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tldr: Chinese men may be an unplumbed resource for FDS-oriented Western women
Disclaimers:
- This post refers to Chinese men who grew up in Chinese/East Asian cultures, not Chinese men who grew up in Western cultures.
- Yes, I know Chinese history contains thousands of years of grinding misogyny; it is a relevant issue but outside the scope of this post.
- For various reasons, I am not advocating that women start pouncing on Chinese men en masse, but I think sharing my observations of Chinese marriages can help FDSers to raise/strengthen our standards.
Background:
My parents and grandparents grew up in China, and I lived in China for a total of seven years. I consider myself a close observer of contemporary Chinese culture.
Here are the bare minimum standards a modern, urban Chinese man will expect himself to fulfill within a romantic relationship:
- To qualify for marriage, he must have an apartment, a car, and a stable job. If he cannot provide these things on his own, then he knows he is not ready to look for a wife. When his wife/girlfriend moves in, she is not expected to pay any portion of the rent/mortgage or living expenses. (I remember, anecdotally, that my aunt in Shanghai was appalled when I told her most women in the U.S. expect to split the cost of living with their significant others.)
- Men absolutely expect to be the breadwinners in courtship and in marriage. In Chinese culture, it is generally unacceptable for a man not to have a job that provides comfortably for the family. If he does not have a job, society will shame him, his family will shame him, and his wife will consider divorce. From the time he and his wife start dating, he takes care of all their recreational financial needs. For example, it is customary, when a young, unmarried couple goes shopping, for the man to pay his girlfriend's shopping expenses. She does not need to thank him when he pays, as her presence is "thanks" enough. His money is their money, and her money is her money. Again, this is bare minimum.
- Men expect to help around the house every day. I have not met a Chinese husband who does not cook, clean, or do the laundry regularly. Many Chinese men (including one of my grandfathers), in addition to working full-time jobs, are the primary cooks and launderers for their households.
- Men expect to defer to their wives on all social and financial matters. It is not uncommon for a man to give his wages to his wife so she can decide how to pay their bills. How much "allowance" he receives is up to her. Most Chinese men have absolutely no problem with this arrangement. Additionally, the wife decides what he eats, when he eats, what he wears, who he socializes with, and who they invite into their house. She makes the rules for the children, and he enforces them.
- Men expect to provide emotional support. In China, there's the concept of sajiao, in which women are expected to lash out and "be unreasonable" towards the man sometimes, and it's the man's responsibility to comfort her in her moments of stress.
- No Chinese man would dare to have "female friends". Spending one-on-one time with a woman who is not his wife, sister, or mother is unthinkable. No decent Chinese husband would disrespect his wife this way.
- Chinese men do not tend to be alcoholics, drug addicts, or sex addicts. It's simply not part of their upbringing.
Again: I am not advocating that women start dating Chinese men indiscriminately; I merely think sharing my observations can help Western women to raise/maintain their standards, as Western women are often shamed (even on this forum!) for expecting men to pay for living expenses, etc.
To add to this, I think women need to be aware, while yes, these expectations exist, whether men meet these is a whole other issue.
Just like in western countries, there are always far too many scrotes grumbling about the "injustice" of it all, and men who begrudgingly do as expected but are seething about it.
For obvious reasons, there are a lot of men who are not just the only child, but also the only grandchild. The family pressure to "carry on the family line" is huge. So they don't have to love you or even especially like you to want to use your womb.
Sometimes that means abducting women from neighbouring countries.
If you are not Asian, be prepared to deal with some weird hang-ups about race. For a while, I worked in Asia for company that put on events geared towards wealthy Chinese people. One time my (Chinese) boss hired this American dance trope because, as he told me: "it looks prestigious to have white women dancing around". Well, joke was on him when the very nice white lady who ran the dance trope hired all Asian performers for the event to be culturally sensitive. I didn't have the heart to tell her why my boss wasn't happy. 😅
Despite how there are so many more men than women, men still want to hoard multiple women. Though it tends to be the older men who do this - they are more likely to have the means, and they grew up in a time when men had multiple wives and concubines (still legal until the middle of the 20th century - that is not long enough ago).
