Your own country is at least as different. And other places need not feel all that foreign.

XiaoHe (my girlfriend) and I, after  a first shock over all the non-Asian faces here, have been finding that  it doesn’t matter much where you are, everyday life is everyday life. Living on campus in Xiangtan may have made things quite a bit easier, since there is no need (except to go to a mall or bigger supermarket) to fight through Chinese traffic. Even last summer in Shanghai, however, though I can get annoyed about people pushig themselves into the subway without regard for propriety and convenience, things weren’t annoying me as much as they do some.

I wish I could give great advice on how to learn to handle cultural differences with  equanimity, but I can only repeat my girlfriend’s words: just adapt to the situation.

How much fun it is to consider different cases, though: Europeans would say that they are more ‘cultured’ than Americans, but the queues in American stores tend to put us to shame. We’d complain about the Chinese pushing, and then you get Europeans taking off their shoes and putting their bare feet on the seat opposite on the Austrian regional train.

There definintely are differences. Your rights are certainly better protected in Europe, and definitely much clearer. At the same time, as long as you don’t care too much about what people say about you (advantage: foreigners) or don’t have to have a run-in with the powers-that-be, China feels just as free, if not much more dynamic and lively.
Europe, on the other hand, feels relaxed and laid-back, and sometimes really somewhat like an old person having become comfortable with how things are and afraid only of change for the worse. Then again, that too is a straw man, just like the China that is an oppressive monolith with an oppressed populace…

In the end, life has its ups and downs, and people have their good sides and bad ones, no matter where you turn. Whether you can handle it or not, need crowds like you or only yourself, want peace of mind and quiet or excitement and a challenge, it’s up to you.

Case in point: culture contact. Our case: my girlfriend and I have gone to my country of origin, Austria, for the summer. The first day caused a bit of a feeling of alienation – not surprisingly; the food can still be challenging (with a few surprises); but, there is aso quite enough that is enjoyable.

China-Austria relations can be a bit strange – and so are the images you are greeted by… On the one hand, this graffito:

On the other hand, der Trend, an Austrian business journal, wonders “is this the future?”:

Apart from people’s looks being different (of course), the main difference one notices is a superficial and all-too-obvious one: It’s true, there is so many fewer people, so much less life on the road, and simply so much less change in Europe, compared to China, things seem somnolent.
Arriving at the site of the Südbahnhof (Southern train station) of Vienna, which is currently being rebuilt into the Central train station and easily the biggest construction site in all of Austria, simply felt like being back home in China…

For a vacation, there has been rather too much running around this first week (except for my running training, as usual), but things have become comfortable enough. Not least, Austrian parents are a lot easier to handle than Chinese ones. (Admittedly, it’s not helping that my Chinese skills are still lacking terribly.) Even the feeling about the temperatures has come to be more in-line – mornings were actualy too cool for us at first, being used to Hunan’s near-constant 30 Celsius. Now, it simply is hot.

Next up, we are going to use the chance to head for Venice.
Bye-bye, use of German skills, hello, crowds of tourists!

After all, only too often, we live as if we were just visiting. Life is short is the attitude, and so people wring as much fun out of it as possible, look for a place that truly feels home, then get bored and start looking for different places, more exciting things, the more perfect partner… I’m sick of it.

I understand and treasure the idea of being a “location-independent professional” able to work wherever you live. Yet, if you don’t put down roots somewhere, at least in this world, you are never going to be at home. And it is a matter of that – not of finding the perfect place that is just right, not of finding the perfect partner, with an eye always over the horizon – and hardly ever seeing where you really are, what your situation actually is. Not least, what person you yourself are.

