GoKunming Forums

Do NOT marry a Chinese woman

michael2015 (784 posts) • 0

It's a China thing - son wants to get married - gotta have the car and home - nest pre-prepared.

There's also the alleged issue of paying the bride's parents the dowery - but that's apparently negotiable these days. But the house and car - almost mandatory.

NOT always - but generally.

Liumingke1234 (3297 posts) • 0

I don't know about the 'the car' but the house is a definite deal breaker. Having a place to live is more important to the family than having a car. Job/house maybe a car.

GoK Moderator (5096 posts) • 0

Agree about the nest prep thing. Many parents would expect this, before they allow the daughter to marry the guy. Otherwise it may be assumed he will be a bad provider.

There is a more recent trend of 'marrying naked'. Where a woman with her own financial security (job or family) will marry a man with less economic power, for love. With so many young Chinese able to find a spouse, this shift in social attitudes makes sense.

Not sure I agree with daughters staying closer. In my wife's family the old value that a married daughter is part of her husbands family still holds (a bit like chattel). In that respect a daughter may be seen as less of a financial burden, as they won't need to be married off with a house and car.
In divorce, the daughters usually go to the mother and the sons go to the father. Although the father's may be expected to help with an estranged daughter's education. If the father remarries, old age and funeral costs are usually the responsibility of his new family unit, especially if he has children with the new wife.
In reality there will be lots of old models, because China is so diverse, and new models; as China is rapidly changing socially, culturally, and economically.

Liumingke1234 (3297 posts) • 0

The age of the parents when you get married also factors in. When I met my wife, her mother

and father (her father passed last year at 94)were already in their 70's/80's. My wife priority is her mother

right now so she needs to stay close to her (she 88 now).

Jax88 (2 posts) • 0

I have no clue where to start this, but here I go.

First of all (like my good Friend AJ always says) relationships are never easy.

Turns out that having a relationship with a Chinese woman/girl is even more complicated.

This story I’m going to write down is from my experiences I have had in China relating to that. And yeah peeps I’m not the only person this has happened to.

So a little side note: No I’m not that “laowai” aka foreigner that “hates” China And has nothing better to do with my life. (Yes in my first years of being in China I was most definitely like that)

I’m writing this for myself and more for others, because you need to know where you are getting yourself into. (Nothing against the mainland Chinese people btw) Yeah they do differ from Taiwan and HK and of course the ones born and or raised outside of China.

That being said, the mainland Chinese are in general very much the same in the way they think and do things. (Exception there of course). But cultural practices can very much differ from city to city (even within the city itself) let alone from province to province and from the south to the north east to west.

I’m originally from Holland and I’ll do my best to make you understand my “Chinglish”

I hope you can take your time to read it all, I’ll try to inform you to the best of my grammatical abilities.

I came to Fuzhou China (south of CN next to Taiwan) in the beginning of 2010 and was introduced to my (up north of china).By now my (ex-wife) by two other foreigners in the beginning of 2012.

She moved in soon after I met her (yeah that was my bad) and got married later that year on Dec 25th.Marry F-ing Christmas to me…(so it turned out) *ok I’ll try to keep the swearing down.

She was about 27 when I got married to her and I’m 6 year older. *pay attention now: When a Chinese “woman” is about 28 her mental age will be of that of an 12 year old girl by western standards. (Yeah she will be in puberty from about 20 till 40 on the average). All that comes with: Tantrums being unreasonable selfish and Childlike behavior.

(You should already see those warning signs before you get married) *yes I thought to myself the same as many of you guys reading this: It will al turn into a fairytale after we are married and have a kid or two.

Oh how wrong could one be, from expecting to go from a 5 to an 8 went from a 5 to a -0. (a 3 would already have been like Really F@#$@$cked up.)

Domination has begun: You become her little B$TCH and she is only going be me me me oh poor me...

Money Money Money (don’t worry you’ll end up with jack SH!T) She will mismanage all of your hard earned cash.(so keep money in your own bank account under your name) Don’t buy a house or car if you live in China because that will be under her name only. * Yeah I personally know of many foreigners that lost a lot of money that way. (And also with doing business with Chinese people in mainland China).

For me the biggest problems started with the birth of “our” son. And her mother coming down to take care / help out. (What I honestly thought was a great idea).

Now here is where it comes down to right: You are still going to be the little B!TCH (yeah you could try to take charge but they won’t let you do that) Even If it would be possible to take charge it most likely would be punching her into a pulp. (What I’m A: against and B: won’t do any good because they are too stubborn) *Like that little puppy that keeps peeing on the sofa (because it’s missing a few chromosomes.

