On dating Chinese men... Are Chinese men the best kept secret?

Hi Everyone

Lately there was a big hoohaa over the internet about the girl who posted quite negative things about dating Chinese men just after one blind date with a Chinese guy, so my darling friend and favourite blogger Jocelyn over at Speaking of China urged all girls who have experience to share their stories too, to show other versions and experiences with the following in mind:

The more of us that publish thoughtful pieces that transcend the usual stereotypes and assumptions, the better for those readers searching for information on this topic.

So before we get into my person experience with dating a Chinese man, lets get some facts straight. First of all, I think many would agree that the media heavily influences the status quo. I mean  you just need to take a look at teenagers to see how they become clones of their favourite rappers, movie stars, singers etc to see how influential the media is on what is the social norm. With that in mind, have you noticed the negative images constantly and consistently been dished out at the expense of Asian guys?

Let’s look at the stereotypes.

1) He has a small winkie. Oooh this one makes me laugh.

2) He is a nerd, super smart, scary smart and probably has glasses coz that’s what smart people wear.

3) He is boring, unadventurous, unmasculine, feminine even, and probably doesn’t like to have sex.

4) This is a big one, not only is he not apparantly able to get laid and always gets turned down by chicks but quite likely he might be non sexual all together NO libido, or don’t even know how to use it.

5) He must know kung fu.

I can’t even  be bothered to go into more of them. I mean are you guys for fricken real? How can even stigmatize a whole race based on these bullshit lies??? I ask how many people who comment on the size or love making ability of Asian men/women have actually been with one?

Do you know even someone as hot, talanted and handsome as Jet Li had an (I’m sure very beautiful) scene with Aaliyah kissing which was CUT from the final edit, like many other scenes in movies with Asian guys actually getting on with beautiful girls.

Why? Well why else? Why are there stereo types of black men, latino men, all type of men in movies generally which are negative? Well, to make the white man on top feel like he is the conqueror, the most elite of the lovers in the animal kingdom. I find that even black men love to jump on this bullshit stereotypes of Asian men, their endowment and love making, its just racism, racial prejudice all over for men having too much competition to deal with so they don’t want to cut Asian guys a fricken break in movies and give them the damn lead roles, and sex them up and hook them up with whoever damn it, coz let me tell ya. Women who exclude Asian men from their partner list because of what they have heard, or their own prejudices, are MISSING OUT BIG TIME.

I mean I can’t even be bothered to give actual more examples of how Asian men are pretty much shunned in every single movie there is. You can observe for yourself, next movie you watch with some asian guys, check out the messages they are sending out to people. This is what people think, since not many people even mix outside of their own culture to find out what the truth really is anyway. With this being said, I will try to calm down a little and talk about my own experience.

I have only fallen in love with one Chinese guy. It was unexpected and I myself never imagined I might end up falling for a Chinese man, not because of what I saw or heard, it just didn’t cross my mind. But it happened, and that caused me to do endless research on cross cultural relationships, experiences of white and black women dating Asian men, speaking to friends, reading articles on Chinese culture, speaking to both Chinese male and females on dating culture and culture in general in China that helped me gained a lot of understanding on my journey with this man.

So for the purpose of trying to generalise (which of course is impossible as everything said will vary depending on the individual) here are the deductions I have come to realise from my very short and narrow experience of dating Chinese men and Chinese dating culture.

Money- The guys will generally pay for everything, ranging not only from your dinner, but train tickets, locker tickets, shopping at the supermarket, little presents etc. For Chinese men it’s very important to be able to provide for their partner, and generally have a DATE TO MARRY culture. Means that when you become bf and gf, (generally) it is considered that its possible you will marry in the future and have that in mind. Having said that, the boyfriends concern would be to make sure he is earning enough so that he can provide for you. Money making is a serious deciding factor for many relationships in China still, as the man prefers to be if not the same, higher earning status than his partner. This is considered manly, without it, the guy is quite likely to feel not enough, insecure, emasculated. Money and earning power is so important to the extent that there is a saying that if you want to marry you have to have the CAR, HOUSE and GOOD JOB, otherwise you are not marriageable as a man. For the women, it is also common culture that if she is too highly educated, earning very high, or a whole class/social background all together from the guy, then quite often this is a deal breaker, no matter how in love the couple is. This can be due to the man’s inferiority complex, societal pressure, or pressure from family to list a few. In fact, one of the reasons my relationship broke was due to the reason of difference in social background. ” You deserve a better life than I can provide. You deserve a better man.” is a typical comment made, of course sometimes a cop out, but also quite likely genuine belief from a partner who breaks up due to the (lack) ability to provide financially all together or at the same standard as the female.