I have never quite understood that about people who travel just to get places they have been to crossed off their list. Been there, done that – never lived. Nothing against working hard and playing hard, it is a kind of balance. Yet, I think that there is more to a life. Maybe not the “more” that other people seem to be looking for, a something that will just present itself and make life like it is in the movies. (Remember, most people in the movies are just on the sidelines. Maybe even the ones who get killed just to increase the drama. Not everyone’s the hero. In your life, however, you and yours are the main actors – or had better be.)
Having no real interest in where you are, however, that is just sad. And it happens so much, traveling and being home. Do you know where your food comes from? What of it is really of the place where you ate it while traveling, what is native to your own place? Which plants do you find when you just walk out your doors, which of those could be eaten? Who are your neighbors? What’s the history of the place where you live?
There are so many things we don’t know, and if you never ask, you can’t even find if it would interest you. A backyard, a fridge, can hold as many stories as a cathedral, a temple. Computer games may be a lot better at making you feel in control of some aspect of your life, getting better at some skill, but even if it’s fascinating, it still isn’t quite in the real world.
Studying a language and getting to know a different culture, studying history and getting to know your country and society, studying biology and getting to know your backyard – it’s harder, it takes longer to master, but it gets you into the real world. (If you think that all computer games are just stupid, the reverse holds true, too: Get your head in front of that box and check out the virtual world. It’s not all idiots there, either!)

The important thing is this: Learn what you can, find something that interests you, find the interesting things around you, in this world. When it bores you, sorry, but that’s not the world’s fault, it’s yours. So, get crackin’! And learn to live with the boring bits, too. Life’s not just fun and excitement. It’s still what you make of it that matters.

If it ever was right, it hides the complexity of the present. Or actually, it not only hides, it positively misleads: In daily life, (especially young) people show emotions just as much as anywhere else. Chinese also – although valuing calmness, too – are often highly expressive. Not only that, but there are some things which Chinese will very openly comment on (and which Western people would avoid mentioning so directly).

Racism in East Asia is an issue hotly discussed – if not necessarily in East Asia. What makes it so particularly striking, however, is not its prevalence, but that open expression of observations and opinions it is a sign of. It starts with the simple appellation "外国人" the foreigner encounters so much (and oftentimes, in ways which get tiring).

Where the approach to others is particularly striking in China, however, is when it comes to "own others," groupings within China. This, in fact, is the point that makes me think that the discussion about widespread racism in China is somewhat misguided: it is not racism as much as a "group-think" that draws borders very quickly and talks of differences without regard for political correctness. Thus, if it is racism, then it is equal-opportunity racism:

• After all, people in the conservative heartland will point out that traditional Chinese thinking (e.g. about relationships) is a treasure they adhere to, whereas those others in places like Shanghai are just so different.
• Shanghainese, on the other hand, will see themselves as modern, and "外地人," people from other soils, as different, backwards, less modern.
• Talking of somebody as 土, "earthy, peasant-like," is quickly becoming one of the biggest insults, even as the farmers continue to be hailed as the exemplary Chinese.

All those labels are not applied to minorities alone, labels like that can be and are conferred on everybody. For better or worse, it might even be assumed that minorities cannot but be so backward, at least unless they study and develop themselves, whereas ethnically Han Chinese (or other "own" people) should have had better opportunities from the start.

People’s looks, in general, will be commented on rather freely. Not just the clothes, but also the shape: In notable difference to the West, if you are fat and in China, you can expect to be called fat. For the women especially, fat begins at a body shape where a Westerner may still be concerned about anorexia. At least among the younger generation (as I encounter them), it is also not seen as a problem for a woman to tell a guy that he is good-looking. – It’s just a statement, observable by anyone, after all…

Tradition is strong, nonetheless: Some things are not talked about quite so freely, especially following a separation between private and public spheres. Public displays of affection, for example, are becoming more and more common. Sometimes it looks positively as if city – and even more so campus – parks are made for lover’s meetings. There is also a reason why hotels typically offer hourly rates. On the other hand, however, the night is a Chinese lover’s friend, for what people may think of you is still a major issue to think about, and one not necessarily to break free from. Thus, showing or talking about too much that is private is not exactly well-received – to the point that even Chinese husbands may not openly say "I love you" to their wife. Holding hands in public (between a boy and a girl – interaction within genders is much freer) is enough to tell that those two must be a couple; even that can be a bit much in some highly traditional settings.

