Why did I seek a Chinese woman?

Jinlin

Recently I wrote about the beginning of our relationship with Jinlin. I will now explore the earlier "time before beginning", my path to seek a Chinese companion from international dating sites.

For a Finnish person, I have had higher-than-average level of contact with people from non-Finnish cultures. When I was four years old, my family moved to Oregon, USA, for two years, with my father working as researcher in the University of Oregon. Those were happy years and left good memories of foreign living. In my teenage years, from 16 and 18, I attended the Atlantic College in Wales. AC had students come from over 80 nationalities and I ended up being quite close to our students from Japan, China and Hong Kong - probably partly because my dorm mate Masahiko was Japanese. I even had a short fling with one of the Japanese girls until she sadly decided she does not want a boyfriend. And after the college ended in 1992 I did a five week trip to Japan and Hong Kong to see my friends there.

Masahiko and me at Atlantic College 1992

Later I have been travelling in 20+ different countries in different parts of the world, the most notable here being a five-week trip to Russia and China in 2007. We took with my friends the trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Beijing and down through China to Hong Kong. We spent three weeks in various Chinese locations and I was impressed with the scenery, the culture and the people.

My previous long-term relationships was with a Dutch woman studying in Finland. Although not culturally very different or geographically so far away, there was still personal growth and learning from living with an immigrant, speaking daily in other than mother tongue and working out issues concerning distance and travel and cultural differences.

Migutse and Haidee

I should also mention the encouraging example of my friend Migutse, who was travelling with me on our 2007 Far-East trip. He continued his trip from Hong Kong to Philippines and met there his future wife Haidee. After a one year remote relationship she moved to and now they have been together for four years and have two kids together. She has many friends in Finland and seems to be happy here.

The positive expectations

Given this background, I definitely had nothing against possibility of a relationship with a foreign woman. Still, it required some more inspiration before I made a profile to an international dating site and started to seek a serious relationship with a Chinese woman. Such act requires some positive expectations, some ideas and thoughts about "what Chinese women are like", in other words stereotypes. So like my earlier post on "sugar daddies" and "trophy wives", this is one about stereotypes, though mostly the positive ones.

Stereotypes are interesting beasts. They can't be fully avoided, but they can be hopefully understood for their limitations and used as wisely as possible. When a stereotype is based on true correlation, understood in proper context and applied wisely, it might sometimes provide useful "rule of thumb" in navigating your way through complexities of life. Harvard graduates are smart, women like flowers and Nigerians willing to give you million dollars might actually want your money -  these are not always true, but they are definitely based on true statistical correlations and can sometimes be useful as first approximations when there is need to do decisions on limited information. But when stereotype is not based on true correlation, or when it is is applied blindly, out of context, with limited understanding and too wide generalization, it can constitute a negative prejudice:

Prejudice (noun). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice. "Prejudice (or fore-deeming) is most often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, nationality or other personal characteristics. It can also refer to unfounded beliefs and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence."

Even in a world where the word "stereotype" has a negative ring, it is important to admit that there are many significant statistical differences between groups of people. Some stereotypes are simply false, but many real statistical differences exist between boys and girls, men and women, between Finnish, American and Italian people, between young and old, between rich and poor, between western world and Asian cultures. In the noble pursuit of full equality and acceptance, some relativist philosophers have gone as far as claiming that there are no significant differences between groups or at least dismissing all discussion about such differences. I think such denial is an overreaction and counter-productive to their goals. We do not need to dispel statistical differences between social or ethnic groups to value equality and respect individual differences. A more productive approach is, I think, the "celebrate the differences" attitude that seems to be getting more common.


Equally importantly, one should never infer individual properties from any stereotype, even if based on true correlation. We humans have strong tendency to do so, but I think we should actively fight against it. Even if women are statistically (and in stereotype) more likely than men to like flowers it does not follow that Jane likes flowers because she is a woman or Jack as a man does not. Individual variance within groups is usually always wider than the differences between averages of groups so in any group known for attribute X there are likely to be many individuals who are very non-X.

Stories of Chinese women and WM-AF relationships

After my previous relationship ended in the end of summer 2011 my background and curiosity lead me to search for internet articles and discussions about experiences and opinions on Asian dating. Various Western-Asian dating sites are very popular nowadays and they are advertising their services rather aggressively. What do their users say of them and what kind of experiences they have had later in their cross-cultural relationships?

There is no lack of opinions and experiences reported on these topics in the net. Some were negative, but great majority of stories and comments draw a very positive image about Chinese, Philippine, Korean and Vietnamese women and relationships of western men with such women. I gradually gathered large collection of writings which draw a stereotype of these women as caring, loyal, honest, hard-working, family-oriented, deeply loving, polite, intelligent, independent, happy and beautiful in mind and body. Here is some small fractions from small selection of stories I read:

Jerry: "I was married for thirty years to a American woman who bore me two wonderful children. Then she divorced me, It was the luckiest day of my life. Before I married my Chinese wife I never really knew what true happiness meant. My Chinese wife is everything a man could want. She is independent and always in a good mood. She is very intelligent and helps me avoid mistakes in almost everything we do in our life together. She is so beautiful that I find myself staring at her all the time and wondering how I could be so fortunate to be with her. Every day we tell each other "I love you". Its not just words, we mean it. We demonstrate to each other in words and deeds every day how we love each other. I can say without any doubt that Chinese woman are the most beautiful and desirable of all woman. Its not just physical beauty, its what's inside that makes the difference. With that kind of love and caring a man can accomplish anything."

