I think the question of love resembles someone asking you “why there are human beings on earth”. It’s a never-ending argument, it’s not justice, it’s very personal and ridiculous. Hong Kong, being a part of China politically, shares some similarities in terms of people’s perspectives to love while its economic independence and development have produced a somewhat different mindset for young girls compared with Mainland Chinese.
Relationship
Hong Kong girls’ perspective on relationships is very possessive in nature. They treat their boyfriend/partner as their property that they can rely on (and control). Also because of this thinking, Hong Kong girls consider the one they love as their family and would do whatever they can to engage their boyfriend in the family and make him happy (and blame him if she’s having a bad day).
A Chinese girl is somewhat similar, but a Chinese girl relate a relationship more to a real marriage than Hong Kong girls. They treat the relationship as an obligation as well as a responsibility to take care of their boyfriend. There’s an implicit obligation for the girl to be obedient and submissive. Generally, Chinese girls tend to date a guy if they see the potentials of them being their husband because getting yourself a husband means getting a family, and having a family and to sustain your family’s blood is of utmost importance in Chinese’ culture.
Marriage
Ask all the Hong Kong guys about marriage, you will see that getting marriage equals buying house and car (maybe also a maid and a dog), so as the same in China. Both Hong Kong girls and Chinese girls’ perspectives to marriage are in essence related to survival. Because a marriage is not just about the husband and wife sharing their lives, it’s also about to sustain the whole family and support their children, and their children’s children.
But for a Hong Kong girl, marriage is more prone to be associated with materialism because after all, Hong Kong is still a consumption-based society with retail being one of the largest economic sectors. But ridiculously, marriage is also about security for Hong Kong girls due to the lower male-to-female sex ratio in Hong Kong (889 males to 1000 females in 2009, read the government factsheet here) and the rising status of Hong Kong women. As guys always prefer to have a wife with lower status and income, so nowadays guys are scared away by Hong Kong girl’s increasing wealth. It’s not uncommon to see Hong Kong guys getting married with a Mainland Chinese girl who are less educated and less bossy (or they get a younger second wife from Mainland China when their Hong Kong wife gets old). Chinese girls like marrying Hong Kong guys because they are generally more wealthy than Chinese guys although the situation now is getting reverse because of China’s burgeoning economy. So Chinese girls and Hong Kong girls are competitors in this sense, resulting in their hatred to each other.
Why is that?
In the traditional Chinese society, family is the foundation of a society, and the collative effort of the society is what produces food and necessities to maintain people’s health and productivity so as to ensure the long-term prosperity of the country and the dynasty. Hence, when girls get married, they need someone who are able to support their needs, the richer the better. It’s not just for having a good life for her, but also, marrying a rich husband means that the girl’s family can also have a good life and enjoy a good reputation among other households in their home town. This is family pride, and having family pride requires family’s survival.
The survival instinct of a Hong Kong and Chinese girls can be conducive to the society, because it encourages men to get rich which increases the national income of the country (then the men earn more), but it has also been gradually developed into girls’ excessive emphasis on materialism and consumerism not just for a marriage but also for a relationship. Men need to buy a lot of materialism byproducts to please the girl now (then the men spend more). Now you see why people are so obsessed with wearing a designer logo on their body.
It’s a very funny society today.
You can read more about the Hong Kong girls’ in 4 Major Characteristics of Hong Kong Girls.
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This is a true irony. A lot of American women are like that as well (not saying all of them are like that). I think its a shame that it happens like that. While I can understand the desire for having things, sometimes it gets out of control. I can agree with the more “status” part of things as well.
However, I think marriage should be an obligation on the part of both individuals. It takes two to tango. Marriage is supposed to be an institution of learning to work as a team, not materialistic.
I think that American women made their choice of men not just by men’s wealth but also by her willingness to share her life with him and whether they can get along … In China or Hong Kong, indeed it’s out of control, even parents in China would tell a little girl “you have to find a rich husband when you grow up and buy me a bigger house”, ridiculous.
Having obligation in both sides of a marriage can compensate the materialism pursuance, but sadly as the economy develops rapidly, people care more about materialisms than the genuine joy of having a marriage.
However, I’m glad that I can still see some good marriages where the spouse loves each other genuinely.
That is a sad fact. Its one thing to have things available to live on, but sometimes it does get difficult as people choose to pursue the material wealth over the genuine joys of being married and learning to grow in new ways. Its a challenge for many couples, including the relationships I’ve been in.
It’s a tough love in China, the balance between reality and genuine love, that is hard.
More well educated women than men = awesome
More materialistic focus = awful
Why can’t people just accept others for who they are rather than what they expect them to be?