Where the appearance of an outright masking may be the strongest is when it comes to how information is handled. Where Europeans or Americans may want everybody to be on the same page about plans, and thus provide relevant information (and maybe additional details which may make things more complicated but could have relevance) on a pro-active basis, the Chinese approach tends to be "need to know." Planning also tends to be very short-term, ad-hoc. – Not to hide information and plans from the strangers, however, but just because things are done in a different way.

There quite certainly are too many, too personal, non-productive, blogs out there. And not just on China. And not just blogs. Witness (sorry, but the example is too good), online porn. Whether it’s Steve Jobs or the CCP, they will not stop it – there is just too much of an interest.

So, crowd intelligence all too often seems to move towards the least common denominator, the most base of interests. In China affairs, too, I dare say that a post on sex in China is more of a lure than one on perceptions of gender-appropriate behavior; something outrageous is more likely to garner attention than something thoughtful.

And even where it’s deeper issues and insights that are given, if you go by Adam’s idea, you either are a superstar or you just take up space. Even the Peking Duck, not being in China anymore, has taken up Adam’s post and, basically, declared obsolescence, for example.

On the other hand, even if the internet is like a muddy pool, free for all to wallow in, there are also lotus blossoms rising out of the murk.

As an academic, or something along those lines, writing should be second nature. Publish or perish…
I think I am perished, when it comes to that in a normal academic context. Even if I can “only” be lecturer in China, and educator by writing online, I’ll rather be that breed of new Privatgelehrter, getting back to how academic inquiry was done during its early heydays, though: Making a living from doing honest work, and financing my academic inquiries, following my interests in learning in and about the world, through that.

I am also not at the point of being one of those lotus blossoms rising above (- yet). I am, however, in China now, my interest in China is in how modern Chinese identities are shaped, and I’m trying to have some of the work-in-progress portrayed in these pixels.

My major interest is – and I hope to get better at that – in exploring how we make ourselves at home between traditions and modernity, between culture(s) and nature. With that, I will continue whether I am in China or not, whether I find a university job or work something else.

I could just wait until I have everything written up and edited to perfection, seek a publisher, and get it out as a book, provided I gain approval. I’d much rather practice my writing and put ideas out for discussion, however. – After all, if seeds don’t get into the ground, how is there ever supposed to be a blossom?

If you go by what you hear, even in the midst of the reports on China’s economic growth, it doesn’t sound like a place to be: pollution everywhere, except maybe in those places which are truly backwards, without too much in terms of medical care or other amenities; traffic that is even more lethal than the air and water – and those are not exactly safe; costs for housing or, if you want those, Western, quality products that are just about as high as in the West, but at wage levels that are much lower – and mind you, not everyone is on an expat wage.

Even the economic opportunity seems to be a mixed bag. There is said to be widespread optimism, but it’s more of the kind that you expect to handle whatever life throws at you. (Just ask students around the time of their graduation what they expect of the future.) There are more than enough manufacturing bases, but quality assurance (seemingly) doesn’t work without constant supervision. And that is a keyword for employees, anyways, it seems. People working in China tend to seem rather exasperated about the situation.

You can easily be led astray. If you give too much credence into some of that recent reporting which made it sound as if China were only waiting for Western graduates, if you think that you’ll easily change things for the better, if you need Western food and amenities and expect things to work just the way you have come to expect. There is a reason why the majority of China expats leave early.

Yet, there is something to China.

People make do, enjoy whatever they get and whatever they have – whether it’s making more money or having more time to play, or even warm sunshine in the middle of winter drawing people out of unheated habitations.