Relevant article:
Number of unhappy wives in China more than doubled since 2012
So much of that sounds remarkably similar to what's causing wives to be unhappy in the west. People will be people no matter where they live! 😄
Remove that Chinese men phrase and replace it with Japanese men, or Indian men and everything is still true. Why will I spend any resources trying to date in a culture that openly got rid of female foetuses and provides almost half the number of missing girls globally when there are better cultures for movement. There’s a lot more diversity to humanity than just for that 2 billion population?
Chinese men are also popular at immigrating so much so we have them now everywhere in India as well and no women really ever marry any of them. That culture is more walk on a thin line, while we love our independence.
I would take your advice with enough salt to serve Dandi March.
I'm not Chinese, but I agree with this, and it has reflected in my dating experience. It also applies somewhat to Chinese-American men. I wanted to add two points below.
- Chinese men are expected to take care of their parents in old age. That labor does not automatically fall on the woman.
- Chinese parents are very academically strict with their sons and daughters. It is not acceptable for the son to be an unemployed bum in that culture.
- Male gender preference is still common in Chinese culture. If you are marrying into a Chinese family, make sure you investigate attitudes of in-laws regarding male versus female children. You do not want your girl child to be treated like a second class citizen by your in-laws.
I'm not Chinese, I'm Latina, but I speak a bit of Chinese and have lots of Chinese friends. My experience has been that Chinese men in their 30s or younger are dumpy, have beer guts, and beat their wives. They almost all smoke too.
It's no wonder Chinese women want nothing to do with marriage. That or they want to marry a white man.
Chinese here, from a country in Southeast Asia. My experience is wildly different from OP. 🙃
I see many men here wanting to go 50/50 in finances, but do the bare minimum with house chores and childcare.
the most expensive first date i have ever been on was with a chinese-american who never even asked me to pay, so i can attest to the second point.
Can I just say something from a purely eye-candy perspective, but some of the mixed Chinese/Australian men I see around are hot as fuck.
I have definitely seen this in a friend's relationship.
Drawback though for childfree women is that this type of man (and his parents) will almost certainly want biological children.
I have little experience with this myself, but from what I've seen, yes, Chinese (and it seems also Vietnamese) men are very responsible and hard working because that's their upbringing. Correct me if I'm wrong but I also felt that they're not as big on romance or showing affection in other ways. It might be a great fit though if you need someone who has a very strong sense of duty and is dependable. Some women find it most romantic when men get shit done and there's merit to that. As someone else already said, you probably also need to be prepared to put family above all else, which can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on your life goals.
This is interesting! I’m not from a Chinese background or even an Asian background so I don’t know too much about the culture. But from what you write here, it seems that they raise the boys to be a good husband.
I used to work with a Vietnamese woman and her ex husband was Chinese and her now boyfriend was white. She basically said the same things about Chinese men. And was having a hard time with her boyfriend because he treated her so different. Im sure things didn’t work out with her first husband because he was still a scrote even though he had these qualities. So I don’t think we can just go by a man’s cultural background
Hii
I have never dated a Chinese men but I already flirted with one (nothing happened). That’s true that he was not stingy with money. He already wanted to do the shopping stuff described in your post. I was very young at this time (18) and I wasn’t really interested but that was a good point.
Also, for providing, I think middle Eastern men are great too (even if it’s a minefield for some stuff. Always be vetting)
The only advantage I can think of when south east Asian men are mentioned is that they are physically smaller and softer than men from other ethnicities, which is a plus since you can easily defend yourself in case you're fit and martial art savvy.
See, you can cherry pick from any culture if you have enough privilege (caste, religious or class) to do so. Indian and Chinese cultures have long, turbulent and very complicated histories. It's impossible to generalise. It all boils down to identity or class location honestly. Just, keep the FDS principles in mind and do your best to be as independent as possible. You don't have to rely on any cultural blueprints. I'm Indian btw. I'm not sure if this helps.
Personal experience with Chinese men is bound to vary.
However, OP brings up a valid point that these expectations exist so there are more Chinese men who meet them.
These kinds of provider expectations don't even exist for white American men barring a tiny subset.