Thanks for your comment David. I’m glad that you embrace well educated women. In fact, it’s not that Chinese men or Hong Kong men don’t like well educated women, they just don’t want those smart women to be their wife because of the traditional controlling mindset – they need to be better than their wife and take care of her.
I think now people should really learn about appreciating their strengths and flaws, we have so many people in the world with different personalities and competencies, it’s the differences that make drive the growth of the society and make us alive.
Yep I totally agree its hard to balance reality with genuine love. Its kinda like that with Koreans as well. But I enjoy knowing and reading that it happens elsewhere as well. So its good food for thought (good for reflecting on things). I’ll make sure to keep some of these things in mind for the future, especially if I get a chance to date Chinese.
But bear in mind there are still many good things about Chinese. As you keep reading my blog, you will get to know
Cool. I’ll look forward to those particular blogs. I love the chance to learn something different than what I currently know.
Regard to your point of Chinese girls are willing to marry to Hong Kong guys because they are in generall more weathy than Chinese guys, unfortunately, this is not true unless the Chinese girls you are talking are uneducated, really poor or have siblings to feed. Normal Chinese Mainland girls don’t have illusions on Hong Kong guys just simply because they don’t think Hong Kong guys really have the ability or weath to afford a family. And plus, they suck: not really high-educated, arrogant, irresponsible, and have no idea about what’s happening in the world but just focus on their own little worlds.(or say, this is common to most guys…) At the bottom line, most Chinese girls can live with their parents in a their family-owned houses, while most Hong Kong guys can’t even afford an studio. But if you are saying some Chinese girls are targeting at rich Hong Kong guys, yes, that could be true. Just please don’t take a minor phenomenon as a common sense, thank you.
Thanks for your comment and your insights, Ricky.
I never try to generalize, as I said in the article, the fact Chinese girls preferring Hong Kong guys is getting reverse – Chinese girls no longer prefer Hong Kong guys. In the old days where China was still at the beginning of economic development, girls did prefer Hong Kong guys. In my articles, I don’t express any views over Hong Kong or Chinese guys, I don’t care, I’m here to share what I see.
But if you said that Hong Kong guys suck, you’re being very personal too. Everyone has strengths and flaws, don’t try to generalize Hong Kong guys though I have to agree that some of them are like what you said.
This is not a blog of generalization. This is about my random thinkings, I apologize if it irritates you.
I love you, and its great that you are writing. I am in the mood, so a few critical notes:
The assumptions that might be in your article are that:
Hong Kong is economically developed
That economic growth and development is good thing .
That educated people are not usually idiots.
That people trying to get richer benefits a country.
and that what benefits a country benefits people in general or int he existential sense.
Culturally, things are normal, you are not going through a “dark ages”.
I would say all those assumptions are false.
I would also say that its really sad to see these comments on this blog post about balancing “reality” with romance. Reality?
Really? Or is it superficiality? News flash-this practicality is really not very practical. It looks pretty disabling to me.
And, welcome to 100 years ago, where is your critique of the family as a social institution? Why should people keep passing down these dysfunctional, guilt ridden, feudal traditions of just trying to secure more and more status and vacuous crap for their families, despite all the damage it does too society, to our psyches, even to our relations within our families. The family as an economic unit is horrible idea, but that’s not my point, the point is that this is one of the worst versions of it.
Love is not necessarily romance, and nether of them is at all about controlling or owning. If you think this view is impractical and contrary to survival, maybe its worth asking, who is this person who is supposed to be able to enjoy said survival? Why would anyone want material security when the prerequisite is harboring the kind of values, habits, views, and obligations that preclude the development of a deep , well rounded, person capable of having myriad relations and a meaningful life?
No amount of charity auctions or lunches can ever fill the void of being a person who simply lacks quality.
During the 20th century the ideas of marriage, the nuclear family, patriarchy, hierarchy, gerontocracy, romantic love, accumulation of property, heterosexuality, and family rivalries were called into question and examined with new eyes. But if you go to northeast asia-its like it never happened, and nobody heard about it.
Thanks for your comments Bubbles.
Family institution is a traditional culture in the Chinese society, and we use the word “culture” for a reason – they sustains from the past to present. Of course when the society changes, everything changes, but there are some fundamental concepts that were greatly ingrained into people’s mind that drive their behavior even now.
There are so many interpretation to love, I just think that love is personal, so everyone has his/her own definition and points of views. Love is not necessarily romance, and love is not necessarily marriage or sustaining your family either, those nouns that we use to associate “love” with are just a byproduct of the literal meaning, they’re just a word, why care so much?