Not too many people seem to dream. Not in the way that you are led to dream in the USA, of finding ways to strike it rich, achieve great things by your own doing. (Even though English texts to learn by heart are full of such images, and so are Communist (?) / youth league (?) / school (?) slogans.) They do dream of a good life, know that there should be a place to call one’s own, a family, a car, want to find work – and they’ll simply take their chances, work hard, see what comes.

It’s a problem when that which comes are kickbacks, and people fall into wealth without quite knowing what hit them, just because of the way the system is set up. Still, there are enough people who see their lives improving through their own work, there is an education to enjoy shopping, but be thrifty at the same time – and there is ample opportunity to be thrifty. Lights at home get turned off, food is valued, repair shops are everywhere…

It certainly is a mixed bag, but a truly fascinating one, where every new day can be the same, and yet different at the same time.

Alone on the train, I was thinking, reminiscing:
When I was a bit younger, I watched Michael Palin’s journeys… “Around the World in 80 days“, “Full Circle” around the Pacific…

and I would be particularly fascinated by his adventures in East Asia. Now, I’m on a train in China myself, being here the second year, with everything looking to my being here for a third, and longer, more often – and it doesn’t feel particularly like an adventure.

Sure, it still is a different country, I still can’t understand – let alone speak – anywhere near as much as I’d like to, there is quite enough to wonder about, and yet… I wonder if it’s an issue of my girlfriend making me feel so at home, the academic/teaching context being such a location independent situation (or actually, very much location-based, but rather conditionally so), or a matter of personal attitude.

It sometimes feels as if, had I really been looking for a Buddhist equanimity, I have been rather too successful at it. My computer not working, especially if I want to contact my girl – that is something that can get me raving. Seeing her again will also be emotional. Otherwise, however, I don’t know. Am I following André Heller’s words that ‘the true adventures are in your head – and if they are not in your head, they are nowhere to be found’?

Traveling with Ellis, we were joking that I “just don’t do excitement.”

About languages, I have somewhat lost the excitement about learning them, exploring new ones, and I am looking to get it back. Interest in languages has been so much a part of me, it’s just wrong to lose that (and it’s just the daily grind that has come in between, as it uses up time and motivation to sit down for studies).

Give me some observation in daily life, some comment – or some chile peppers, for that matter – however, and watch me go.
I guess it’s just not daily life, and even less the shallow excitement about exotic places, that gets me. What’s behind daily life, why people act the way they do, how we can get ourselves around to living well in a planetary context, those are the things that do get me excited.

In traditionally-minded China, if a relationship is to be considered the real thing, it’s considered as a pact for life. Marriage is not a question of wanting to or not, deciding based upon personal feelings about it. It’s a matter of when – if that.

Trying out different people, making lots of experiences, is diametrically opposed to the Chinese idea of what makes for a good partner, especially a good woman. Hence – or so it seems to me – the parent’s strong desire to be involved or even in control when it comes to their daughter choosing a life partner… There are not supposed to be any second chances.
[Mind you, I’m in a part of the country that is particularly conservative. And there is still considerable diversity, of course.]

Now, China used to have the tradition that the woman entered her husband’s family, took his name, and furthermore had only tenuous ties to her family of origin, if those. Things have changed quite a bit, with the daughters also supposed to care about (and for) their parents in their old age – and with both husband and wife keeping their names.

Austria, like Germany (and others) used to make the wife change to her husband’s family name. However, things here have also changed considerably, and it’s basically up to the couple’s choosing now.

In spite of all feminism, the old tradition is still dominant; hyphenated names have been somewrat on the rise. My brother was one of those, still truly few, men who took their wife’s name – basically, because our family name is as common as, well, Smith. (It is the German version of Smith, and therewith one of the most common family names in German).

