Friday, December 07, 2007

So, China Dirt #2

And China makes it easy for us to lounge through existence, to sink like sediment through the day. It is the difference between Chinese and Western women that allows guys like me, guys in general, to live in the way that gives Chinadirt so much contempt to pour on us.

Chinese women have a very different tradition to follow than Western women. Personal freedom has always been denied to Chinese women by their country’s culture. Even today, for all its patina of modernization, the personal life of Chinese women is still controlled – cabined, cribbed and confined.

Mona, for example, a fantastic former lover, bold and imaginative – Mona represents the best of modern Chinese woman (not that I in any way wish to prescribe what a woman ‘should’ be). But even Mona, smart, confident, determined, funny, even Mona is controlled by the wider patterns of society. Her mother was staying with her for a few weeks, and while Mona was at work, the mother would go through every inch of her flat, her drawers, cupboards, wardrobe. And not at all covertly – to her, it was simply a mother’s right to do this. Mona, being quite up to the minute, has several mobile phones, and one of these she left at home. Her mother read all the messages on it and found one from a lover saying something along the lines of ‘You were great in bed the other night.’ This lover was a Chinese guy, and his message was thus in Chinese, meaning Mona’s mother understood it, as would not have been the case was it from her Western lover.

Mona’s mother was horrified by this, and when Mona came home asked, incredulous, “You are not a virgin any more?” Mona concocted some tale about this being a message she was relaying for a friend. Her mother, Mona told me, did not really believe it.

I suggested Mona could have just told the truth, and said this was how her life was, and she was nothing different in it. But she told me her mother would not have been able to handle that. And indeed she said ‘Already she’s said she wants to die, she’s said “The only reason I’ll stay alive is because of your grandparents”’ – What awful parental blackmail! How little the parents understand their children, and how much they want to control them.

Now of course Chinese women today have far more freedom than even a few years ago, and Mona does indeed live a relatively free life. But even so, she still lives that life within strict confines. She cannot show the reality of it to her mother, and her freedom is thus only a limited, carefully defined level of freedom. Nor can she show the reality of it to most Chinese guys. She, like many of my women friends, has told me several times that too many Chinese guys simply cannot handle the reality of the life today’s Chinese women often live, or at least want to live.

And this is why she is leaving. She wants out. She’s been driven away by the bullshit this culture imposes on her, by its petty restrictions, by its inability to take her for what she is rather than what it would have her be. She’s got her residence visa to another country, going to that freer country like so many of China’s smartest and brightest, going to be more than she can ever be here. Going against the wishes of her parents, who would have her settle down and produce them a grandchild, going against the advice of her boss that she should stay in her easy, undemanding job. Going, and will not come back.

It is this background that is the walls and bars to the cage a Chinese woman dates in. When she dates a Chinese guy, she is usually in that cell, hemmed in by the strictures of a culture that she knows well. Must play the virgin. Must be bashful in bed. Must have no desires but what her man wants.

But a Western guy is outside that culture; and so when she dates him she is free of the imposed attitude of Chinese culture. Dating a Western guy, she has no framework in which to orient herself. Dating becomes a chance for a different level of personal freedom for her, and (too often) an avenue of exploitation for him

Now Western culture gives women far more freedom to dictate their dating lives than Chinese culture does, which is why Western women won’t put up with such bullshit from Western men. This is unarguably a good thing, and if Chinese culture allowed more of this freedom for its women – if China’s women would fight for it -- then their life would not be quite so overwhelmingly shit as it is now.

But no matter how right or just, when guys like me can escape from those expectations of Western women, we don’t look back. Out here we embrace our nature. Yes; it is oafish, crude, and after many centuries of struggle in the West when women have at last gained some measure of respect (though not much) it is profoundly depressing. But this is who men are. Hence China’s concubine system, for example. Men want to fuck around.

The kind of thing we’re escaping from is clear on Chinadirt:-

To the FHMs [Finding himself man] out there I say:


FIND some maturity by getting a real job. And no, filing one story a week to an unnamed newspaper back home, occasional modeling as the token white boy in some baijiu billboard, and “tutoring” Chinese college girls does not count!

FIND some decency by appreciating your girlfriend-the one who cooked for you after 10 hour workdays, ironed and laid out clothes for you when you had interviews, who puts up with your equally immature friends and pretends not to be lonely when you leave her four times a week to go find yourself on Sanlitun.


FIND some courage to tell your girlfriend the TRUTH about the other woman you’ve been seeing so that your girlfriend doesn’t have to hear about it from other sources and suffer a near anxiety attack in the middle of a dinner party being thrown by her boss.


If you were a real man, you’d FIND a doorway out of this little box of selfishness and oblivion in which you live. You’d FIND a way to recognize that living like a nomad does not make you deep, only pathetic. You’d FIND out that responsibility and commitments aren’t evil constraints but realities of life. You’d FIND that you can’t live like a teenager forever!



