu: Dating Advice for Chinese Men from JT Tran, the Asian Playboy

In lieu of the usual Q&A, this week I’m featuring an interview with JT Tran, the number one Asian Dating Coach for Asian men.

JT has been featured on ABC, Chicago TV, VH1’s The Pick Up Artist, Asian Week, D Magazine, Nichi Bei Times, Entrepreneur, Harvard, Rutgers, Wellesley, to name a few. He offers hands-on coaching through his bootcamp seminars with the ABCs of Attraction. And, just recently, he launched the AMWW (Asian Men & White Women) Magazine to provide dating advice for Asian men in every stage of the relationship (in full disclosure, I’ll be writing for the magazine starting this January). Regular readers may also remember I reviewed his free audio dating CD and eBook in December (which are still available for download).

I talked with JT about a variety of subjects, from sexuality and building confidence to having personality and just approaching women. I’m confident you’ll find the conversation as enlightening and enjoyable as I did.

Since this is a monster of an interview, I’ve broken it down into topics, so you can click your way through to the information you want to know most:

Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Dating Advice for Chinese Men from JT Tran, the Asian Playboy”

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Of Love, Money and An “Unsettled Relationship” With a Chinese Man

Wedding rings and money — When I asked my Chinese husband about why he took out a loan to treat me on our first "official date," the answer -- which said a lot about how he viewed love and money -- surprised me.

On our first official date, John gave me a copy of a Dream of Red Mansions, treated me to a Buddhist vegetarian Chinese feast, and then romanced me beside the West Lake in Hangzhou. An unforgettable night with the man who would become my Chinese husband? Priceless.

Except for John, who not only paid for it, but actually took out a loan to make it happen — from his friend, a guy we call “Lao Da.”

But when I asked John why he went to such great lengths to pay for me, he gave me an answer I never expected: “Our relationship wasn’t settled yet.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked him, rocking back and forth in his arms playfully as we traded smiles. Continue reading “Of Love, Money and An “Unsettled Relationship” With a Chinese Man”

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Sushi is Not Chinese Food: Of China Misunderstandings

“These girls gave me panda earrings!” laughed this Chinese girl, who came over to my home for the holidays. “I mean, seriously, panda earrings? I can buy those in China anytime.” These girls were her American classmates. And even though pandas are pretty much the national symbol of China — and even one of the mascots for the Beijing Olympics — these Americans somehow thought this gift would truly be something special.

It was like how one of my relatives gave John — who comes from Hangzhou, the home of Dragonwell, one of the most famous and prized green teas in all of the world — a box of Celestial Seasonings green tea.

So it’s not surprising that, as I giggled at my friend’s tale of gifting gone wrong, I couldn’t help but think of many similar misunderstandings here in the US of A.

Like when people say this to John, after hearing he is from China: “Oh, I love sushi.” This culinary faux pas would usually make me cough uncomfortably. Sometimes, I would step in, reminding them politely, “Uh, you know, sushi is Japanese.”

Then there are the so-called “Chinese” things that don’t even really exist in China. Like General Tso’s chicken, and fortune cookies. When my husband first heard about chop suey from my Grandpa, I had to explain to him, later on, that this was a dish created by Chinese immigrants to the US, as a way to make Chinese food into something a little more American.

As long as people continue to learn about countries from afar — through the media, movies, TV and reading — there will always be misunderstandings. Which is why I’m sure this won’t be the last time an American gives a Chinese girl panda earrings.

What China misunderstandings have you experienced?

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Ask the Yangxifu: Top 5 Posts for 2010

Toasting people with my Chinese husband at our wedding banquet — A toast...to the top five most popular posts (by views) in Ask the Yangxifu, for 2010! 😉

I launched Ask the Yangxifu in 2010 as a platform to answer the many questions and conundrums readers sent my way about love, dating, marriage and family. And, as it turns out, it’s been the most popular source of content for this website, hands-down.

