Life and Love in China

MASSIVE DISCLAIMER: This is not by any stretch of the imagination a definitive guide to relationships in China. This is just my perspective on how having a relationship in China is different to what I'm used to in the West. 

As many of you know, since coming to Yinchuan I've managed to find myself a lovely boyfriend and we've managed to put up with each other for the best part of my time in Yinchuan - surprising, I know. Dating in China can be confusing and difficult because of the differences between Western and Chinese dating culture, and like with everything in China there has been a bit of a learning curve.

How we got together was pretty typical, we met through people I work with now and he used to work with. We got on and then one day plans to go out as a group fell through, but we decided to still go for drinks. After that we hung out more and bonded over watching The Walking Dead (zombies are romantic!) and slowly but surely we became a couple.

Pretty early on our relationship was propelled to a new level when his mum came round to drop off some food and I was still there from a sleepover. His mum was surprised I was there, but thankfully had met me before, and I was a complete deer in the headlights. Every word of Chinese I knew disappeared from my mind and I just babbled as I tried to run away. After we were abruptly ousted to his parents as a couple - something that typically doesn't happen until a relationship is pretty serious - news quickly spread through his family and now his family is a fairly large part of my life here. 

We go for dinner with his parents and I've met a considerable chunk of the extended family through various food based gatherings - his little cousins even call me ayi 阿姨, or auntie. Chinese dinners tend to be highly alcohol based and in an attempt to make me feel at ease I get toasted every 10 minutes, which can be dangerous when the toast is 40% volume shots! But his family are lovely and welcoming, even though communication is somewhat limited. 

I'm also now spending more time bonding with the boyfriend's mum, which is kind of funny. Our communication technique makes me laugh because even though my understanding of Chinese is getting so much better by talking to her, I still struggle to reply to her in Chinese, and her English is non-existent! Sometimes she'll say something in Chinese and I'll reply in English, then she'll reply again in Chinese; we have our own methods of communication sorted. It must be funny for outsiders to see, and I think it's sweet. She makes a lot of effort to talk slowly and simply (a rarity for Chinese speakers) and she's said that she can tell I'm trying really hard to speak in Chinese to her. She says my eyes roll around when I'm trying hard to think of the word!!

As much as it is weird for me to have a boyfriend's parents and family be such a big part of my life it's also kind of nice. When I was getting a cold and Orion's mum popped over she noticed I was under the weather and took me out to get some soup for lunch, then she dragged me to the pharmacy to dose me up with Chinese medicine. Being so far away from home it can feel like you're on your own and have to fend for yourself, but having a mother figure around can really make a difference. Although, some of the mothering roles I could do without! The boyfriend's mum, until very recently, came around to his house regularly to wash his clothes and clean his apartment; something that I find a little bit ridiculous. But as his mum does these household tasks less somehow the baton has passed to me and there is some kind of underlying expectation that I will take up the domestic role - that's not going to happen any time soon! It's not that I mind cleaning a place that I live for most of my time, and if I'm going to wash my clothes I will wash his too; my problem is the dual role as girlfriend/maid. In my mind the work needs to be equal, if I clean sometimes then he sure as hell has to too. I think I'm slowly drilling this in to him and it's nice to see my boyfriend becoming vaguely domesticated at the ripe old age of thirty!

But despite the domestic reservations I think that I am lucky that my boyfriend's family seem to like me, because if they didn't I don't think our relationship would stand a chance. What parents - and the extended family - think is listened to closely here and, more often than not, heeded. This means there can be a lot of pressure for me to make a good impression and act in a way that is considered appropriate for my position in the family. In Chinese social situations there can be a lot of rules that people expect you to follow and it's only very slowly that I'm managing to learn them by trial and error. Of course no one tells me what I'm meant to do before it happens! When we eat with his family I am expected not only to participate in every toast, but also to make toasts to keep the drinks flowing. I've even been told I'm supposed to serve my boyfriend food, not the feminism we're taught to expect in the West! But all the differences are small in the grand scheme of things and in the end it's worth making the effort to decipher the etiquette just to be a part of a family and to see Chinese culture from a completely different perspective; and of course to get to spend time with a person I get on with so well. Sure, it's difficult to even begin to try following the rapid conversation, but the joy when I finally catch something and manage to contribute makes the constant effort bearable. 


I've no idea how typical my relationship is for China, or even how much of a difference it makes to a "typical" Chinese relationship that I am foreign, but it's certainly different to any other relationship I've been in, and hey! At least it's definitely never boring!