Chinese Dating and Courting Rituals

It is quite rare for Chinese people to have much experience with Dating before they are adults, where many people in western cultures spend their teenage years falling in and out of love and obsessing over some boy or girl, Chinese teenagers, usually at the behest of their parents, spend virtually all their time studying books to get into university.

Money and success is kind of an obsession in China, especially in the metropolitan areas such as Hong Kong and Shanghai, so dating will often play second fiddle to careers, making money and studying hard at university. Even in a dating situation Chinese women will pretty much always ask about their date's finances, their career and how much they earn per year. To westerners hoping to date a Chinese woman, experiencing these financial interrogations, often before they've even met and regularly in the first email contact, can be very off-putting and appear to be quite rude for some cultures, the British for instance.

In fact it is considered extremely impolite in countries like England and the USA to open a conversation with "how much money do you earn per year" on a first date, or even on an initial dating site contact. This question will often end the date right then and there for a western guy, who will run a mile thinking the Chinese lady is only after his money. However, this ethos of needing to know about finances and successes is so engrained in Chinese culture, especially in Hong Kong, that they do not see it as rude at all, it is almost a subconscious act to ask about a potential date's finances, and many Chinese women would be rather confused at a westerner's repulsion at such questions - in fact they will more often suspect that the guy has little money and is feigning his repulsion at the question, or simply think he is far too sensitive.

Anyway, foreigners aside, Chinese women still have difficulties finding the right date when they are at university. Their family and peers, and themselves, have such high expectations for their successes that it can be extremely difficult to force themselves away from study and classmates to go out on a date in the first place. Still, many Chinese girls, like many girls the world over, do foster dreams of meeting a "Prince Charming" and are often battling with this dream, the pressure of society wanting them to be in a traditional Chinese relationships and their own need to be a modern, independent and successful woman in her own right and the practicalities of money and compatibility. It's a very complex situation sometimes.

The above sums up the difficulties of dating for Chinese women, but looking at this from the other side life can be just as difficult for the men who have to live up to the high expectations of these "new women", often by becoming "new men" which entails allowing all of the above to take place and letting their female partners be as successful in business as they are, or sometimes more so. For some men this is easily done, luckily for some of the women, but for many Chinese men this can be very difficult when they hope to meet a more traditional Chinese lady - someone who is looking for a hero to protect them, a woman who depends on them and acts as if they are "lower" than them. This is what many Chinese men cherish the most and wish to pour their love upon, which they will in abundance. For many Chinese men the new woman is intimidating and will often scare them away - the feelings of many Chinese men can be seen in the phrase: there are three types of people in the world; Men, women, and women with PhDs. Some Chinese men will look to other countries, where "traditional women" still abound, for their potential wives. It is often the case in China that the only men who feel they are able to date highly educated women are the ones who are even higher educated. In fact many Chinese women will not even consider dating a man who's education level does not at least match her own, i.e. a Chinese woman with a PhD will only date a Chinese man with a PhD.

It is thought by many Chinese women that a lot of Chinese men will pretend to be okay with their independent lifestyle, even advocating it, and will be very careful to agree with their potential loves and even their girlfriends, but will often change their attitude completely once they are married. The apprehension towards dating for women can make it difficult to initiate anything romantic, old Chinese traditions still prevent some women from actively pursuing a man and they will often resort to minor flirting, or even leaving it up to chance, and hope that the man they like notices.

All these thoughts and complexities make relationships extremely difficult in China today, where one is never sure of the other's motives and casual dating and relationships, where one might otherwise gain experience, are frowned upon.

Now, if a couple does manage to machete their way through the complexities of choosing a partner and actually decide to go out on a date, they then have the problem of where to go. At university people are a little freer to date and, in fact, this is where many Chinese people first start thinking about dating, but the dorm rooms are too overcrowded, casual dating is frowned upon at home and restaurants are hugely expensive. Many couples will actually spend their time, when it's too cold to walk hand in hand outside, in a classroom which, ironically, is where they spend most of their time when they are not dating. However, they will be mostly studying each other and whispering sweet nothings in a shadowy corner of the class than actually studying like they would if they were single. This may seem a little odd to some cultures, but Chinese youngsters spend a lot of their time studying together, and very little going out to bars together, so it's a perfectly natural extension of their daily lives to spend their dates in study areas too.

While many modern Chinese women appear to be obsessing about their Master's Degree, and in fact are almost totally focused on this goal, the topic of conversation in most university dorm rooms is the same as any dorm room in America or Europe - love, dating and relationships.

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