So, as I celebrate the holidays and ring in 2011, I thought I’d take a moment to share with you your most favorite Ask the Yangxifu columns, ranked by views:

1. How Western Women Can Meet Chinese Men in China. Chinese men, take heart — if this ranking is any measure, there are a lot more Western women out there looking to meet you than you think. 😉

2. How to Impress Your Chinese Boyfriend’s (or Girlfriend’s) Family During Chinese New Year. This how-to, inspired by my own “meet-the-parents” experience during Chinese New Year, has become a go-to for many Westerners wondering how to survive that crucial first meeting.

3. How Can Chinese Men and Western Women Get Along as a Couple? I couldn’t resist answering this question, from a Chinese guy who wondered how two people from such drastically different cultures could make it work. And given that’s one of the top five posts, you couldn’t resist it, either. 😉

4. Change Your Name After Marriage in China? I answered this question for my friend Gerald — erroneously, as it turns out, because the issue in his case was that he wanted to change his own name when he married his Chinese girlfriend (Sorry, Gerald). Still, it was fun to write, and started a whole conversation about how to handle this Western tradition for women in China.

5. What Western Women Think of Chinese Men. My translation of a Xinhua article on a study of Western women and their impressions of Chinese men really got your attention.

Happy New Year (新年快乐), and I’ll see you on January 7, 2011 with a fresh new Ask the Yangxifu column!

P.S.: Quick programming note — just wanted to let readers also know that my column, Travel China with the Yangxifu, will be on hold in 2011 until further notice. Why? Well, it gets pretty tough to write about traveling China when you spend most of the year in the US. 😉 Travel lovers, hope you understand. And don’t worry — I’ll be going to China in summer 2011, so the travel bug might just inspire me to put pen to paper once again. Stay tuned. 😉

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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.

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The Top 5 “China Articles” of 2010

Looking back with my Chinese husband — We look back on 2010, at the top five posts -- by views -- posted in my "China Articles" category

As 2010 comes to a close, I thought it might be cool to look back on your most favorite articles for the year (especially for those of you who have just discovered this blog). The criteria? They must have been posted in the category “China Articles,” and must have been written in 2010.

So, here they are, ranked according to number of views:

1. China Blogs by Western Women who Love Chinese Men. Readers loved this post (so much in fact, that it is the third most popular page overall for 2010!), rounding up all of the extraordinary Western women out there who love Chinese men, and blog about it. (P.S.: My apologies to the new voices I discovered later this year — I promise to revisit this topic in March 2011, and update everyone with the latest list of bloggers out there, which you can always find in my blogroll under “Chinese Men + Foreign Women”)

2. Chinese Men Are Sexy. And, given that this is second most popular post for 2010, my readers agree! 😉

3. Three Inches of Separation: On Loving a Shorter Chinese Man. I wrote this after getting an e-mail from a supportive reader, about how she was taller than her boyfriend. And I never thought so many people would connect with my own tale of overcoming my own prejudices about height, to fall in love with a Chinese man who stands three inches below me.

4. Stereotypes About Couples of Chinese Men and Western Women. This post about the misconceptions surrounding couples of Chinese men and Western women got a lot of readers’ attention. (Thanks to Gerald Zhang-Schmidt, for collaborating with me by doing a post the same day on the stereotypes for the flip scenario — Chinese women and Western men)

5. Western Wives, Chinese Husbands. This article I worked on, for Middle Kingdom Life, covered many of the issues Western women face when dating Chinese men in China. I collaborated with three other American women with Chinese husbands. Susan Chi, Melanie Gao and Jessica Larson-Wang, thanks for helping me make this such a valuable piece. 🙂

Still hungry for more good reading? Why not revisit my 83-chapter Memoirs of a Yangxifu series, which I began in January, 2010. You can start at Chapter 1, see the top 1o posts for the series, or browse the Memoirs of a Yangxifu archives.

And, don’t worry — Monday, January 3, 2011, I’ll post up some fresh content for the fresh new year. Happy holidays!