But from my own boyfriend, I found out he was quite generous. When I lost a lot of money he simply transferred what I had lost in my account, so that I can continue traveling, just to make me happy even though he was not there with me. Of course he didn’t want the money back. Secondly, when were were out on dates, he would never accept me to pay for a single thing, even though I kept insisting, but he was giving me these terrible looks, explaining how much a guy loses face if the girl pays for him. He was also generous on my birthday, bought me a lovely watch, and I have to be honest, even though I do not agree with this, he spent A LOT on our dates together. I read in some places that some guys would even take loans out from their friends just so they can court the object of their affection properly. By the way, I am not saying to other men reading this that this is what they should do. None of the things I am saying unless I explicitly say so are things that I am encouraging or not. It’s just feedback of info.

In addition, I found that my boyfriend thought very quickly about marriage. He didn’t explicitly say, but I just had the feeling. One example is when we were in a shop, I came in with the intention to buy some things, but looked around and bought nothing. When he asked me why i didn’t buy anything, I said I didn’t like anything. He commented that this was very good, and seemed impressed with my spending habits. Clearly the process of weighing me up as a future spouse had already began.

Sweetness- I am not sure if this is about many guys but mine was certainly sweet. One of the sweetest guys I have ever met. (And please no, that doesn’t deduct any of his masculinity points OK, good sweet guy does not equal to lacking in man power, believe me).

For example, I gifted him with some poetry on a piece of paper before we were together which he kept in his wallet for almost two years ( I didn’t even know most of the time). Or when i was walking his eyes would follow me so persistently that I thought his neck was going to crack and laser beams were going to start coming out. He even sometimes would watch me from a far or another room just doing my daily things, just to have an eye on me and keep those memories close to his heart. Before my birthday, he would call all my friends to remind me that is my birthday and ask them to take me out and take care of me.

Dating to marry is certainly one factor which I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE about Chinese men. Sorry, I don’t know if it’s because I am Bulgarian or whatever it is, but I just don’t like to date for no fricken reason OK? I have a heart, emotions, my time is precious, I am good, and too valuable to share my time in relationships which are not going anywhere. For a gal like me, dating Chinese men who are designed to date to marry almost is a breath of fresh air.

What i Love most about Chinese guys is that….. they don’t run for the hills at conversations about marriage or babies, or girl’s periods, or farts… Just so down to earth. And no I am not saying that doesn’t happen in any other culture, it’s just what I have found to be common in Chinese guys. For example, after a year or so of dating my guy, when I had to desperately share my innocent thought of having thought about having babies together (not suggesting it) I was pretty sure that my guy was goign to run for the hills at the mention of my thoughts. You would not believe my surprise when he said “Me too!”, as in he has thought about it too and excited about it at that!

Responsibility- is a word that my ex loved, but also common for Chinese men I think. There are the types who once you sleep with the girl that is it you are destined to be married. But more so connected to financial responsibility- being able to set up a family. Although me and my man were happily in love, when were officially got into a relationship, very quickly his calculator began to work that actually the reality of us being together was quite different from what we wanted. He considered our distance apart, his financial and career prospects, visa/immigration rules, and my personal needs for having a boyfriend who will be there for me, and found all these things clash with his ability to be provide for me. Chinese men typically are seen as good when they almost work themselves to death damn it and he just felt that I would feel too lonely if I had to wait until he finally made his goal, moved abroad, made enough money etc. Too risky business, risky of my heart, risky of another man taking me away, risky for the sheer possibility that it might not even at all happen. Total deal- breaker for many guys, who are traditional like mine. For traditional guy, not being able to provide equals to being cut off from your balls. How are you supposed proudly bring your wife home, if her family a richer, how can you show your face, how can you assure them that their daughter will have a happy life? How can you bring her to your own family who may not own that much?