Well, what a list of demands, Dame Partlet the hen! And you expect us to stick around for all that? That we will listen to your shouty capitals, your martinet demands, when we could be in the arms of a pliant Chinese woman? Come, come. ‘If you are a real man’ – now there are words to send us right out the door.

And so what is the answer? Perhaps there is none, and nor are the writers of Chinadirt looking for any. They certainly don’t want to hear any advice from us expat guys – though I’m sure most of the email they’ll be receiving from ‘my’ community will be the offensive misogynist bullshit we do so well. No, the point of the site is just to expose what swines we expats can be, and that’s a fine thing to be doing. Seems to me (spite of my comments above) the women writing it know pretty well what they’re about. Long may they shout and punch and scorn. Power upon power to you -- You are right, my dears, all your voices are right. We are the inconstant ones.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

well, i think you are kind of exaggerating here. For an example, I dont think that my mother cares if Im a virgin or not, she just cares about my future :)

and you are saying that the Chinese guy controls the women? come on, just take a look if you're in shanghai, usually it's the woman who is in charge. Anyhow, that is how I see shanghai, definitely it's the woman who is deciding everything.
what you are talking about must be referred to the countryside.

ChinaBounder's email: said...

Shopgirl said… ‘Well, I think you are kind of exaggerating here..’

Indeed Mona is not from Shanghai, but from one of the nearby cities. But perhaps you should consider you are hardly a typical representative of Shanghai, largely raised as you were in Sweden, where I presume your family lives. It is true that younger Shanghai women do seem liberated and indeed they are in many ways – until they get married. And then I do feel the male bullshit of control comes in. Too many of my Shanghainese female friends have absurd stories of pretending to be inexperienced lovers or outright virgins for me to be fully convinced by the sheen of ‘woman power’ that Shanghai claims.


And perhaps you would agree that the pressure for women to get married before 30 is still huge all across China, and this itself is part of the male-imposed control system?

Martin G Foster said...

If dating is important to these ex-pat women then they should leave China. Nobody loves a whiner, especially when they are almost completely responsible for their own problems. They just aren't going to get any quality action, unless they are absolutely stunning. They limit themselves by not considering local guys. That's just idiotic.

They don't have to get married, for god's sake, they could just have some fun. I'm sure they could find a somewhat liberal, local, guy who would love to take a caucasian girl for a test ride.

Somebody should come up with a dating quotient (your DQ value). Which is like a point system of how attractive / appealing you are to the opposite sex. In fact, maybe I'll work on one. It would inlude: sex, race, age, looks, wealth, job, and very importantly your geographic location. If your white/euro and female in China lose 10 points. If your white/euro and male in China add 10 points.

You get the idea.

Gilman Grundy said...

"China makes it easy for us to lounge through existence, to sink like sediment through the day"

The entire atmosphere of slow corruption, of a kind of increasing lethargy, is exactly what turned me against the whole China life. Nowadays I live in London, and when I read all the snotty comments about western women by yellow fever types and the equally snotty comments by their "white guys are scum" female counterparts I have to admit I find them quite comical. Yes, western guys can get a lot in China, and that is mainly about the money and status they command, it is also because they are on average a bit more interesting than the average cadre. The problem is that those women are, in the main, equally as boring as their male countrymen, it's just that men don't care so much about that. I'm just glad I'm out of it, since I've been back I've had way more interesting conversation about far more interesting subjects than I ever had in China. Yes, there were some special people who I still keep in touch with, but they were in a distinct minority.

Anonymous said...

One of the MAJOR problems with Asia is the Expat men- and this is coming from a Englishman, who lived in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia.
The typical Expat-man is generally middle-aged, paunch-bellied, balding, usually more hair on his back than head, is of upper-middling income and thinks he's God's gift to all women.
The fact of the matter is that as a general rule of thumb only LOW CASTE ASIAN WOMEN like Expats- most usually they're after a green card or other ticket out- this is because they know their chances of finding an equivalently wealthy Asian man are next to nil.

Bear in mind, most Expats have either a wife or wife and kids at home and I met several utter bastards who'd started a family in several countries with no intention of supporting their whores and bastard progeny.
Being younger, fit, relatively affluent and able o speak the native tongue- one encounters many higher standard women whom have greater knee-control than their peasant sisters.
You give us Western men a shocking name and create and undesirable reputation that precedes all of us- yuo and you kind paint us all as bastards.
I've met many gorgeous Asian women who'd confide the terror in being abandoned pregnant by me if they dated me seriously.
Shame on you for exploiting their poverty and your fantasy of having lived a misspent youth- rather than rejection by women who'd seen you as you are.

Anonymous said...

Western women need to take far better care of themselves and stop demanding the unreasonable.
Asian women realise they are in a buyer's market, so to speak, and will put their best foot forward at all opportunities. As for that snotty crap about male-control- just because you're a pussy-whipped wimp doesn't mean you can slander a whole country.

ChinaBounder's email: said...