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Ask the Yangxifu: Review of Exposing the Myth Behind Why Asian Men Can’t Date White Women

Chinese husband, Western wife, singing karaoke — My review of the CD "Exposing The Myth Behind Why Asian Men Can't Date White Women" (and the accompanying e-Book)

This week, I’m pre-empting the usual Q&A, to give you a review of the free audio dating CD, “Exposing the Myth Behind Why Asian Men Can’t Date Western Women,” and free e-book, “Enter the Pickup Artist Preview,” by JT Tran, the Asian Playboy.

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Over the past year, I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails from Chinese men, who are desperate to know one thing — how to date Western women.

And so I’ve answered, from advice on how to meet Western women in China or America, to how to approach Western women in China, to even dishing out my suggestions for a Chinese student pursuing a brunette here in the US.

But the truth is, as good as my answers are, there’s much more to getting in a relationship with a Western woman than being in the right place, and having the right approach. That’s because you can fail for so many other reasons — because you don’t have the confidence, or you lack personality, or you don’t know how to hold a conversation, or you have the wrong body language.

Fortunately, there’s an Asian brother out there who understands. JT Tran was once, as he puts it, a “textbook nerd” who studied engineering in college here in the US, and had absolutely no clue on how to get American women. He was even rejected by eHarmony for being “too analytical and cerebral.” That was the wake-up call that jumpstarted his own transformation into the guy now known as “the Asian Playboy” — the number one dating coach for Asian men.

Asian Playboy? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Review of Exposing the Myth Behind Why Asian Men Can’t Date White Women”

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How To Make It A Very Chinese Christmas

A Very Chinese Christmas Stocking — There are many ways you can make this a very Chinese Christmas, such as putting your name in Chinese (and English) on your Christmas stocking (like mine).

When you straddle two different cultures, sometimes, you wish your holidays did too. Holidays like Christmas.

I still love and embrace the traditions of my childhood, growing up in a Catholic home with a fresh-cut spruce trimmed with tinsel, and lights and an Angel. We hung our stockings, exchanged presents by the tree, hung wreaths, shared Christmas carols, baked Christmas cookies, and decorated our doors with pictures of Santa and the Reindeer and Elves.

But now, with my Chinese husband John, I’ve enjoyed creating a few new traditions and twists on the old, to make the holiday reflect the international, cross-cultural couple we are.

So how can you make this a very Chinese Christmas? Start with these five tips. Continue reading “How To Make It A Very Chinese Christmas”

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Ask the Yangxifu: Chinese Student Wants to Approach American Brunette

Cappucchino cup — How can a Chinese man go from sharing smiles to sharing coffee with a Western girl in the US? (photo by Michaela Kobyakov)

K asks:

Here’s my situation, I’m a college student in the US, chinese male, above average height.

So here’s my situation. I just finished class and was on my way to the bathroom when I saw this hot brunette(white girl) at the department office. She just gave me a cursory glance and smiled. I ignore her (thought she was just being friendly, and some girls just like to smile at guys) and didn’t think much about it and just went on with my day.

However, much later during the day, I had to get some forms from the department office. So I went back and saw her again. I do believe she is an undergraduate student working part time. So as I was browsing through the forms, I notice she was staring at me. I mean, literally. That made me really uncomfortable. So being the stereotypical shy chinese guy, I pretended not to notice.

When my research advisor walked into the office, we went into the next room. Halfway through our conversation, I saw her walking by our room and she look in. This time we had eye contact, and she smiled so sweetly again!

When my talk with my advisor finish, I came out of the office and notice she was gone, I think she went for class. I went home and thought about her the whole day. White girls(especially hot white girls) tend to be a little intimidating to me. I think that maybe she was just as intimidated as I am.

So finally, to hell with my inhibitions, I’m gonna ask her out but I’d like a little successful AM/WF white female perspective on how I should do it and what I need to be aware of. as I have only been with Chinese girls my whole life

I’m wondering how do I approach her? Maybe ask her out for coffee? Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Chinese Student Wants to Approach American Brunette”

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