Job Discussion Forums

babeilou · Joined: 08 Feb 2003 Posts: 15

There are always posts about non-Chinese men dating Chinese women. There are lots of females teaching in China. Surely the women have some experience dating Chinese men. I'd like to hear about it.

Yes, I know a lot of the same "tests" for true love apply for both men and women--and those were good tests. But let's hear about it from the female perspective.

Ladies, what about it?

xiaoyu · Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2003 10:56 pm Post subject:

due to my experience i would be careful dating a chinese man... the culture issue can be even more touchy when it is a western woman and a chinese man.... often she will be mistaken for a prostitute.... as a woman she is often times expected to meet the family sooner than a man would be and is criticize more thouroughly because she is a woman, and in family situations in china it is often more acceptablet to criticize a woman... i wouldn't swear off on all chinese men.... there are bad apples in every orchard, but be wary... in my experience they tend to fall harder than most western men, with less encouragement, and are more disgruntled on being let down.... though i never full out dated a chinese man for a significant period of time, i did have experiences (good and bad) dating in china... the men in more modern cities with higher paying jobs and an avid interest in english, who had travelled a bit seemed the better option... just one woman's view.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

As a man, I am curious about this too!
The obvious reason why fewer Western females end up having a romance with a Chinese Romeo seems to be that CHinese mindsets preclude that.
If the mind does open a bit, I guess the following considerations may have been entertained:
- A western woman is "cheap" - no dowry required. Don't laugh - one Chinese girl even offered me to "buy" me to get off the proposal her parents had made to a man from her home province, whom she robustly disliked!
- how can she enforce a settlement in her favour in case of a divorce in China? Another aspect that stand her in good stead, perhaps!
- The notion of 'prostitutes', well, to be frank we Westerners seem to have far stronger prejudices against ladies of the night. If you call a Chinese woman 'prostitute', this may not be regarded with the same disapproval than it is in the West, perhaqps because Chinese men sometimes concur there are two kinds of prostitutes - those that men marry and 'service' them for life, and the other, more public species.

xiaoyu · Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2003 8:59 pm Post subject:

roger- those mindsets are definitely seen in chinese men, even the ones that do the "harmless" flirting with the foreign woman... however, i would like to add one... that might appear less common, simply because foreign women don't get involved as much (on average) with chinese men (either by their choice or by chinese male bias) - the passport... some chinese men (even intellectuals who have been abroad) find that after dealing with the above mentioned mindsets in china, it is an extremely easy way to go abroad.... many often make the mistake of thinking that western women are not only cheap but also slow-witted (especially the blond/blue eyed version that is in such high demand in china)..... the ideas that you brought up and this one are yet more reasons that most foreign women don't become involved with chinese men..... and lean toward the travelled ones more than those that have stayed in mainland - probably in the hope that the travel has opened their eyes to the fact that foreign women aren't necessarily easy and can sometimes be even more careful in their sex partners than chinese women of today.....
xiaoyu
* please realize that my statements aren't saying that one set of women are more active than another, rather that in my experience i have seen it swing both ways in an extreme....

Kurochan · Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 944 Location: China

There's a double standard about this, I think. All the male foreign teachers at my school have Chinese girlfriends or wives, and certain teachers do spend money on Chinese hookers. However, it is apparently indecent or shameful for white women to date Chinese men! I was chatting with one guy at my school and mentioned that I had dated some Hong Kong Chinese, and then later at a party, this (white) guy got drunk, demanded sex with me, punched me on the arm and swore at me when I said I wasn't interested, and went on this diatribe about how if I got a chance to get it on with a white man, I shouldn't have to date Chinese men, who are just a poor substitute. He was furious that I would be interested in Chinese men, but not him.

I've heard women I know be made fun of by other foreigners for dating Chinese men -- "She has yellow fever" is one comment I heard.

