What’s Dating Like in China for Americans? | Street Interview

hey bosses it's k from asian boss when we made a video about being an american in china previously a lot of our viewers seemed fascinated that there were so many americans living in china naturally you asked us about their dating life in china because of course that's the most important question to ask right now while we do a lot of serious reporting here at asian boss hey we can always have a little bit of fun exploring cultural differences between asia and the west right so what's it really like dating in china for americans let's find out where are you from and how long have you been living in china i'm from texas i've been living in china almost five years so i'm from the d.c virginia area in the united states and i moved to china in 2018. i'm from the united states the state of georgia so the south and i've been living in china for about a year and a half at this point uh i grew up in new jersey in the u.s and i've been in china about three years i'm from philadelphia the states i've been in china since 2017. i'm from chicago illinois so the u.s and i've been in china for 15 years now so today we want to find out a little bit about what it's like dating in china as an american so have you started dating or have you dated anyone in the 15 years that you've been here uh yeah i've dated i had a chinese partner for two years on and off and then recently i just broke up like three weeks ago so single and ready to mingle um but we dated for about a year actually i moved to china because my boyfriend from grad school we met in new york is chinese and now he's my husband of two and a half years okay so why are you open to dating a chinese person for me dating someone it doesn't like matter like what their ethnicity or the race it's just i'm definitely a big like personality person so it's i like the person's personality i'm sorry how explicit do you want me no i'm kidding i'm kidding um i mean i think that uh you know i um i don't know if there's like a reason but i am attracted to uh chinese guys as much as any other guys the way that i see it too like if you're not dating local chinese you're uh missing out on a really beautiful bunch of people that make up the majority of the population here so um there's also something really i've found really gratifying about the cultural exchange that comes from it as well even if it's not something that develops romantically or into anything else like i've had some really amazing conversations uh and that and and getting to know a little bit more about the queer scene through their eyes is also really cool so can you talk a little bit more about like the lgbtq scene here in shanghai yeah you know i think it's really interesting like uh you know living day-to-day you can really be pretty open and pretty comfortable uh as a gay person i think that the tension a lot of times for chinese guys from the experiences i've had and the conversations i've had comes more from a family perspective and a personal struggle than it does often from the like day-to-day walking around the city because shanghai typically has a very you do your own thing kind of perspective on stuff how do you typically meet chinese people in the first place to date well usually the dating the hookup apps like tinder grinder these kinds of hookup apps and then if something kind of develops you go from there but often i've noticed with chinese people they'll have friends and be like oh i have someone who'd be perfect for you but the couple of times that happened it was not the sparks did not fly let's put it that way yeah do you have any stories like that uh to tell god okay so my my least favorite thing is like a bad english name so my chinese name i had a chinese person give me my chinese name because i didn't want to choose the name that made chinese people go oh my god what was he thinking that's a horrible name right um so i hate names like um coach prada so i went on a date with this one woman and i was like oh what's your english name and she was like oh it's gucci and yeah no the name was probably also the most interesting thing about her so yeah it was not a great date so could you tell me a little bit more about dating apps in china like especially tan town i know that's a very big one what was your experience like using them well the thing about dating dating apps in china you know you have your pictures and a lot of people it's very big chinese culture to like edit the pictures but it's not even just like editing like tweaking a thing here tweaking a thing there it's more like changing their whole face so like when you see someone in person it's like huh that doesn't match so even the guys do this what what are some of the things that they typically change in their pictures um well like the general like chinese thing i would say is make their face lighter so like some of their pictures they'd be looking like ghosts they're like just really really white um sometimes they like slender like jaws a little bit and make their eyes a little big similar to the girls actually i feel it's like i've taken pictures with people and they before like sending it to me they always edit both of us or um taking a picture like then they instantly edit it before saving it so like it's a huge culture thing i feel sometimes they can maybe kind of fantasize black woman oh you have curves i i love curves and i'm like i'm fully dressed in all of my pictures i don't think i'm showing any inch of my curves and so the fact that they're like just fantasizing that black women are normally more shapely or more round or voluptuous in my case than asian women sure but again i'm looking for a real connection not just someone to sleep with so a lot of times it's can we get past the surface level things and make a real connection something like that from your experience do you think chinese people are open to dating americans or in your specific relationship was he kind of open to dating an american no um so when we first met it was kind of like you know we're young this is fun but we didn't see a future together because well mainly his family his parents were like no way the first rule was kind of like you're going to america to study but don't bring back an american girl and so we kind of ended our relationship because of all of that after graduation but then i guess love overcame and we kind of just worked through the culture barriers and just kind of made things work with his family a lot of chinese parents want chinese grandchildren and they want you know they want to keep their their daughter here in china even if i intend to stay in china you know they still have that fear of you know where's my daughter going to be she going to be in another country where's my grandchildren going to be in another country things like that yes i think they're very some of them aren't but the ones who aren't don't talk to me so i don't know the ones i have talked to are very they like they