Happy Valentine's Day

Or Happy Lover’s Day if you’re literally translating from Chinese.

In honor of this holiday and in celebration of the fact that I just finished a book I’ve been reading since November, I want to share some of my thoughts on romance in China. Some of these thoughts are my own and from my own interpretation of what I have seen or heard from my local friends. Some of the thoughts are not mine so I want to give credit to William Jankowiak and his research informants when he wrote a book called Sex, Death, and Hierarchy in a Chinese City. The book is an ethnography of the city where I live and was researched and written about 20 years ago.

And they lived happily ever after…
I think that as an American, this is the ending I always expect. Our literature and movies portray some very unrealistic ideas about romance and a sometimes soap opera-induced view of how things should be. Everything works out in the end and the couple rides off into the sunset. Most of my local friends tell me that all of our movies are so unrealistic because they all have happy endings. In contrast, in Chinese literature and movies about love stories, the typical ending is tragic. Normally, EVERYONE dies. (Anyone seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or House of Flying Daggers or The Banquet or a World Without Thieves?) I remember when I was student, the love stories we would read in class all had the same ending….no matter what, the couple never gets to be together in the end. As an American I interpret it as a “bad” ending, but for the Chinese I think they would say it’s a “real” ending. I think that’s one reason Titanic did SOOO well here. To this day you can hear the song playing in dorm rooms, coffee shops, and hotel elevators. They love the tragic ending.

Here’s some of what Mr. Jankowiak had to say about romance in Chinese literature: “The power of romantic attraction leads to feelings of passion, jealousy, yearning for exclusiveness, and unrequited suffering.” So because of the “destructive power of passion…the family often went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that its offspring would not haphazardly or impulsively fall in love.”

"Romantic tales served as morality tales designed to teach the younger generation that love was not an end in itself but a by-product of marriage, the formation of the family, and the continuance of society.”

Romance is for dating
In the book, the whole chapter on romance was sort of depressing for me that so many of his informants thought that basically all forms of romance ended with when a couple got married. If not then, then especially when they had children. This aspect I think has changed some since it was written as there is a little more freedom to marry for love now than there was 20 years ago, but still. People said things like, “when you are married you have obligations. The mystery is over.” Most in this city “assume that the loss of romantic intensity is an inevitable aspect of marriage.” Again, coming from my happy-ending American mindset I want to scream, “NO! You get married and love each other forever!” I know keeping the passion alive must take some work, but that so many folks found it “inevitable” to fall out of love was depressing. One man quoted said, “In America 50 % of marriages in end in divorce. In China, 50 % of marriages are unhappy.”

individual desire versus social obligation
Divorce is becoming more common, but still rare. And another factor in the “unhappy marriages” is the pressure to please your family and the society as a whole with your choice of partner. I know many of my local friends have broken up with guys they really, really liked because their family wouldn’t approve of the guy. I know we have this to an extent in America, but we still have a HUGE amount of freedom in who we choose to date or marry with little consideration of how the decision will affect the greater community or anyone beyond ourselves, really. We can relatively easily marry outside our social class, ethnic group, or educational background with little criticism. But the same is not true here. Regardless of who they “love” most still feel more pressure to choose someone who is “suitable” in the eyes of their family and society.

Master manipulators
I know women in general tend to be manipulative by nature. But I used to get extra frustrated with my girl friends here who I feel like are master manipulators when it comes to “catching” a guy. (Let’s just say Elizabeth Elliott’s principles are not closely followed). I’m not saying it’s right or good, but now that I understand more of their pressure, I more understand why they do the things they do. I appreciate that in America I have the freedom to be 27 and be single without much harassment from family and friends to hurry up and get married. Not so here. Unmarried women over 28 are often teasingly referred to as “old girls” and all women are expected to be married by 30. And you can’t marry just anyone. Especially for a woman, it is not good to “marry down” so you have to find someone with the same or greater social status than yourself. Most of my local friends my age stress out about this constantly. A girl who worked at the hotel for awhile when I first got here is only 25 but already freaked out that she doesn’t have a boyfriend. She said, “if it takes about two years to date and make sure we’re right for each other and I haven’t even started that process yet, it may be too late.” A girl who works in the reservation department once asked me about why I’m not “looking” or doing anything to find a husband and I told her I didn’t want to manipulate the situation. She said, “I don’t want to manipulate things either, but I’m not going to sit around and wait for it to happen. I’m going to put myself in the best possible position.”

I think there’s also a tendency for both parties to be a little false in the dating period because of the pressure for things to “work out.” Jankowiak found, “It is not unusual to find men complaining that women were ‘less timid, less shy, and very difficult to control the longer you knew them.’” But, we do this too. Dress up and act all mannerly for the first months of dating until reality comes out.

Ok. I think that’s all for now. I have some laundry and packing to do. Happy Valentine’s Day!