Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

The awkward topic

Why did you come to Xi'an?

I get this question all the time. Usually I respond by saying "I came here to learn Chinese and more about China," or how I want to be a foreign correspondent.

Last week I was asked this by a woman I had just met. But as I sort of droned on with my answer, the woman interrupted me in mid-sentence.

Is it to find a wife? she joked with a snickering laugh.

"Uhhh...." is how I responded. Laugh, I did not.

I get this sometimes, or some versions of it. I'm a Chinese-American, so I guess the thinking goes I have returned to my homeland to find a wife. But for me, just thinking about getting married at my age, frankly, terrifies me.

"Have you found your ???" an older woman asked me on the bus a few weeks back. Literally it can be translated as target, but in this case, means girlfriend.

"You have a good job," she later said. "You can stay here for several years, raise a family, and then go back to America. How good is that?" (Hell no, was the knee-jerk reply I said to myself in my head).

My students have been just as nosy, as Chinese people are often known to be. I remember telling my students do you have any questions about me or America. One student asked: "Do you have a girlfriend teacher?" I rolled my eyes and ignored him, saying, "Let's move on, and ask about something else."

"Do you like foreign girls, or do you like Chinese girls?" a student asked me a few weeks back. Awkwardly and a bit dumbly, I said, "I like all girls." For God's sakes, let's change topics, is what I thought to myself.

"We can help you find a girlfriend," a group of students told me last semester. "Uhhhh.... that's okay." I said in response. Another student felt the need to point out: "It's common for students to have crushes on their teachers."

I have yet to meet anyone in Xi'an, so I have no idea how romance works in China. I just hear stories after stories.

They are mostly negative. (People naturally gossip about the bad stuff). Like how some people marry solely for money; an easy way to get out of poverty. Or how dating someone, often essentially means you will marry this person; breaking up seems to be looked down upon. And how, on the flipside, it is sometimes expected that men will have affairs or routinely sleep with prostitutes; prostitution is basically legal here.

A foreign teacher recently told me about his bad experience with a local female colleague on the campus. He had no interest in her. But the girl became crazy over him, and relentlessly pursed, even as he tried to refuse her.

At one point the woman said to him, "I thought we would get married, stay in Xi'an for a while, and then go back to America."

Scary.

Earlier this week I ended up speaking to an old woman as I was trying to freelance a story. Very quickly, the question came again: "Do you have a girlfriend?

I said no, wanting to be honest.

"Oh, well I know a young girl here," she said. "I don't let other people (other men) know about her. But you look like you're a very good person."

"I've been wanting her to marry a person from Taiwan," she later told me. This came after I said my parents were from Taiwan.

Oh crap. She could see the polite discomfort in my face, and so then said: "You can meet here and just make friend."

She wanted my number, and I couldn't think of an excuse not to. It's been a few days now, and no phone call yet.

This week my Chinese tutor gave me a homework assignment. "Ask your students what their ideal wife or husband will be."

Seriously? I thought to myself. "Do you know how awkward and embarrassing that will be to ask that question?"

She laughed.