Thinking about holding your girlfriend's hand in China thinking about kissing your girlfriend in China think again. Oh
Wait that didn't sound right?
That's better, right?
Now this is kind of Weird I
Don't know why I haven't spoken about this before because this is something that's affected me
And it will definitely affect you if you are going to be dating a Chinese woman or a Chinese girl
Or vice versa if you're going to be dating a Chinese man
basically public affection
Displays of public affection are not really a thing here
So I'd like to share some of my stories and also give you an idea as to why this is the case?
Now hang on a second before I continue. What's with all this dust
That's better and the heck's with these black bars anyway. See if I can do something about that
Now before I jump in and tell you some of my stories
I would like to first tell you that age groups are very important here, right?
You've got the younger generation people that are sort of my age and younger
So people that are in their sort of 20s to 30s
That's one age group
And then you have people that are in their 40s to 60s now the 40s to 60s crowd is an incredibly
traditional sort of crowd here, and they're usually past part of the last generation or at least close to that and
Traditionally they don't believe in you know sort of public displays of affection
You will not see I've never seen my mother and father-in-law
Exchange a kiss on the cheek or a hug or anything like that
They're just kind of very distant from each other, and that's true for every one of that generation
The Younger Generation of course yeah a little bit more
Open to the west and you know China's changed a lot. They've seen a lot of hollywood movies and watched friends and what-Have-you and
Usually they're more open to this sort of thing but still
Still they're afraid of their parents. They're afraid of the whole traditional family and so of course this dictates the way they behave
there are in fact some
positives and bonuses to dating someone of the older generation which I'll get to in a short while but
As far as the younger generation is concerned that's where my experience comes in so let me share a story or two with you
so when I got to China of course I was a
Young Naive 25 year old you know I've had relationships of course and in South Africa
And I was used to the whole western style of dating interview
Dating someone you walk hand-in-hand on the streets. You know you maybe
Give them a kiss in public make out sometimes depends on the situation of course, but you know there's a lot of affection being shown
So the first girlfriend I got in China
I was horrified that she didn't want to hold my hand she would in fact push me away from her and
You know I got very offended. I couldn't kiss her in public and in fact
She wanted me to walk a few feet away from her. So people didn't know we were dating
This of course led to the end of that relationship because there's no way
I'm gonna put up with being in a relationship with someone who's
Ashamed to be with me, but there of course is a lot behind that and I've grown to understand why she behaved that way
You could think it's due to xenophobia racism and that kind of thing and yes
There is a bit of that thrown in there because you know China's a homogeneous country and for them. It seems almost
crazy or it's just
unthinkable for you to marry outside of your culture and outside of your race and
That's you know an unfortunate sort of byproduct of being closed off for so long
thing is it's not really that it's
Basically down to the whole stability thing and this is something I've got to realise through you know various relationships
And of course recently through my wife now
Chinese families are incredibly traditional, it's very simple
the parents want their child daughter or son to marry someone who is
Stable especially if it's a daughter let's go from that angle first if they have a daughter they want their daughter to marry someone stable
Preferably rich, but the most important thing is that they have a house and they have a good job. That's like the price
That's you've won the prize there because what they're trying to do is
They're trying to get their daughter in with somebody who has a stable house a stable job
And then they must have a kid straight away
And then the family the the parents can then move in with them you see and they have a retirement home
They look after the child they have a place to stay now
They don't have to worry about paying bills anymore the young couple will pay for the house and pay for all the food and everything
And they just have to cook and clean and look after the child so this whole traditional drive to have a stable
Situation is why they are so against their daughters you know marrying foreigners because number one
They're afraid that the foreigners going to take their daughter away to another country and number two
They don't have any control over their foreigner if they're foreigner tomorrow wants to just leave
You know say for instance peace out and say I'm not having any part of this anymore
They can so if something goes wrong with the relationship
The foreigner could just go home. So that stability is instantly shattered
So you've got a big stigma around sort of mixed couples here and over the years here
It's gotten better, but I tell you what I've had
Rude remarks you know walking down the street with my girlfriend here in China hear people say
Disgusting things I've had sneers of that dirty looks
I've had once a guy woke up to me in the mall while I was walking with my girlfriend and
Shoulder me, you know really hard like very aggressively
You know you get this nonsense, and if you walk past a bunch of drunk guys sitting outside if you're with your Chinese girlfriend
You're liable to get people causing shit talking nonsense
You know and they've been people that have been attacked all right. You know it has happened
but that's par for the course and you go anywhere if you're in a midst mixed relationship if you go to any sort of
Get into any sort of situation where you've got
nationalists in you and so on around you're probably going to get trouble you know, so
That's just the way it is so the reason why my original girlfriend wanted to stay so far away from me was to
Not let people know that she was dating a foreigner because then she could avoid that stigma if anyone from her work
Or her family saw her she wouldn't have to worry now. This is of course incredibly insulting
Because it means that they they're just not
happy with you or they're not come what's what's the
They're not confident enough in your relationship to want to
You know show publicly that they're with you and it could be a kind of a deal-breaker for a lot of people myself included
but
Anyway, when it comes to my wife we were dating and we been dating for a while
And she hadn't told her parents I kept asking to meet her parents. She was like always making excuses
She hadn't told her parents. She hadn't told her were colleagues about us because for the same reason she was worried
And it was only once I had proposed and we were engaged that she finally
Went and told her parents and were colleagues, Etc a little bit insulting I know but you have to
Culture and understand why why she was like that so I mean it?