Anyway her mom came here, and there was a discussion because of them sleeping together with the baby on our bed (babies have cribs put them in there).The mom on one side my ex on the other the little guy in-between them. When I walked up and found out that the arm of my ex was covering his mouth and nose. When I freak out they denied it like it didn’t happen.( good example for the topic “FACE” and how to save FACE). I wish I had pulled my phone out of my pocket and made a picture of it.(of course my first reaction was babies life first talk later kind of move).

Here’s a good example for “ITS OUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY” #theflooristoocold: But the floor turned out warmer than the bed he used to sleep on at that time. It was summer and he was just about 3 or 4 months old. (Just before my ex decided to leave with “our” son and with her mom) to stay without my consent and go up to the north of China. I put our baby play gym on the living room floor and wanted him to spend some time in the living room because his life was more bounded to our upstairs bedroom at that time.(well most of his time he was upstairs on the bed).When I put him down on the baby gym his grandmother went apesh!t. Because the floor is too cold (this is Fuzhou summer and it gets hot). So I double check the floor to see if it’s cold or not. I decided to get the digital thermometer to check the floor temperature (reading about 26 degrees / 80 Fahrenheit.(yes this one can also check the temperature of any item between -3 to about 80 Celsius). Then I went upstairs to check the temperature of the bed he stayed on and that was 26.8 (the bed was warmer than the floor). When confronting my ex and her mother they did the only “right” thing they could do. Not take any responsibility or “give in”. And of course I “lost” also that battle. *YOU CAN NOT “WIN” BECAUSE IT’S ONLY THE CHINESE WAY! They only can listen to some Chinese person that has more face or simply outranks them.

Same with a guy I know here, he had a one hour discussion with his wife. This was about his son playing with the wife’s phone (3 year old kid). After one hour of bickering, she “gave” in and said ok ill don’t let him play with it. Guy goes shopping and comes back, yeah the kid is playing with that same phone again. As you can see, it simple is a battle you can’t win.

With this stuff being said, and yes there is soo much more to write down. Of course you can be the so called “lucky” one and don’t have these problems. Because you girlfriend / wife is “different”. What I doubt she is in all honesty.

The saddest part that came was when my mother-in-law and ex and son moved back up north of China for about 3 weeks. That quickly turned into months. Me and my ex had many arguments and shit went from bad to worse. One of the main reasons was of course about money. And me saying that it was time for me to start managing it. Something she wasn’t that happy about (I guess it was because of her credit card debts). What she never really talked about, my guess is that she had major debs before we even met. Even if I can’t proof this, but if something smells like shit and it looks like shit you might want to consider it probably will be sh!t.

What really fucked me up for some time (and still does from time to time) is that my son is about a year and a half and I have seen him 3 months out of that. Peeps embassies can’t do jack for you her in China

besides helping you in case of a “true” emergency (and still not able to do a lot) or they can help you with a new passport or handle visa appliances. So they set up a report with all the details so they do know about this. What I didn’t know that under Dutch law, what my wife did was in fact committing a crime called kidnapping. Like the dude from the embassy said: Keeping a child away from one of the parents without consent from the other under a different address is kidnapping. Then you could say, why you didn’t go to the Chinese cops. Yeah, well my experience is that if I would have is going to be laowai VS China. And I would have lost that battle.

Anyway it’s my birthday and ironically it is also father’s day while I’m typing this… SO happy F-ing B-Day to me. 19-06-2016

So, the question now could be: Whom can make it work with a Chinese girl….? Well there are multiple answers to that. Laid back people without any care in the world. (Stoners that can still function aka do their jobs to) If you could lower your standards and leave your morals at home life in China will be easier (and so there for the relationship with your girl). Then again if you are like me and have a slight case of OCD and you are somewhat a control freak, life will be a lot harder…(grinning ). Also if you are able to get your girl to your home country life will be easier because her family won’t be breathing down your neck 24/7 yeah most of the time the grandparents will move in with you guys after the first child is born. So that will give you zero privacy and will probably drive you to the point where you want to blow your brains out. Unless of course you just say this following mantra (and put it on repeat): My life is good, China and its people are reasonable and not selfish at all. TIC TIC TIC (This Is China).

Then you also will have different types of girls in China, educated uneducated from a wealthy background new and old money and the working class and the “poor”. Then you can have the adventure girl, the left over ones and the: Hello you are my new fashion accessory, and you are replaceable.