Anonymous said `…The typical Expat-man is generally middle-aged, paunch-bellied, balding, usually more hair on his back than head, is of upper-middling income and thinks he's God's gift to all women… they're after a green card or other ticket out…’

This stuff is old hat. Lazy tropes. You’ll have to do better.

real siyan shanghai said...

Chinadirt" is a retarded wanker! Just an ordinary dude got sick in his fucked up head!

Anonymous said...

du solltest mehr ueber die Kultur und Geschichte dieses Lands lesen, und dann kannst du daueber deine Kommentar geben. Sonst machst du dich nur laecherlich~~~~

Anonymous said...

I want to address an attitude on your blog that I've detected from various commenters, which is that so many of these Asian women finally have 'a choice', and are overwhelmingly choosing White expats because they are somehow objectively better than Asian men.

Anyone who has spent any significant time in any Asian country knows this is total BS. Many of you know that there are plenty of unattractive, bald, fat, socially awkward, nerdy, or homely-looking White men in Asia with young pretty Asian girls whose faces are beaming over their White trophy. Some of you secretly know that you were social rejects in your home nations.

You guys need to acknowledge a lot of your success is from Asian inferiority complex, self hate, and White worship. It has nothing to do with oppression, or Asian men, it is because you are Caucasian, and right now many Asians have some messed up ideas where they place Caucasians on a higher level than Asian. It has nothing to do with any superior quality you have or some major flaw in Asian men or oppression. This similar type of White worship thinking is also evident in various countries around the world that were victims of colonialism.

I know some of you will fervently deny this, after all it is much more ego-boosting to not acknowledge this fact, however as much as you don't want to believe it, this is the truth.

Anonymous said...

Hold on! "When she dates a Chinese guy, she is usually in that cell, hemmed in by the strictures of a culture that she knows well. Must play the virgin. Must be bashful in bed. Must have no desires but what her man wants."

You're saying that's what Chinese guys want?? You have no idea! You clearly don't know what kind of crazy sex lives Chinese people have with each other, and have throughout history nonetheless.

And by the way, Asian fetish guys are gross. I've honed my radar and make sure to stay MILES away from them.

-a Chinese American

Anonymous said...

U guys should respect the Chinese culture...it is just different from Westerns...U r Westerns,so u cant understand,but no one asks u to accept it. did we say Western girls are fucken so horny n their moms never give any shit---seems like they give birth to girls to get fucked??!!

Anonymous said...

have u ever been taught to respect? those idiot Chinese girls are deserved to be fucked.

Anonymous said...

As a Chinese-American happily married to a beautiful blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavian-American 12 years younger than me, I just have to laugh at all the jealous attitudes all around.

There are, I am sure, a good number of dashing, handsome young Chinese men who do a good job scoring Chinese girls and Western girls. They are NOT the ones complaining about ChinaBounder.

Like fundamentalist Islamists who blame women if they aren't completely covered head to toe for arousing their passions and blaming them for their own rapes, only jealous losers who can't make it with hot chicks complain about the chicks rather than look to improve their own sorry asses.

Unfortunately, traditional Chinese parents really don't do a good job of raising hip, cool sons. Those who do manage to somehow turn out that way despite their parents, find themselves swimming in choices and opportunities.

Y said...

Am I the only one that finding some humanistic touch in these stories than just an entertaining read?

As a Chinese women in my mid-twenties, I can say that a lot of Chinabounder's observation of the society especially that women's role and struggle in it was quite accurate. And I don't think Mona's case is an exaggeration. Talk to any girl that my age who's "husbandless" you would get an idea of the amount of social pressure for people to conform.

"When she dates a Chinese guy, she is usually in that cell, hemmed in by the strictures of a culture that she knows well. " --I hate to admit it, but it's true.

But the question is: who do we take side with in this wrestling with the heavy "tradition" of the society?

Surely not our parents.

Nor Chinese guys shopping around for a wife, (feeling) power in hand.

Not western girls that busy dealing with their own problem with guys.

And not western guys out here (at lease the majority of them) that see where these women are and happily take advantage of it.

Nobody.

We fight alone.

It is only with my girl friends that we truly feel and connect and understand each other's struggle and choices.

But you know what? Even if this fails, "settle down and produce them a grandchild", these are the women that will raise the next generation of the society. The mothers that would never ask questions like “You are not a virgin any more?” to their daughters. Never ever.

Anonymous said...

you know what? go fuck youself or get ur ass back to your own damn country, asshole

Anonymous said...

Yea woman in the us are so free and such bullshit. The majority work at walmart the us biggest employer and bag groceries all day for a pathetic wage that barely covers the child care they have to get. Yea they are really liberated from control. The business controls them every minute of the day they work. Free from husbands but not the corporation and no love. Way to go lol

Anonymous said...

feminism is just a way for the corporations to exploit woman. I mean there are thousands upon thousands of woman with careers at fastfood resteraunts in the us. Again telling them what to do every second of the day. The husband never did that. The business it is always looked at as fine to completely have a slave. Now go clean that greasetrap.