When he married, a friend of his asked if I now had to keep the family line, name-wise. My mom stood by and shook her head vigorously “no.” Somehow, it was clear that  I would probably find a wife somewhere outside. It was clear enough that my parents sometimes joked that they would be happy enough if only she spoke English…

So, to me, in deference to my significant other’s culture and the challenge she is also willing to take on by  having me as her partner, I’ll want to take on my girlfriend’s name whe we marry.

It will hardly be a change for a less common name – to one of the names of the 老百姓 (“old/honorable hundred names,”  as the phrae for the Chinese common people puts it). It may even be a part of nearly going native, and it could be seen as just trying to counter the common notion that the men take, the women are taken – especially when intercultural issues are of effect in the relationship. (More on that later.)

Yet, it’s our plan. It will certainly be something of a logistical challenge, but I see it as my responsibility to make a family and become a part of her family.

China has only just come from a truly planned economy to economic openness, but that with nearly full force. Companies come and go with little regard for their workforce, and employees are ready to switch jobs at the call of a higher wage. Underneath all that, however, is a longing for stable good lives, parents’ strong (but rather misguided) push towards the same, and a strong script for how a life has to proceed.

In school, you are pushed to study hard, get a good mark on the GaoKao (the university entrance examination), and forget about everything else. For those of higher status, the pressure may be starting even earlier, with only a good kindergarten leading into a good school, leading into a renowned university.

At university, there may be some further pressure to be more self-reliant – or at least, there are complaints that students weren’t so quite enough. They still aren’t really supposed to be, however: parents want to control their social life, teachers have to be shown respect and not be questioned.

All in all, however, entrance into a good university is seen as leading to good careers. And even at not-so-good universities, the pressure of the GaoKao is gone, and the college graduation certificate is rather certain thanks to China’s class grade system (i.e., automatic advancement, basically regardless of passing grades). Moreover, as students are well-aware, the university education is leaning heavily towards the theoretical, the learning of facts. Therefore, entering into working life will hinge on finding a company willing to teach you the ropes.

In regards to social life, the parents are likely going to tell their child to concentrate on studies and forget about it. Well, not totally: there is a considerable number of events and groups the students could and should participate in. Those who want to (or are made to want to) will also work towards Communist party membership. Having a boyfriend/girlfriend is rather frowned upon by many conservative parents, however, even while peers will see it as strange not to be in a relationship. At least where the thinking is still more conservative (and it widely is), there should not be any love affairs that go too far, however. Girls who … let’s just say, go to hotel rooms with their lovers… are frowned upon. (Not surprisingly, as virginity until marriage is considered a major asset, if not necessity.) College students have only been allowed to marry since the relevant law was amended a few years ago.

The pressure mounts to find work. Four-year college is typically more like three years, because the last year is spent with internships or even the start of one’s working life. Around that time, approaching 25 years of age, there is also a considerable shift in attitude regarding the women: the parents will still want to have the main say in their relationships and want them to be more than careful, but will want them to find a future partner – or increasingly start doing that for them.

For the men, the pressure is similar but different: they may be given some more time to get married, but only because it’s seen as a sine qua non to have a place of one’s own, a car, and preferably a stable job. Cars can be had comparatively cheap, but apartments in the cities are immensely expensive (and few people would want to live in the countryside) and outside of government employ, stable jobs are a thing of the Communist planned-economy past.

As a result, the proffered attitude has become that the women should look for a sufficiently rich man from a family with good connections. Sometimes, there are articles proclaiming a rather more realistic search for good men who will work hard and be faithful and conscientious. “Naked marriage” without ring and ceremony, or “even without car and apartment” (as the China Daily recently put it in an online poll), is hotly debated.

After marriage, pressure is for a child to follow soon. Mothers are then expected to focus on the child’s education – I have even had female students argue that their own education were so that they could find a better husband and raise their children better. Husbands at least tend to participate in household work – if they so do. Often enough, the parents will in fact both work, and the children will stay with their grandparents to be raised (and spoiled) by them. Teaching will go as before, for the children to learn that they need to grow into good adults who can and will take good care of their parents when they grow old…

To an American or European, it sounds right out of the 1950′s. Our dominant idea has become that you should yourself decide how you want to live. This makes it all the more noticeable how strong the "script" for life remains in China – even if this is quite the cartoon version I presented here.

