This post addresses to observations that I have made about culture, customs, in China, which have suddenly come together in one package for me.  The last time I hit a girl (female) was in 2nd grade.  She was a Tomboy, and, so, I came to think of her more as a boy than a girl, and, for a reason I cannot remember, all these years later, I retaliated by slapping her.  Of course, my mother, upon hearing about that, told me that boys don't hit girls, no matter what.

Sure, I remember seeing movies from the first half of the twentieth century, in which one or another tough guy s;lapped a girl, and even in more modern film, in the U.S., that might be about crime or spies, there might be a little slap of a woman, here and there.  Thus, it was quite surprising to me when I began to watch TV, in China, almost seven years ago, now, that there was a lot of slapping and beating of women on TV shows.  As I commented to girl friends about this, they told me that it was still common, in China, for men to hit women, in real life.  Indeed, I have seen its result, quite a number of times since then.  Of course, if I had actually witnessed it, I would not have been able to stop myself from intervening, as I would when any bully takes physical advantage of another person.

The second observation that I am reminded of, daily, is that Westerners will always be outsiders, in china, and will not be accepted for some thing, the one of which I have in mind, now, is as an acceptable mate for someone of the opposite sex.  China is so prejudiced to begin with that they speak of the 56 minority Chinese people versus the prime indigenous "majority", the Han.  As a foreigner, people always try to cheat me, in my daily shopping or touring, so, there is that.  However, just as my friends and I, even one who spoke perfect Chinese, could not attract a woman, in Montreal's Chinatwon, at the beginning of the century, I have seen many relationships between a Chinese and a foreigner eventually fall apart.  Some of it has been because of one cultural difference or another, but as someone who has dated a number of Chinese woman since I arrived, in China, often, it is because the family of the Chinese component objects to a relationship with a foreigner. 

Another ingredient to this Chinese culture is that, just like many Chinese stick together and live in Chinatowns, throughout the world, the Chinese seem very dependent.  When I would want to venture into a new area of China for a get away, and I would ask a student who knew the area about it, they would offer "to go there with me because no one travels alone."  Of course, I would gently tell them that i have been on my own since I went to college, and even language barriers cannot stop me.  But, in their minds, and as I have observed, often enough, it is not possible to do things alone.  They were always asking me if I missed my family, and I would tell them that even when we lived within 100 miles of each other, we didn't see that much of one another.  Here, one sees women walking around holding hands, much after their school years; I see men walking around with their arms around each other.  I see two people working on a small motor, while only one person is required. 

And when it comes to the apron strings, they are very long and very thick.  Even artist, Ma Yixing, has told us that the horses in many of his works represent man, by which he means that man is controlled by the family, in China, much like a horse by its master.  In my own experiences with male-female relationships, i have had to put up with the family comes first, more times than I care to think about.  However, recently, with a woman that I really thought I could go further with, was told by her parents, this year, first, that i would break up with her, this year, because two fortune tellers told that to her mother.  When that didn't work, they began making threats of all kinds, including threats, even, on my business.  The final event happened, recently.  When she went home to visit her parents for the weekend, her father slapped her for not listening to them about me.  Now, she too is towing the line.  We have to break up, and she is going back to live with her parents after almost 3 years of living with me. 

Her older sister had a similar, yet different, experience.  She was dating a lowly  Shenzhen local, whose family was living there before China turned a small fishing village into a large Metropolis.  She got her slaps, too, but, in the end, she went against the parents and married him.  Fear not:: in the intervening years, the Shenzhen government has given a lot of money and benefits to those original local families, and her nouveau riche father, who moved to Shenzhen to start his multi-million dollar business back when Shenzhen was targeted by Deng Xiao Ping to revamp, is happy with his son-in-law, now.  Her older brother is still living at home with mom, dad, the girl they chose for him, and their little boy.  Of course, there has been much recent fighting among them, recently, but all the parents gathered together and made them make up and keep their unhappy family.  Now, mom and dad are looking for the perfect mate for the next younger brother; so far, he has dodged the bullet.

As a final note, I will pint out that when I was 16, my father called my girlfriend a slut.  I told him fuck you, and my mother had to get between us to stop us from having a physical fight.  I went to my room; crawled out the window; and drove off in my car, not to return for 3 days.