This leads to one of my least favourite aspects of Chinese culture which sometimes happens in dating too- white lies based on gaining/losing face. I say white lies because there is no bad or cruel intention behind them but its a pain in  my backside. I will just give examples of the type of behaviour I experienced. First of all, my ex would talk to my friends about our relationship before talking to me, including his personal thoughts and worries such as not being able to meet his responsibilities towards me. This peed me off big time, huge cultural difference. In China it is discreet to chat with the friends first because they can offer advice as they know the girl well and will save heartache from discussing difficult topics thus avoiding hurting the girl. For me, this is a big no no. Our relationship is private first, and when it comes to big things such as discussing the possibility of break up, I believe I should be the first to know, not my friends who then in turn couldn’t tell me and it ended up being like a huge secret which I hated. Secondly, after break up, my ex told one of my close friends he is interested in a new woman and some other bullshit just so she can come and tell me, persuade me he is a bad guy which would lead me to thinking he is a bad guy and forgetting him faster- or so he thought. Again, with these somewhat immature and naive but genuine intentions, more misunderstanding happened further lifting the cultural barriers up. These kind of games which are done by the male for the female’s good might be understood by a Chinese girl who understands the culture, but in my books, at the time I viewed break up as a rejection, talking to my friends as a disrespect and betrayal, and his lack of wanting to open up as the most difficult aspect of our relationship all together. Of course after many months of reflection I have learned to understand the situation much better and see that this guy did love me at one point, but damn did we get lost in translation. In fact, he was trying to do the honorable thing and save me years of hard time waiting for him to organise a visa. In his words, he didn’t want me to waste my youth waiting for him for things that might not even happen. Little did I know that his earlier visa to Europe was rejected at the same time of the break up. Little did I know that he had been working hard including spending money and figuring out ways even on the black market to try to get to England where I live, even though his work is nothing to do with England but else where in Europe.

This shows the secretiveness aspects to some Chinese men’s personality. A lot of guys (so I have heard) would rather not tell their partner something good they are working towards unless it actually happens, to avoid her disappointment or ruining her hopes. For example, in the first year that I knew my guy, after many chats, not even once did he say he was interested to come to England until one day he showed me a certificate of a business venture he has set up. Or a little later just before our break up, when i was moaning that he is not spending enough time with me, only when I kicked up a fuss did he let me know just how busy he has been, even going as far as creating an Identity card of a country affiliated with UK just so we can be together. Or perhaps I am too idealistic and not counting his selfishness enough into the equation here of him wanting to come to Europe much before I even existed for him. However I do know he was never interested in the UK before I came along, and spend a good amount of time and money trying to get there in secret of course, just so I don’t get let down.

In some ways, I will never know what the truth behind my relationship break up is. I could have  been getting married this year. I feel like I really loved this guy, it was the first time that a man inspired me to be a wife and a mother, and hell I even wanted his five kids. I even wanted to learn to cook and would do anything I can to take care of him even the meaningless for my existence things like ironing his shirts haha

However, c’est la vie. I hope I do find out the truth one day. I think there is enough about my experiences and observations for now, but there are loads of things I have left out that I can continue in another post if I have time and if you guys want.

No matter what happened with my ex, I still think that Chinese men ARE THE BEST KEPT SECRET ladies.

PS. What they told you in the movies about size and bed shaking ability is lies. All lies.

So love you all! Peace out! A new addition to my life is my brand spanking new Buddhist name, as I am not officially Buddhist so although my friends continue to know me as Jin Feng 金凤 my Buddhist name is actually 贤凤 Xian Feng.

So love， peace and donuts!

Vyara 贤凤！

PSS. You also might have noticed that the style, rhythm or grammar might be a little bit worst off than before. Well, that is because I have written super fast, I haven’t even proofread my work, just only roughly, and that is because if I continue to be perfectionist I’m probably gonna continue not writing.

So what I would like to ask if there are some mistakes, unclear points, sentences or things you are not happy about or super happy about, please leave them in the comments, I’ll sort it out or reply.

Naturally, please pay attention I have been explicit to say that my opinions are based on my experiences of one guy and quite extensive research I have made on relationships with Chinese men and Chinese dating culture, however this is only coming from me, and you should not base your decisions on whether to date a guy because of what you read. At the time of dating my guy, I was so totally engrossed in reading about Chinese men and dating culture that in fact I was not paying him enough intention as an individual, with individual streaks and idiosyncrasies and instead based my thoughts too much on what I read instead of picking up the signs that were given specifically by him. By all means get an over view, just please don’t put your heart in everything you read, becauase as people we like to put things into boxes and generalise but actually no one is that boring/ simple/ soulless to be fitted into a bracket stereotype. Get to know your guys personality, while being culturally aware and the rest is awesome. <3 love and cheese. xxx <3