The only difference to the earlier Euro-American model, however, seems to be that the house is supposed to come before marriage. In spite of the changes brought on by the Communist government’s drives towards modernization (not least, laws and campaigns for women’s equality, as well as the single-child policy), and even through these last decades of social and economic change, this traditional view of how a life should unfold continues to be strong – if it hasn’t just been made stronger, in many respects.

The result is a lot of pressure, but also a sense of stability – a stable course of life, at least. Whether it fits in with the rapid pace of change, however, is a different issue. When the parents switch from not wanting their children to even consider having a boy-/girlfriend to wanting them married within a few years, maturity may be lacking; when everybody aims for the best universities and the same stable jobs, most are going to be disappointed and many opportunities for entrepreneurship may be missed. Then again, knowing what you are expected to do can also free one from having to decide everything themselves, and Chinese still seem to be rather good at taking in stride whatever trouble or opportunity comes along.

There is not much that makes my emotions go high. Rather, it is a Buddhist equanimity I seek. For being in China, and seeking to understand and maybe improve relationships between China and the West, it is a necessity. I do, however, feel strongly about relationships, of us humans to the world, of myself to my significant other; and I have a rather passionate problem with ignorance.

When my students don’t know something, I don’t have any problem with it. They know different things, are educated in different ways, so I can’t presume they have to know and think the same way I do. (Of course, I will still try to educate them; that’s what I’m here to do.)
When somebody simply presupposes to know, based on stereotypes or cliché, however, I passionately object. This is true ignorance. It is particularly irksome when it comes to my personal China-Western relationship, my love with a Chinese woman: There are only comparatively few intercultural couples, though their numbers have been increasing. Amongst people with an interest in China, they seem rather common (but of course, an interest in a country and culture will lead to increased contact). And still, there is such predominance of Chinese female–Western male couples that many seem only too quick to judge that it’s a matter of “yellow fever:” the Western males’ fascination with the Oriental woman.

Orientalism has been around for a while. It is, I would say, a selective misunderstanding of the East, interpreting it in ways that turn it from cultures and people that are somewhat different into a true ”other” that is more of a Western dream world than based in fact. First, it was the mythical origin of spices, silk, and porcelain; later, it became the home of Shangri-La and people who were either much better or much worse than “us,” in all their “otherness.”

Even the anthropological interest was, at the beginnings of the discipline of cultural anthropology, a male gaze fixated on the extreme, the allure of the exotic. Something of that is still around (albeit, I’m happy to say, tends to be found and rooted out in the academic discipline):
• Not so few documentaries suggest that Asians, uninhibited by Christian ideas of (sexual) mores, would have a very different approach to the subject.
• Not so few Western men study Japanese because they want a Japanese girlfriend, for example.
• Even more in general, there do seem to be enough men who have an ideal image of the women they want. For some, it’s busty blondes; for others, the Oriental beauty.

I was asked by one of my students in Latvia whether I preferred blondes or brunettes.
I asked him if he had ever heard of hair coloration… it’s a question that simply does not compute for me. Why would I put on blinds when the world is colorful, especially in the unexpected corners? (Although I must say, I also don’t understand people who are just after affairs, collecting experiences as if relationships didn’t count, only themselves.)

Thus, I’m amused – and appalled – by two observations surrounding that issue:

For one, people get blinded so easily by their own fantasies. We are the species that has the capacity to think. We much prefer having the feeling that we know without expending the effort of too much thought, however. And thus, we go chasing after dream images we have built up on the basis of little fact.
Ask somebody what it means when a Western guy is with an Asian woman, and it’s yellow fever. And for the woman, it means that she is after money, or a foreign visa, or the idea of a better life somewhere else. Ask what these women are like, and people will probably get back to you with notions of slender body, black hair, almond eyes, demure behavior, gentleness – and at the same time, if they have heard about the whole issue of “ no Christian ideas about sex being sinful here,” there will probably also be some idea about a lack of inhibitions, and fear of “gold diggers.”

