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Cultural question about dating

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#1

Hi @YuQinCai, @Constance_Fang @Fiona and the ChinesePod team, my question is this:

Hi All, i was watching If You Are The One (非诚勿扰) and there was a chinese guy, very muscular and handsome (i think), and it seemed like all the girls were interested. Then it came to light that he had dated a foreigner (i think she was russian/chinese, but was ‘foreign’ in her customs) and every single girl lost interest immediately. One even said to him that having dated a foreign girl, he would find it very hard to get a chinese girlfriend.

WTFFF??? Can someone please explain this to me? thanks :slight_smile:

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#2

At the risk of drawing serious criticism and offense,

I’m not sure where you’re from. But you’ll find that most places are not nearly as open and accepting about foreigners as the West is. A lot of my time in China was met with open dislike/distrust of all foreigners (not just a certain country) and this is unfortunately just a fact of life that we have little power to change – except for being good ambassadors of our home countries when we go over.

Chinese dating customs are still very much concerned with concepts of staying within the country (the 外國 vs the 國內) and things like virginity. Some people will still only consider those within their own province.

Even the Chinese girls I know refuse to tell their local boyfriends that they’ve dated a foreign guy before.

Sounds like you’re getting some of your first experiences with disagreeing with another culture. China is waaaayyyy different than the West, hardly comparable. You will encounter many time where you say “I LOVE THIS!” and many times where you say “WTF???” (like now).

It’s part of the learning process I suppose.

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#3

Thanks for the answer. I had a Chinese friend say that it could also be because western women are seen as more confident and less conservative, so if a chinese man had dated a western woman, he would no longer be happy with the conservative nature of a chinese woman.

Of course these are all ridiculously broad sterotypes, but still, it’s interesting. I wouldn’t say i disagree with it, or agree, was just a bit miffed thats all!

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#4

You should know that 非诚勿扰 is about as “real” as reality shows in other countries. In other words, not very. That said, a frequent reason given for rejection by women on these shows is doubt about the man’s likely fidelity. It may be that a man who has gone a bit off the reservation in his dating history is considered more likely to “go off the rails” （出轨） in the future.

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