Dating Younger Versus Older Chinese Women

The thriving Chinese online dating industry has not only opened vast opportunities for single and divorced Chinese women to find a life partner and for foreign men to bag the ideal Chinese wife; it has also revealed the start contrast between the younger and more modern China ladies and the "older" and more traditional women. If you are a foreign man who's relatively new to the online matchmaking scene in China, you may have to make some adjustments to your expectations of what a typical China woman is.

The fairly recent opening of the Middle Kingdom's gates to greater Western influence and the greater personal freedoms modern women of China have been enjoying as of late have combined to form a chasm between the younger and "older" generations of single females in China; younger means those who have just reached marriageable age and are less than 28 years, and "older" in this sense means single and divorced women who are 28 years old and over.

No doubt, women from both generations still share many traditional traits and values because they were still raised by a generation of Chinese who still strongly believed in the upholding of Chinese traditions. The younger and more westernized China ladies, however, exhibit attitudes and behaviors that are distinctly disentangled from traditional norms, especially with regards to their sense of self. Foreign men who want a Chinese wife and who get the chance to meet a few ladies coming from both generations would clearly see the dissimilarities with regards to their attitudes toward relationships and marriage.

The "older" and more traditional women would still view any relationship, no matter how short, as a definite step toward marriage. That is to say they enter both a preliminary meeting and a well-defined relationship with a foreign man with the expectation of marriage already in their minds; they are looking for a suitable husband, or one who can adequately provide for them and their family. Additionally, their motivations are still influenced by their family and their sense of obligation to their parents and society.

As wives, they still live up to the reputation of China women as selfless, devoted, faithful, and extremely caring. A traditional China lady, when interacting with or dating a foreign man, would typically behave in much the same way that a wife would behave toward her husband; she would be very eager to completely change her whole life for him, even if they have only met once, in order to be with him.

The younger and more modern girls of China also view relationships as having a potential for marriage. Unlike the traditional women, however, they are more discerning, calculating, and demanding when it comes to what the foreign man can offer them; they are not just looking for the ultimate provider, but also someone who will be able to give them the all the material things they may desire and an elevated status in life. Their motivations are still partly influenced by their desire to fulfill the wishes of their parents for them to get married; at the same time, they are also motivated by money, status, and varying degrees of narcissistic behavior, i.e. an intense and often selfish need to be cared for, in every sense, by their husband.

The narcissistic tendencies of these women are borne of their unique circumstances: they were born female but because they were the sole child, were still pampered while, at the same time, living with the knowledge that their parents wished they had a son instead; and given the personal freedoms modern women now enjoy, they have also experienced success and the material luxuries that come with it. A modern China girl, when interacting with or dating a foreign man, would expect him to treat her lavishly as a wife but would not be as dutiful as a traditional woman.

Of course, the women of China can't be classified into just these two groups and with these black-and-white characterizations. But these "stereotypes" (for lack of a better term) do exist and these women exist in large enough numbers so as to create the said stereotypes. Any foreign man who has been immersed in the Chinese dating scene for a significant period of time would have met both of these types of women a few times.

Newcomers to the scene would do well to be ready to identify and deal with the said stereotypes. They can certainly learn a lot from the real-life experiences of other foreign men who have been around the online matchmaking block enough times to have formed invaluable insights about the women of China; they share their thoughts through blogs and forums that can be found on only the most reputable dating sites, such as ChinaLoveMatch.net.