I don't hold it against her and in fact we talked a little bit about it in the video where I talk about how we
Met I'll link it right here. If you guys would like to go take a look this may be where to watch I
Said I tell you why it's Advantageous to be dating somebody from the older age group. So here accounts
this whole stigma of marrying or dating a foreigner you know which is looked down upon by traditional Chinese Society and by the
Chinese Society in General and
You can try and argue against there, but I know from my experience walking around here in China. It's still the case
You know people may be a little bit more accepting the younger crowd, but you know especially the older generation
They don't they don't like it. That's just the way. They are anyway. The thing is if you're going to date an older woman
Here in China. That's stigma pretty much
you don't need to worry about it at least she's not going to be concerned about it, and that's because
the simple fact that when a woman reaches the age of about 30 even
28/29 here in China, they start to be called
leftover women
So if they haven't gotten married by that age is what I'm trying to say it's it's just the way it goes here
if they're not married it's going to get difficult and more and more difficult for them to get married because
in this whole traditional society
Childbearing is of course incredibly important
So if you've got a son, and he wants to marry someone who's 30 and the chances are that she's not going to give him?
Healthy children straight away, you know the grandparents the whole family's going to try and talk him out of it
Maybe even force him out of it and make him marry someone younger so it's a bit annoying
But that's the way it goes here
so when you as a woman when you reach the age of around 30 in China
You already kind of seen as unmarriageable material
it's even worse if you get older and the worst case is if you've been married had children and then
Got divorced because then there's just no chance you're ever going to get married to a local Chinese person here in China at all
Unless of course you're rich and powerful or come from a very powerful family. That's a different story
But just from what I've experienced and what I know from living in China, so long
this is definitely the case and
these are the women that go to these online dating websites the ones that go to look for foreign husbands from Overseas and
for good reason
Foreigners don't have the same stigma. You know a lot of foreigners. They don't mind if you know
Somebody they're looking for if they've fallen in love with someone and they already have a child or two children
They don't really mind they can accept that they can accept the children into their lives, Etc, ETc however in China
That's not the case if somebody is looking at getting married to someone if they already have children forget about it
It's just not going to happen they won't accept that and so the reason why I'm saying this is
They've already kind of given up on the whole traditional Chinese family thing the whole traditional Chinese marriage thing
so they'd be more than happy to be with a foreigner, and that stigma is not going to bother them any more because
What are you worried about? What's the stigma when everybody's already sort of looking down on you anyway?
So they've given up all their cards, and now they're with a foreigner, and they're happy just to be married
And that's why dating the older
Generation is going to be a positive
Of course there are a lot of negatives to dating that older generation because they've got a very
very strange Mindset very different to any kind of
foreign
Mindset and of course you're Gonna find out yourself
I have friends who are married to Chinese ladies of that generation and boy
Oh boy, is it trouble do they have a lot of trouble?
Not all of them of course, but there are just certain levels of understanding which just simply cannot be reached
It seems when you're dealing with people from that generation anyway that's entirely up to you, and I just wanted to to let you know
So back to the main point of this video public affection is not a big thing in China
expect if you're here in China if you're dating a local person expect to be
Pushed away if you try to kiss your girlfriend in public especially if she's a little bit more of a traditional girl if they do
Go along with you. They're usually a little unwilling it can be quite uncomfortable and of course
It's not very well accepted in public if you do try to make out with your girlfriend in public. You'll get stairs
Dirty looks you'll feel uncomfortable. She'll feel uncomfortable everybody will feel uncomfortable. It's it's literally just not something
That's done here, so I hope that's answered your questions guys
Thank you for sitting through this one
I am a little bit sick of just come off the tail end of some kind of awful flute hence. They're not walking around so
Apologies for them I'm really happy that you guys set through this one though. Thank you very much
I hope this answered some of your questions and please if you have more questions, just
You know ask them down below of course in all of my videos
I do have to speak in rather sweeping generalizations because I'm talking about an entire country here, and I'm talking about two different
Cultures, so this doesn't apply to everyone, and that should be fairly obvious so before you go out typing that I know this one
Couple that. You know kissed on the great wall and blah blah
You know it doesn't matter so you will get exceptions and yes in my whole time here in China. I've seen
five
Literally five. Maybe four in let me think there was one in beijing. I saw a couple making out in a car
One time in Shanghai on Nanjing Road, and they could have been tourists you know
Jen Jen have seen some high schoolers holding hands. That's as far as I've ever seen it in Shinjin
I've never seen a young couple kissing in public and
That's honestly. That's it. That's it. It's not a big thing here
So anyway guys thank you for watching can't wait to see in the next one and you know the drill
wait hang up hang up before you leave I
Got to tell you my wife's starting her own little channel
I've got a well of course I'm helping you with it in the beginning
but I'm busy teaching her the ropes and shouldn't you soon, she'll be doing it all by herself, but
short little clips of her talking about something interesting or
Her doing something linked is going to be in the description below. I'd appreciate if you go show us some support
It'd be awesome of you
Well because you know you guys are awesome, and I feel awful so hopefully, but then next time I see you
I'm gonna be right as rain and
Of course, I can't stop before I tell you guys to of course