Chinese
I am a:
101
?
Dating
Woman
Seeking a:
?
Man
In the city of:
?
Shanghai
miss h b
A LITTLE WHILE BACK I was musing
to myself on the vicarious and various
difficulties one can face while attempting
to date in a foreign country that has a
number of cultural practices different to
those which one is most accustomed.
After doing a little research, I was struck by the
severe lack of accounts from the perspective
of a Western woman in China compared
to the plethora of stories by Western men
looking for fun and, quite inevitably, being left
broke and confused back in their hotel rooms,
already writing their sternly worded travel blog
in their head.
In order to address this imbalance, discover
a little about Chinese dating techniques,
and due in part to overwhelming boredom,
I decided to embark upon a week of dating.
Six days, six different dates, six remarkable
evenings.
I present ‘Chinese Dating 101’.
Date: 1
Occupation: Engineer
Location: Chinese pub
His grasp of the English language immediately
impressed me; he began talking about
his work and used a range of vocabulary
relating to nuclear power plants that I really
didn’t understand. Not wanting to appear
unintelligent to my potential romantic love
match, I quickly engaged his friends. Yes,
he’d brought a bunch of his friends along to
our ‘date’. I imagine this made him feel more
relaxed and as they fit my date week criteria
of being ‘Chinese,’ ‘guys’ and ‘different’, I
saw it as a welcome addition. They were all
very friendly, each toasting me whilst playing
‘rock, paper, scissors’, ‘dice’ and various
other Chinese drinking games. One of these
friends in particular put in a lot of time and
effort talking to me. It transpired during my
(solo) taxi ride home that Date 1 had in fact
passed my number to this friend. Later that
night I had no less than 6 texts from Date 1’s
friend and felt confused as to which one I had
actually just been on a date with.