Once people know you've dated local/Asian men, you're an object of curiosity. Or, anyway, I've been asked a lot of questions about it by both men and women. I don't think a foreign guy who dates local girls gets that kind of grilling.

So, if you're a guy and you date an Asian woman, you're a "big man," but if you're a woman and date an Asian man, you're degraded or weird. That seems to be the attitude.

Also, I think locals may have different attitudes toward Asian men who date foreign woman. Are they looked down upon, like people assume they are looking for a green card or something? I'm curious. I was walking down the street with a male Chinese friend of mine, and a passer-by "Tsk-tsked" at him. Does that happen when white guys walk around with Asian women?

A couple other comments:
As for myself, mostly I've dated HK men. I think that's a little easier, culturally. I have to say that Western-style table manners are preferable to me. I get really turned off by spitting, burping, etc. If the person's English is good, that's also a plus, because communication is easier. Another thing is that I find a lot of Mainland men of above 35 or so are really insecure around women, and try to cover it up by being macho. It just comes across as arrogance, though, so it's not fun to be around. The coolest guy I dated, though, was a Mainland guy of about 50! He was just an interesting person with a weird sense of humor. There were problems though, in that he didn't speak English at all and my Chinese is only good enough that we could communicate about 66% of the time. He's much older than me also, and has a daughter who is maybe 14 (he's a widower). Those are all big complications. Also, I don't think he would ever want to leave China, even if things really went wrong in the future with social unrest. I don't think he could cope with living abroad. Even though I really like him, I think there are too many problems there ... we've both let the relationship peter out because I think we both see there aren't many long-term prospects there.

beerdang · Joined: 07 Mar 2003 Posts: 112

Kurochan · Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 944 Location: China

Has anyone out there who's dated a Chinese man had their friend accused of being a male prositute because he's with a foreign woman?

This happened to my friend twice in one weekend. One indignant old guy yelled at him as he went by saying, "How can you be a foreigner's gigolo?!?" Another person quacked at him.

How common is this? We were sort of in the sticks. Somebody else I know told me she never heard of anything like this when she was in Shanghai and half of her friends dated Chinese men.

Sad

Egas · Guest

Every Western guy I know who has dated a Chinese girl seems to have the same attitude - "we" are superior to the Chinese men - better manners, better lovers, more respectful, less controlling, more educated and modern. They always have the same story about how some young beautiful Chinese woman left her husband because he paid her no attention, frequented KTVs, and when it came time to make love, it was a two-minute roll-on, roll-off and go to sleep job. How much of this could possibly be true? If even half of this was true Chinese women would be totally traumatised!

Then again perhaps it is. Certainly in Beijing some of the guys don't come across terribly well - the spitting, burping and farting in public, drunk at lunch time in the restaurants, breath that smells like something from the local garbage tip, addicted to tobacco ... I could go on, but someone might think I am prejudiced too!

The Chinese woman do seem to offer a rather more appealing contrast. certainly as far as their personal hygiene and manners go they far outstrip the men. I have no probelm understanding why Western men find Chinese woman attractive. I think they are trully beautiful. I have a Chinese girlfriend. She says whe will never go with a Chinese man again. (But then again perhaps she is just stroking my ego). On the other hand, I can see why most Western women are not attracted to Chinese men. Generally I think the younger ones are better mannered and of course they are still handsome and healthy. The drinking and smoking lifestyle takes a heavy toll by the time they are middle-aged. But come to think of it, is that so different from most of the ex-pats in China. If anything they are worse!

Kurochan · Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 944 Location: China

Geez, Writerman! Do you think I'm lying?

Some Chinese men do seem a lot more attractive than the expats around me. Also, with more than half a billion around, there would have to be a FEW attractive Chinese men, right?

I know his friends and co-workers are curious, but that's all I know. I do know three out of five places we've been in public together, he's gotten some sort of negative comment from Chinese people. That sucks for him.