There was a African friend of mine (in china the lowest “quality” laowai you could find) remember laowai = foreigner. That was having a relationship with a Chinese girl from Ningbo. After dating her for about 5 years and she now being 26/27 years old. Its marriage time ASAP (anything after 28 and you are considered a left over woman in China) There for you are sort of expired and doomed never to get married unless you can find a laowai… So the girl decides to go back to her hometown and she got married to some wealthy Chinese guy after 4/5 months. The way I see it it’s like this: here is proof that it mostly business and to get your parents and peers of your back. It’s also somewhat super F’ed up in my opinion, because she just left the laowai for dead just because he didn’t want to get married at that time. GUYS !!! 5 years together and you just go, oh sorry I need to get married so let’s do this or I find someone else COME ON!

Even a more F’ed up story is about a local girl that got married and has two kids with a laowai . They lived together here in China. So what happened (and no I don’t know the full story) she bumped into another laowai (this dude got money) and while still married to the laowai got pregnant. #golddigger now they are going to move back to this guy’s home country with their new baby. This girl is leaving here other kids with her ex here in China and is moving on to a “better” place.

So to get back to dating Chinese girls from different backgrounds. If you really need to or want to there are some options in my opinion. You could go for the left over girls /woman that have made it by Chinese upper class standards. Because she is basically the boss of the whole family and will do what she wants to do. (Family won’t bother or will bother less in your guys relationship) . Younger girl with wealthy parents and with younger older brother (very important she has a brother) because the focus will be more towards him. So it’s better if he is already married of course… But what will help you out even more, are the ones that have lived abroad for at least one or more years. Because those are the ones that know there is more than “5000” years of China and “THE China way”. Its works both ways btw because China is for sure a lot different from what I thought it was before coming over here.

So to get back to dating Chinese girls from different backgrounds. If you really need to or want to there are some options in my opinion. You could go for the left over girls /woman that have made it by Chinese upper class standards. Because she is basically the boss of the whole family and will do what she wants to do. (Family won’t bother or will bother less in your guys relationship) . Younger girl with wealthy parents and with younger older brother (very important she has a brother) because the focus will be more towards him. So it’s better if he is already married of course… But what will help you out even more, are the ones that have lived abroad for at least one or more years. Because those are the ones that know there is more than “5000” years of China and “THE China way”. Its works both ways btw because China is for sure a lot different from what I thought it was before coming over here.

Now as far as it gets to what decisions I made in the past regarding my marriage, I hoped and at one point in time thought my ex was different. (oh boy how wrong can one be). There were many warning signs but we both took some shortcuts and lie to our self’s that everything would be better (well at least I did). But at one point she got pregnant (I never wanted kids or get married) and for some good reasons I have to say. But let’s not get into that right now. What I should have done was trusted my guts (yeah I blame all this on myself) I knew or thought this would all turn into sh!t and so it did. I just hope that by sharing this “Oh note to self” :( writing helps a lot btw). That the people out there can learn from my experiences (because like me, most have no clue what they are getting themselves into). I don’t want to put the people of China (mostly mainland) down or make them look over the top bad. But my opinion is that they are just another breed of “people”. And if your guts say this girl is the “ONE” then put a 110% into it.

So why this whole piece, If I can help / warn people about the consequences of getting together with a Chinese girl. And if I can save someone from wasting their time and saving them from A lot of problems and hurt then my story and my pain haven’t been a waste after all. (at least a little less) .

Liumingke1234 (3297 posts) • 0

Sorry to hear about your misfortune.

I have been married for 10 years to a lovely.sane Chinese woman. I think the fact that we were both older, have no kids and her parents were already in their 70's and 80’s made it work for us. We are now in our late 50's with no kids and couldn't be happier. The cultural differences can be fustrating but that just how it is.

You really have to be careful no to fall for the "shining new" object (pretty young and sexy thing).

It can blind you to where you can't see the bigger picture. Anyway, hope you find happiness soon.

nnoble (889 posts) • +1

@jax88 Thank you for the post. I've no idea how you cope missing your son, I just hope you can be reunited sooner or later. I've read every word and I'm in no position to criticise anything you say in the text, on the contrary, I recognise such a lot despite never having been in your situation. The only thing I can say is that the thread name, while eye-catching, is too emphatic.

Saying 'Do NOT......' will probably never work with someone who is in love. Your post could be invaluable to anyone who needs to 'be aware'. There are probably many sad stories like yours that we never near about. There are also many marriages that turn out well.

Napoleon (1187 posts) • -1

@Jax88

Africans are the lowest quality laowais? Where's the ranking system that says that? and why, if this is the case, do I see ads on here asking for Europeans and Americans with a salary range that I wouldn't entertain?

Is that really Chinese thought, or your own?

Related forum threads

Login to post