Charity auctions of course are an examples of people possessing quality and sympathy. There are so many good things in our society. Even watching the blue sky on a ferry makes me feel happy.
I feel like you didnt get my post. Anyway, to reply to you a bit:
“Family institution is a traditional culture in the Chinese society, and we use the word “culture” for a reason – they sustains from the past to present.”
What does this mean? What is being sustained? And is that good?
The family was very important in all old empires that I know about, including the Roman, as was slavery. Just like Roman, Incan, Mayan, Greek, and Austro-Hungarian, Chinese culture is in most ways gone now, maybe its time to move on? Chinese people already rejected most of traditional chinese society.
You missed my point re: charity auctions.
In the example I gave, its just a coping mechanism for the emotionally deranged. Actually, charity auctions are for lonely alienated people, people trying to make up for their sins, or people who just don’t get how things work. They are actually kind of disgusting, and involve “othering” and pity. A famous man said “the rich will do anything for the poor, except get off their back”. Charity is not what it seems at all.
Anyway I think the point I was getting at before was that the being what ideology says is practical and pragmatic in love and life is antithetical to becoming the kind of person capable of enjoying life. I would go further and say that enjoyment, connection, ecstasy or meaning does not=happy, and “happy” is a kind of idiotic goal, its one of the only kind of nice words that is totally consistent with bondage and ignorance.
I’m sorry to hear that for whatever reason, you seem to have had bad experiences in your life. I am not here to say that you have had those but you know, whatever works for you as a person. I can say you have some good insights to offer to our discussion. Makes it all the more valuable.
I think its important to determine what’s important for you. I find that one has to find that meaning within themselves. You mention something about bondage and ignorance. Could you share more on those lines so I can understand better?
I hope to look forward to your insights as to this post.
I love Bubbles’ insights. But I am confused that Bubbles make things in life a bit negative, I want Bubbles to be happy.
What is being sustained is the tradition, it happens everywhere in the world, every country has its own norms and customs although they evolve and twist with the progression of the society. It’s not good or bad, it’s just the way it is, we are living under the culture and it’s the culture that makes the place unique.
If enjoyment, connection, ecstasy or meaning does not means happy, what means happy? Are you happy at all Bubbles? I just want you to be happy.
I agree with Jin. I want Bubbles to be happy or at least moderately content with who they are as a person.
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I owe some kind of reply. Excuse the length.
I am not really sure why you guys thought I am “negative” ?! The only thing I can say is that either I wasn’t clear enough, or you 2 have failed to take up my challenge. Or both.
That challenge can be summed up in the reference i made to happiness. It should be pretty clear that I was saying that an alienated happiness (the one hong kong advertises by the way) is not worth having, and you would be better off with a meaningful, engaged, authentic life. Which is more likely to bring you a kind of engaged happiness, something which cant be sought as a goal in itself.
To be honest, it seems that what both of you did was equate my serious criticisms, (and my willingness to mention some very dark things) with negativity! Nothing is more boring than this kind of fear, because it cuts you off from everything intellectual. Which is ironic, since the blog is all about cultural /social/ art issues. Though, at the risk of sounding rude, it mostly does in a sort of barbie doll, brain-dead sort of way.
So perhaps it is you who are a bit depressed if truths (sometimes harsh) make you bummed out? Thinking about things you can’t change, frustrates you too much ? For me, they shed more light on interesting questions, and let me decide where I am going to stand-and that makes me excited and happy.
I know I am not polite, but I offer an alternative to fear of real criticism: thinking deeply and learning some social theory will certainly cause you some pain and expose lots of darkness, but it is still enjoyable,-and will make you strong enough to build a positivity that is not easily broken.
Despite the fact that I am someone who laughs a lot, has lots of friends.hobbies, social life, adventures etc, I still contend this unoriginal idea is true: These days there is a societal pressure to appear “happy’, to have a “successful” leisure life, personal life, work life etc etc..
If you know anything about history-the myriad ideas that people have lived for: from truth, community, connection, war, peace, to land, love, gods, revolution, ancestors, friends, rock n roll, its very colorful. Unlike the totally black and white foregone conclusion of “i want to be happy , you know, buy stuff, have 2.5 children, a nice car etc, the perfect date you know…happy.” Challenging that colorless status quo can be very fun.
Part of the freedom that art offers us, is to give us a space where we are allowed to not be happy. But to just be whatever. Not stopped from being happy. but not obligated either. That space is vital. I think yoga offers it as well, by the way. Guess what the result is? A durable, direct, personalized enjoyment in the world. In other words, happiness as a goal in itself can be oppressive. Authenticity as a goal creates the side effect of real “happiness”.
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