Monday 23 September 2013

Be Careful When Dating Chinese Women

By Peter Chambers


Have you 'dated' Chinese girls before? You might have taken them out on a 'date' or perhaps several 'dates' and then be spurned in your advances. You probably paid for several nice meals and spent considerable time with them, thinking that things were going really well. Obviously she must like you a lot if she went out with you so frequently! So then you try to kiss her and get hit with bitter rejection. That's because your 'date' was more like an appointment.

The term date in Chinese literally means a meeting. It often has no romantic connotation whatsoever. From MDBG.net (fantastic Chinese dictionary site), the word ??yue?hu means "appointment / engagement / date ... / to set up to meet." It simply means an arrangement to meet. The same word you use to ask a woman out is how she asks her dentist to meet her for a cleaning!

Don't be surprised if she conveniently twists the context of this word to her advantage. The term itself serves to safeguard Chinese girls' interests. If you take them on a few dates and she decides there is no sexual/romantic connection there then she simply says she never imagined there was any romantic implication! This could lead you to ask, "Well how come she dating me if she didn't have any interest?"

This is where "face" comes into the discussion.

If you know much about Chinese culture, you have certainly have heard of face before. Chinese girls think that by simply being together with you they are providing you face. By merely being out in public together with her she is doing you a service. This has a powerful reference to a prior article I wrote about Chinese girls possessing a sense of entitlement. Only a Chinese girl can supply you with face, not the opposite way round.

The reason this causes this kind of dilemma is because Chinese girls maintain this mentality when they come over to the USA. It may take them over a year before they fully grasp the idea of "dating" in English. Obviously in the event you ask a girl on a date in English there is a romantic implication there, but it will take a Chinese girl some time to realize this. The way to combat this issue is to simply be honest with her and after a few "dates" make it clear that you've got romantic feelings and prevent getting the run around.

It is essential to realize that this isn't an isolated phenomenon. Translation can result in issues and you must be careful of the language you choose so as to make your speech concise and clear. You have to be conscious of simple things like calling a gal funny suggests that she is humorous in English, but in Chinese means weird or irregular. It is difficult to identify these complaints without a little bit of research so go out there and learn some Chinese for yourself!




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