Some people are assuming he's a gigolo, and maybe the first person thought he was leaving his Chinese wife at home and going out with an Eastern European hooker, of whom there are plenty around here. So being seen with me is not a big social coup for him. Being "known" as a gigolo isn't that great, is it?

china_gurl · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 4:51 am Post subject: My story

I read all of the posts I could on here before decided that I would reply to this one and tell you all my tale.

I'm a white westerner living in a small town in mainland China. I came to China for the first time only 5 months ago and have been teaching in a middle school.

I started dating a local here, and things were wonderful - for a while. He stayed at my apartment (which is in campus) quite often, and we didn't have any problems until about 4 weeks ago when a teacher came by my apartment later on in the evening to find my Chinese boyfriend sitting in a towel in the living room putting the stars on his Police uniform.

The teacher had come by to give me the new textbooks as the new term had not long ago begun. Without saying anything to me whatsoever, he grilled my Chinese boyfriend on who he was, what he was doing here, where he was from, etc. I, speaking little Chinese, had no idea what they were talking about and assumed it to be friendly banter between them.

Later, when the teacher left, my boyfriend told me that he had been advised to leave soon, as the gate would be closing. The teacher hadn't mentioned anything to me. I said, "Let's pay him no attention, if it was that important he would have mentioned something to me." A few moments later the telephone rang, and my friend, also a foreigner who I've been living with, answered. It was the same teacher, advising my friend to tell my boyfriend to leave. He still hadn't said anything to me. My boyfriend decided it would be best to leave, and me, not being Chinese, decided to trust his judgement.

Needless to say, he hasn't been back to my apartment since, save for one occasion when he came for half an hour in the early evening to talk about the setback in our relationship.

I examined my contract and there was no provision therein specifying I could not have guests, and nothing stating I was expected to abide by any societal norms without first having them explained to me. Still, I continued my relationship with my boyfriend taking into account our newfound situation.

A few weeks ago we went to a big city for the weekend and checking in was no problem. He was obliged to provide his ID card and I provided my passport, and he told them I was his girlfriend. They didn't ask us any more questions.

Then, out of the blue, everything exploded in our faces. My boyfriend was called upon by his boss and his father (both policemen, like him) because it had been brought to their attention that he had showered at a foreigner's house. My boyfriend called me and told me he wouldn't be able to see me for a while because of this situation, but that he was really angry at this teacher that had come to my apartment that night because he must have mentioned something to the police who told his boss who told his father. My boyfriend's solution was that he and I should get married as soon as possible so he could tell everyone where to go and exactly how to get there. Having only been dating him for about 3 months this solution wasn't acceptable to me.

I slowly managed to get more and more information: he had been stripped of his uniform, apparantly he was told about a law prohibiting police officers from dating foreigners, all of his co-workers know about him coming to my place to shower. While I'm sure that they made assumptions about us, it's noteworthy to mention that he has never explicitly told anyone that I am his girlfriend.

As it stands right now, things between us are undefined. I have a meeting scheduled with the teacher who came to my apartment that night to tear a strip out of him (in the nicest way possible).

Can I offer any advice on dating Chinese men? No. My situation is way out of control and I have only a small understanding of Chinese culture with which to try to rationalize. I can say this: China is so different from the West in every way imaginable. If you make the choice to be involved with someone, that is something you must know.

Egas · Guest

Dear China Gurl,

That's too bad. Just when you think China is a little bit civilised, this sort of thing happens. Who's damn business is it if your boyfriend dating a foreigner? Nobody's. And you are going to be "gentle" with that bigoted, racist, narrow-minded teacher who just had to destroy your relationship!? Man, that kind of rubbish just wouldn't wash with me! That teacher has tried to destroy you and something valuable to you. Regardless of culture, he has no right to do that. I suspect there may be more to it than simply social convention. It takes a certain kind of person to display such arrogance and meanspiritedness as that. You have a right to be angry. What's next? Are they going to start telling you what to wear, or who your friends should be.