like foreigners they think foreigners are cool and they especially like foreigners can speak chinese but they don't really care usually they really really want to learn english that's why they go to talk to foreigners because they really want to learn english learning english is a very valuable skill in china and in the world in general so it's something they want to do and so they don't really care too much about dating foreigners yeah when it comes to dating and relationships what are some of the biggest cultural differences that were a little challenging for you okay biggest one straight up the biggest one that i always bump into because as a kid i was taught to say thank you all the time chinese girls especially like when you're chinese people in general but mainly chinese girls if they want to be if they want to be close friends with you whenever they hear thank you from you they're like don't say thank you they get uncomfortable because they feel like saying thank you puts distance between you and them and i don't really like that because i'm very uncomfortable with not saying thank you so i did i say thank you all the time which i think is probably a problem of mine but that's the biggest thing that's kind of uncomfortable chinese girls always kind of get mad at me they're like hey don't say thank you i don't like you saying thank you to me i'm like okay geez i'm just trying to be polite to you from what i understand chinese women are very much like can this guy provide security so can you buy me a house what is your job you know how much money do you make and so when i'm not asking such questions and just really taking the time trying to understand who's this person their character their interests their professional life and aspirations all these things maybe that's unusual to them and so maybe sometimes the conversation can seem dull or if i'm feeling super adventurous and i'm like let's go on a date that involves going for a bike ride around the city they're like what you once go for a bike ride i'm like yes don't wear anything fancy you know put on some comfortable pants that you can go riding in and they are maybe taken aback by that just just slightly so i think maybe compared to how chinese women are very much like money house can you do it i'm like no i'm interested in getting to know you and understanding you your character and is it a good fit for me you're expected to kind of live with your husband's parents after marriage and it's so interesting that they grow up my husband went to boarding school since seven years old until college so he never really lived with his parents but now that we're grown-ups we're expected to kind of spend every day together and live together so i think that's the biggest cultural difference from the u.s you know most people don't live with their parents after they get married and it's kind of the reverse here you go back and live with your parents after you've been married and just kind of expected to have like three generations in one house and so that's been it's actually not as bad as it sounds but um i don't know if it's going to influence our relationship as we like grow our family and you know my baby's small right now but maybe later i'm going to want to raise her a certain way and i don't know if the cultural influence is going to you know i'm going to say no let's do it my way and so next interview my first partner that i dated for two years could never come to my house without bringing a present even after we dated it'd be like food some snacks maybe just like a key chain it'd be like random gifts and finally i had to tell him like please stop bringing gifts every time it makes me feel awkward that you bring a gift when we're dating because you don't have to like give me a gift to enter my my apartment right but for him i think it made him feel weird if he didn't bring a gift and he was coming to visit me right so he's like still courting you even after you're dating i don't know if it's courting or if it's just chinese custom i think it's customary for chinese people to bring like fruit or something you know whenever they go to a house that isn't their own is there anyone that a chinese person you dated was surprised by that you did subconsciously as an american that's normal in american relationships but maybe not so much here in china you know i plan to answer this question and it's totally different now but it's true probably farting wait wait what so you know american men in particular think that farting is hilarious right so but i think chinese men don't think it's quite as funny or women so like if you if you just do it even if it's you know i think the american rule is like after about three to six months you can kind of like you could you could break it into the relationship but i don't know if that's the thing here i've noticed that there's some hesitance to like even if you've been together a year yeah there's no no flatulence if you can avoid it and do you have any fun stories that you can share about chinese parents yeah they like you to drink a lot especially the fathers because i think that sometimes they're nervous because because they don't speak any english in my chinese it goes up to a certain point but we once you start talking politics and all that kind of stuff they want to know about what i think about biden and trump and whoever obama um and so yeah lube it all with a lot of baijo and that seems to help out and um the girl that i was dating recently has talked a lot about the um the kinds of setup dates that she's gone on you know because um i don't know if uh this is common knowledge but a lot of chinese parents try to set their kids up on dates you know of people that they would find to be very eligible you know and um you know sometimes it goes well sometimes it doesn't i mean i do think it works in a lot of situations because um uh you know maybe sometimes that would be an avenue to meet somebody that you know your parents would approve of and therefore it kind of shortcuts the whole question of like oh are my parents okay with me dating this person you know blah blah like uh the girl that was dating recently told me that so her parents paid for a big part of her house in shanghai and then they're using that as pressure to tell her that she needs to go on these setup dates you know it's like hey i got you the house you know you can't even go on this one day so that's kind of funny the first time i met his mom it was graduation so my parents had already known my then boyfriend for like a year and a half oh we need to take his parents to dinner they're visiting from china whatever his mom was like did not say one word the whole dinner she was like freaked out she had like a super like you know face the whole time just like like and then after at the end of dinner she's like she's like you're flying back to china tomorrow and then so that was really freaky because she was kind of solid as like you're trying to join our two families and