Ed: "Many western woman want possession, or what we call "keeping up with the Jones's", wealth, and fame/notoriety. Most western women have lost the value of family and love between husband and wife and put their own personal wants / needs above the family and for me it makes western women very unattractive. I sought my Chinese wife because after an extensive search, knowing I no longer had the commonality with western women, of other countries and cultures and realized the Chinese culture was more in line with my feelings of family and what it means to me. I married my wife after corresponding over the internet after 5 months of daily letters and have not had one regret." 

Gino: "What I see [in a blog post of western man and young Chinese woman] is mutual feeling reflected in two happily satisfied people. The magnetism that got them together is what makes them happy. There is nothing wrong with that, whatever the reasons are. The fact is that the divorce in such a relationships between westerns and Chinese, Vietnamese, Philippine woman almost does not exist. Considering that they are in it for love. Whereas in the west in 50% of the "in love" marriages love lasts 2 to 7 years. The bottom line is that the truth and honesty is what will make most couples happy and the Chinese woman are more likely be honest with their man then western women."

Richard: "I am 55 and have a very deep relationship with my 24 year old Chinese girlfriend. I was married for 30 years to my wife , 3 grown children but I have never experienced the connection that I have with my Chinese friend. She knows how to understand a man and take care of a man unlike western women. I will spend the rest of my life with her. Go for it guys, yellow fever is best!" 

Zak: "I'm Australian. I promised my Chinese (Anhui) wife that if we were to be together and I touched her as a virgin, inexperienced with men - that we must become married. We lived together for 3 years and married in Nanjing in mid-2007. Yes, of course she is a glittering prize working for a multinational corp, as a project manager, 20 years my junior: but... she doesn't have "issues". "Issues" mar relationships with Western women. She has balls, got her own bank mortgage on a new apartment here in Suzhou. I pay the rent on our current apartment. In short - I'd never re-establish a relationship with a Western lady. 6 years with my honey. I'd never go back. Not yellow fever, just mutual care, respect - holding and being held at night. It's funny. I don't think of her as being Chinese, I just think of her as my wife. And I'm very tender with her. That's the key."

The statistics of Dating and Love

Still, given the earlier point of great individual variance within all ethnic groups, one might validly ask: could one not find a perfect spouse from more local surroundings? In the end we will be in a relationship with an individual, love and marry an individual, so in the end only his/her individual qualities matter, not the average attributes of their group. And with wide variance between individuals, surely an optimal match will be found from any group, including the local one? Well, this might be true in a situation of perfect information and perfect choice: If man in Helsinki would have full enumeration of all local women in the town and knowledge all of their attributes and he would have the power to simply pick single one at his discretion to be his loving companion, the averages might not matter. I am sure that a quite amazing woman and perfect match could be found.

But we know that finding good relationship and love does not work that way: it is not deterministic exact process with full information and choice available. No, the game of human courting and love is a fuzzy, complex and very random game of luck in a field of limited information and limited possibilities. And in a game of luck the averages, statistics and expectation values make a big difference. By extending ones search to a group with desirable average attributes one can improve the probability of "scoring high" in these attributes. So although no one has godly power to guarantee a good companion for him/herself in a deterministic manner, we can all affect our own possibilities of finding one by choosing which actions to take, what events to participate and what places and forums to attend. We cannot control life but we can affect the probabilities that luck operates on. If lake A has more trout than herring than lake B, it makes sense to fish in lake A for trout - even if it is still possible for catch a very big trout at B.

The End of the Game, the Beginning of a Couple

Of course the aim of all dating games is to end the dating game. In the past I remember having many simultaneous exchanges of messages going on with multiple women from different dating sites. When such discussions go on, it is a common to ponder at which point one should try to start focus on one of the ladies and whether or not one should keep the profile up just in case someone even better comes by. It is a good sign when one can write, just after one day of getting in touch with someone, like I wrote to Jinlin:

I love you Chen! <3 We will be together!
I'm closing my profile in ChineseLoveLinks, my search is over :-)

She is indeed cute, sweet, caring, unselfish, deeply loving, hard-working, polite, funny, sexy, interested, artistic, children-loving, idea-rich, talented, optimistic, brave and loyal. And like Zak writes above, I am beyond of thinking of her as a Chinese woman but rather my dear darling. And though I do value here attributes, in the end I value even more her love for me and her touching words:

"You are too perfect. In my heart in you, I see picture you was small and cute doll, I want you, my dear you. [...] I have you is the biggest happiness, marry you is the greatest happiness, and you are the true love. [...] I can give you a home, I become your wife, to the doll wrote a note, I want to tell you at the wedding, I made a wish on a piece of paper, I write: Chen and Robert married, happy life, forever love."