If I were in your shoes I would let them know I was damn angry, but not in a way that would humiliate or disrepect them. Don't sink to their level. How you do that is up to you.

china_gurl · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 2:40 pm Post subject: Further to that:

Thanks for your support, Egas.

This is what happened when I confronted the teacher about the situation.

I told him that I was really upset that he didn't let me know I was doing anything wrong. He heard me out and apologized for not clarifying things for me at the beginning of my contract. He then went on to explain the way things work in my situation, with me being a foreigner and all. Essentially, what it boils down to is that I'm not allowed to sleep with the locals. All in the name of my own personal security. Anyway, his response was pretty BS but here's where it starts to get interesting, or should I say continues to get interesting.

I had no idea that the night my Chinese boyfriend left my place he, the teacher and the head of security for the school had a nice wee chat at the school gate, and that the Chinese boyfriend was present when the information was given to the head of security. Further, my Chinese boyfriend was asked to give his name and his ID#, and allegedly he gave a number that didn't match the number on his uniform. So, in trying to keep himself out of trouble (which would have happened if the guard didn't have a keen eye and spot the mistake) he got himself into more trouble. Then, in an effort to displace the blame, he withheld information from me, rather than just telling me that he had dug his own grave.

So, in short, I'll think really hard before I trust a Chinese person again! There are truly three sides to every story and I've learned not to jump to any conclusions without examining them all.

The problem is, I think, that the teacher and head of security at the school thought maybe the Chinese boyfriend was taking advantage of me, which he completely and utterly wasn't. Because I'm foreign, not only can I not take care of myself, but I can't think for myself either. Anyway, I'm through with the whole situation. It's left me tired.

xiaoyu · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2003 9:33 pm Post subject:

china girl-

wow! you have had a really hard time of it. while i dated my chinese boyfriend for a few months and did encounter problems i never got it the way that you did. i did find though that most chinese (unless extremely open-minded) seem to assume that women (foreign or not) are all to be treated as young children until married. and with foreign women they seem to think that they have to be doubly protective.

don't let this color your future relationship possiblities though. now that you have been through it (and are becoming more accustomed to the culture) it will be easier foryou to understand and protect yourself in the future.

good luck! and keep your chin up....

xiaoyu

Edward · Joined: 04 Mar 2003 Posts: 46

Wow

That is probably, no for SURE, the saddest post I have read here! My first reaction to it was "who the H*** did that teacher think they were?" Then the next reaction was/is "..and WHAT exactly could I do to make THEIR life a living H***!!!"

That is just so bad, I mean really really bad. This person, whatever their position has taken extreme advantage of some small legal loopholes to just mess up your/his relationship. Even though the law MAY say he isn't supposed to "mingle" with a foreigner, it does happen. We just have more examples of Asian girls/foreign men, you just aren't in the majority as far as numbers, but you are still part of that "circle".

I would definitely see what dirt you could dig up on the person. Hey, I might even come there and kick the low life's A** for you, if I am in the mood!

Man, that really is terrible what happened. Sorry for him losing so much, and for you also losing out on perhaps a nice, meaningful relationship. Anyone want to join me and make a posse, and go get this interferring guy???girl??? I may have missed the point on the sexuality of the perpetrator, I just went boiling mad when I read the post!

Good luck Asia gurl

Edward

china_gurl · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2003 6:42 am Post subject: Well, thanks again

I don't need anyone to kick his a** for me, but thanks for the offer. It turns out that there was more information that I wasn't initially privy to and it's not entirely the school's fault.

I agree with the statement that they treat women like children until they're married. In renegotiating my contract with the school I asked if I could have my own place and they flat out said no, because they're responsible to the government of the province to assure my security and etc. Anyway, there are loopholes everywhere if you're looking for them, on their side and on mine, so I'm not really worried.

Would I date a Chinese guy again?! I honestly don't know. I'd think long and hard before I did.

It's better if you stick with the other foreigners in town.