i'm not having this and and now she loves me but that was that was kind of intense like my sisters were at dinner and they were freaked out like dude this lady wants to kill you so what kind of got them to turn around and accept you i think it actually was more my husband he just kind of made up his mind with his parents he's like hey this is who i want to be with um you need to accept it and if you don't i'm just gonna still do it and so i think that's what a lot of chinese kids or like people our age need to kind of just like step up and show their parents because they grew up in really different times and you know like my in-laws when they were growing up they talk about they remember when there was no food and these kind of and then china just like they became well-established they started their businesses and everything just moved up and changed so they've seen so much and i think when their kids were born they were born into a different time a different generation so that might be the biggest problem there's a lot of generation gap and sometimes kids the parents don't understand their kids so if kids are more firm about what they want i think the parents will respect it okay so when it comes to dating and relationships what are some of the biggest cultural difficulties that you've experienced um i don't think this is you know necessarily every single chinese person is like this but something that i am personally is very uh expressive about my emotions i'm pretty like uh fiery i'm very like exuberant i like to have like conversations about that go like really in depth about how i feel i like to have emotional support in my relationships and the couple times that i've dated chinese guys i don't feel like there's an expectation to be as straightforward with the communication like i think that people typically gravitate more towards like i'm saying this which you should understand means this whereas i wanna hear exactly what you mean exactly as it said um and also you know with the guy that i'm dating currently you know everything is okay with him and i'm like you don't have to be okay all the time i actually would rather have you tell me and come to me when you're upset and vent and talk you know and he's just like no i'm fine are there any stereotypes you've had to deal with while like going on dates or while just meeting people online about you being american uh i feel like the biggest one is like that americans are easy uh like i actually went on a date with a guy quite recently and um i'm a very like direct person i think as most americans are and i'm not really shy to talk about sex necessarily and i think that's really like mind-blowing to some chinese guys especially that they're like wow a girl's talking about sex like this must mean she wants sex and i'm like that's not necessarily the case it's just it's not an issue to me it's not a big deal to me but i feel like for them like that's something that they never really talk about so if i talk about sex then i think that that gives certain kinds of um they have certain kinds of ideas of what that means well one of them like he was like kept trying to push to go back to my place and i was like i don't want to and i will not invite you to my house and no and there yeah that's happened a couple times i was thinking before i came here that everyone's going to be extremely serious but some people are very serious most people aren't actually that's something i found out tragically do you think that's like an age thing yes definitely so if they're it's actually it's weird the younger people usually are more into that committed stuff stuff but everyone in shanghai for the most part especially that's older than me they always don't want anything like serious at all in fact they're extremely casual one girl was so casual she just like dumped me it was a very awkward uh story like we went to a costco and i was a bit she wanted me to take pictures of her in costco because you know girls like taking pictures of themselves and i was really uncomfortable with that because people were shopping so i was like i can't do it i don't want to take the pictures and she got really mad at me and because her relationship was really casual she just said screw you and dump me right there i had to walk home it really sucked wait she dumped you in the costco she dumped me outside the costco she said like i was like hey could you get a taxi like bring me home because my phone was out of batteries i didn't charge it that night and she said uh you can you can go home by yourself but really and um yeah wait do you know why it's maybe because the pictures you took weren't good or no i didn't take pictures i refused i said listen i'm way too uncomfortable i was like really i was like i'm really sorry i'm way too uncomfortable to do this and then she said she just got irritated with me she got mad at me and then she just straight up dumped me overall what has your dating experience in china taught you about chinese culture one thing it's taught me is that chinese culture is changing that's what i have to say it's because i'm very surprised that chinese people are a lot more open than i had once thought and it shows the difference between young people and older chinese people because older chinese people i don't think would be so open and it might just show the difference between different locations i mean because the girls i talked to who didn't live in big cities i think they were a lot more conservative than the ones who live in the big cities like shanghai i think those ones are a lot more open and outgoing in that sense where they just want to be in casual relationships i think it really just reaffirms that cultural differences are just that but people are people right we are looking for meaningful connection friendship love romance good relationships um regardless of our culture our history our circumstances like we're all looking for a connection so no matter where they're from chinese for this instance i think it's just about making connection with the one who's right for you so whether they express it or search for it in a way that i think is kind of odd well that's just my thinking but this is their culture and i can see it and understand that this is their culture and this is how it's different from my culture [Music] you

Channel: Asian Boss

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Keywords: Asian Boss, Asia, Stay Curious, china, chinese, dating, date, guy, girl, tinder, app, dating app, stories, relationship, advice, coach, difficulties, marriage, cultural differences, shanghai, america, united states, expat, living abroad, working abroad, family, husband, wife, language, boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, baby, raising kids, child, children, abroad, overseas, life abroad, lgbtq, inclusive, diversity, representation, asian boss, stay curious

Id: KbUTEhoaOKU

Length: 21min 57sec (1317 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 10 2021