Amusingly, Chinese seem to fall into very similar stereotyping: Not only are Western women tall and curvy vixens; ideal Chinese women – or women ideal in the Chinese mind (?) – are slender, gentle, demure and also refined beauties who will be true to their husband (even if he is unfaithful, it sometimes seems) and good as a mother. Japan and Korea sometimes come up as the home of the Chinese man’s ideal woman, by the way. [Update: As Jocelyn pointed out, Vietnam should be added to the list. And there, it's not just an issue of character or body. Rather, the often-quoted aspect of economic status between the countries/people is in favor of the Chinese males.]

Most amusingly to me, in a very mean way, is the simple observation that many people are in for quite a surprise.
Japanese may not have inhibitions to portraying sex, at least in manga, but even here the social norms are very strong. What you can and cannot do, and especially that you cannot talk about it, are things to better consider. China has kept to its traditional mores even more strongly, and those value family and a distinctly non-cavalier attitude towards relationships very highly. Yes, there is still prostitution and extramarital affairs, but that does not change the attitude. And thus, a man who finds his ideal oriental beauty willing to jump in bed with him at once probably has not found a woman who is an ideal in too many other ways…
And yes, of course, there tend to be almond eyes, black hair and slender bodies. Those are just the outside attributes, though. There is also a way of dressing and acting that is feminine to the point of being cutesy, and it seems to put many men at ease with their male identity opposite a demure woman (and to some extent, that seems to hold true for both Western and Chinese men) – but depending on the person, that gentle phoenix might easily be reborn into a fierce house-dragon.

Images can be deceiving, haven’t you heard?

In relationships, going into them with preconceptions and blinds is particularly silly. If you are just looking for a quick adventure and a certain body type appeals to you, it’s a different issue. (A very different one, perhaps.) Bringing the attitude that this were just normal from one social and cultural context into another could be more than problematic, however. Especially in a place like China, where relationships are typically nothing that is taken lightly. – But I should think that this would easily become a problem in the American Bible Belt, just as well (and people there would have guns…).
Ultimately, even people who may be adamant they’ll never marry probably will, however.

Looking for a partner for life, images we hold are like maps that don’t point north.
Perchance, you will still find the right place for you. There is at least as good a chance, if not a much better one, that this map will lead you astray, however. Some value the adventure and experience that this can bring, and I’m enough of a liberal European to think that, as long as they don’t hurt others on their way, so much the better for them. In China, though, they should better be aware that carefree behavior – even if it seems to be heard about a lot – is a surefire way to social ostracism. (This seems to be part and parcel of why it’s heard about so much, just as “only bad news is good news.”)

To me personally, that has been one of the main issues in the relationship: To make sure that even suggestions of a carefree attitude towards it would be avoided; to act in accordance with the strictest – best? – traditional, conservative ideas about the progress of a relationship. Admittedly, the Chinese conservatism suits my thinking on relationships. I may seek adventure and experience in going to live in different places, but am looking for a partner for life, to share life with, not for a collection of relationship experiences. That is yet another issue of image, at least as others come to see it, though: you can do your best, but if somebody wants to presume the worst, it’s hard to change fixed attitudes. It is not impossible, though.

And ultimately, beyond all the images, the important thing in the relationship is the two persons that make it up, and whether they fit together and are happy with each other. Or actually, since this is China we are talking about, it will also be an issue of how happy the parents are going to be with the relationship… but that’s a somewhat different story, and it seems that Chinese parents (as much as they want to have a say) will also come around if they see that it is a good relationship…