Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Editor's Note:

Decades after China's opening up, intercultural relationships can still become an issue. A recent article titled "Single foreign females in China don't have it easy," published in Global Times Metro Shanghai on April 28, has sparked huge controversy. The Global Times has invited three people to share their views of interracial relationships in today's China.

Chinese guys need to step up their dating game 

By Cecily Huang

An English friend, who just moved back to London from China, told me he missed China, and more importantly, the attention from Chinese women that he will never get in London.

It amused me when another American guy friend made similar comments after he left Beijing. He can no longer date women as beautiful as those in China, but when he was there, complained that all the Chinese women he dated were hot but stupid, considering their level of English or cultural clashes. I told him once, if he could move his focus from boobs to the conversation, his problem would be solved. He laughed with embarrassment.

Some Western men are certainly spoiled by Chinese women. My former roommate said Western guys would never dare to treat Swiss women the way they treated Chinese women.

Unfortunately, some Chinese women see Western guys as a free ticket to an overseas trip or a foreign passport, but there are gold-diggers anywhere in the world. The simple truth is Western men are exotic.

Many Western guys would like to believe Chinese women date them because they have a more muscular appearance or are bigger in size. It is not true, although I can see how this "theory" feeds their racist ego. I never thought to date a Western guy until I met my English ex-boyfriend. He showed me a new culture, lifestyle and gave me a new perspective on the world, our relationship, and even myself. That was the beauty of having a relationship with a Westerner.

My education and life experience made me a strong and independent woman. It scares a lot of Chinese guys, who look for a typical "good woman" by the standards of their parents. With my Western boyfriend, I didn't have to pretend to be a "cute and naive woman," and I am not afraid of who I am.

Chinese society is getting more open, however, dating a white guy in China is not easy. Sometimes, I get discriminated against by Chinese men on the street. They shouted rude words and they tried to start a fight in a bar for no reason. If they believe foreign white men lure away Chinese women, why can't they lure us back by having better manners and treating women better?

One of my best Western friends is going to marry the man she met in China next year. Love happens, when you are patient.

The author worked for the Guardian Beijing office as a researcher and news assistant, and is currently studying for a Master of Arts in Journalism in University of Technology, Sydney. huang.cecily@gmail.com

Culture not the only problem with dating

By S.T. Wong

Ever since the "century of humiliation" Chinese have been struggling with identity and who they are vis-à-vis foreigners. This is all the more pronounced due to China's rise recently. Unfortunately the past is difficult to get away from and some lash out at their own history and culture. Such coping mechanisms are well documented. What isn't as well documented is the fact that coping with inferiority complexes affects all areas in dealing with foreigners today, including relationships.

Putting aside the viral stories of Chinese companies using token foreigners as a sign of being "international," we can see this skewed perception of reality demonstrated by those who only date foreigners. The excuses are hollow for both "it is just business" and "it is just love" are just masks by the one who doesn't have the courage to acknowledge their inferiority complex, that they worship foreigners and that it plays a central role in their decision-making.

Those with inferiority complexes naturally seek acceptance from those they perceive as superior. In China and indeed much of the rest of the world, this means seeking the acceptance of white foreigners. What is even more disturbing is this need for acceptance pushes that person to do irrational and illogical things.

Western entertainment has a long history of emasculating Asian men and sexually fetishizing Asian women. What this means is that Asian men are never portrayed in a romantic way and Asian women are portrayed as submissive sex objects, usually with white men.

What this means is that foreign men have the impression that Asian women are easy and they are entitled to them. While giving foreign men a confidence boost, it warps their perception to the point it is not about people, but objects. This means those who fail at home go to China because they see Asian women as a reliable back-up option.

Even worse, it means that Asian women are disposable. It doesn't matter to the foreign male if he mistreats his partner, because if things don't work out he will just get another. In China the toxic relationship is completed, where the loser foreign male finds his submissive Asian who has an inferiority complex. There are no doubts some who are perfectly fine with being a racialized object in the relationship, but for people of sound mind and any sense of self-respect, this is a problem and not something to be sought after.

The author is a writer from Kulturemedia, media watchdog on behalf of Asian-Americans. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

Don't tar male expats with the same brush 

By Mike Cormack

Interracial relationships remain one of the most heated aspects of the expat experience in China. There's nothing like the topic of sex to get people's attention, and to get under their skin, too. But a recent article in Metro Shanghai, titled "Single foreign females in China don't have it easy," struck me as particularly wrong-headed. I don't claim to be any kind of love expert, but I have managed to stay married - to a Jiangsu woman - for over seven years, and I've seen friends from the US, Canada and England marry locals.

The writer, Stephanie N, makes a lot of bold claims and assumptions. I would like to take exception to the wearyingly familiar trope of the male expat, emboldened beyond any fair reckoning by the unwarranted admiration of the submissive Chinese woman.

In Western countries, men are expected to do all the approaching in dating. A woman having active desires is still somehow frowned upon. In China things seem to be more equal. This may be because the dating window is so restricted: high schoolers are often forbidden relationships, dorm-sharing university students lack privacy, and (in a cultural trend that seems a monstrous waste) women over 27 are shengnu, "leftover women" deemed too old for marriage.

So Chinese women are more practical, to the point of what seems (to the Western perspective) hard-nosed pragmatism. They want a man, they'll approach him. So Western men find they don't have to do all the running, for once. They are no longer always supplicant. Hell, they might even have options. But this doesn't mean that they go sleeping around in a frenzy of easy one-night stands. All of my expat male friends dated exclusively, and then married. Sure, there may be people who do hooking-up, but they'd be doing it wherever they were.

Stephanie N also repeats the image of the deferential, submissive Chinese woman. This is somehow thought to be endemic in Asia, as though Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Malaysian women all have the same psychology. But has she never heard of the Chinese Tiger Mom? Has she never seen the fierce competitiveness of female students? Or take some of the Chinese women of my acquaintance: one frequently travels abroad by herself; another started her own education business; another began as a barmaid and now runs her own bar. None of them display the supposed submissiveness, which is more likely really a stereotype from Japan. They are strong, smart, and easily capable of knocking back any guy they aren't interested in. No "deference" there.

Then too, Stephanie N says, "[I]t would also be interesting to watch Western men finally get a reality check and discover that most of them are hardly 'God's gift to women' and could never get this much action back in their home countries." Has she never considered that anyone in foreign country could be somewhat exotic and therefore glamorous?

The real question is why so few expat women and local men marry. Men in China more often marry locals because they are part of the 99.9 percent of the population who aren't expats. There are many great Chinese guys out there. If the author would just open her eyes a bit, she would see how excellent her dating options really are. Saying that dating is bad for foreign women because locals are into expat guys really shows how accustomed she is to be put on a pedestal. Get looking and stop waiting for men to do all the work, girl. There's half a billion guys out there.

The author has been a freelance journalist in China since 2008. Follow him at @bucketoftongues