Why I'll never date a Chinese girl

So why will I never date a Chinese girl? To be perfectly honest, I simply can't afford one. You know how people joke that with some girls, there is a fine line between dating and solicitation? Well, the line is even thinner in China because girls here are...smart, very smart. While it's easy to say Chinese girls are demanding, which they certainly are, I think that's shortchanging them...it's more appropriate to say that Chinese girls are cunning.

I'll warn you, I have to be a bit serious for the next two paragraphs in order to give you some context. Chinese culture, like many other cultures favors boys to girls. So naturally, some people are disappointed when they have a baby girl. Now in countries such as India, some people find out the sex of the baby beforehand and if it's a girl, they pay for an abortion. (On a side note, two facts pertaining to India...first, wealthy families are more likely to get an abortion due to a baby's sex than poor and uneducated families and second, 7,000 babies are killed every day due to their sex...I'm not trying politicize the blog but I use the word "killed" because this includes babies whose mouths/nostrils are stuffed with sand and babies who are buried alive.)

Now in most instances if the family has a girl, they can try again for a true "heir". However, trying again is a no-go in China. Due to the one-child policy that China implemented in 1979, families can't try for a second baby. They have to make sure their first baby is a boy. Because of the policy, there is a wide male-to-female ratio in China. In 2006, it was 120 males for every 100 girls. For people under the age of 20, there are 32 million more boys than girls. To put that into context, 32 million people is more than the population of Chile and The Netherlands COMBINED.

If this were a serious blog, I'd start talking about all the interesting articles I read about this issue (more unmarried men = social unrest, the Chinese military being forced to recruit men to keep them occupied, etc.) but I know this blog's true purpose...to kill time when you'e avoiding work. So I'll stick to a more interesting social aspect of the one-child policy...when it comes to dating, China is like bizarro world.

In a healthy society, if a boy wants to be in a long-term relationship, he can eventually find a girl to settle down with. However, to put things into crude economic terms...demand vastly exceeds the supply in China. There is a double whammy here...first, demand is growing every year for more girls while supply is shrinking because parents still prefer to have a boy.

Since girls know they have all the leverage, they can make all the demands they want...if you're a boy who's not ready to play the game...good luck, there are literally millions of guys who will take your spot. For a communist country, Chinese girls sure do have a good grasp of capitalism and are capitalizing on market factors. During dinner, Grace was telling me how she recently broke up with her boyfriend of 6 months.

Me: That's too bad, what happened?

Grace: Oh, we broke up because we couldn't agree on marriage

Me: Gotcha. You wanted to get married but he wasn't ready to commit?

Grace: *strange look* No, he wants to settle down right away and get an apartment but I don't want to

Me: Not ready to commit yet?

Grace: No, he couldn't afford a big apartment for us

Ah yes, the apartment. In America, girls focus on the size of the engagement ring, in India, boys and girls alike try to see what opportunities their new family can offer them and in China...girls wonder how big of an apartment their fiancees will buy them. Now I do acknowledge spending money on a down payment is much smarter than buying a big ring, but talk about pressure for guys! While the boy doesn't need to have a deed in hand, when he's ready to propose, he better have the cash for a down payment otherwise...on to the next one.

Ariel is already engaged and I asked her when she's getting married...she told me she's waiting for their building to be completed in 18 months. When it's ready, she'll get married and move-in, but until then...no wedding.

I was talking to Sharon, who was born in the 70s, about this and she categorized the one child policy kids as '"entitled". Since every family only has one child, that kid is treated like a star and gets everything he/she wants. While boys are usually treated better than girls growing up, girls get the last laugh since they can essentially cherry pick the cream of the crop when it comes to marriage. They grew up entitled and they're not going to compromise on a husband. If he's not 100% perfect, next. It was interesting to hear Sharon's perspective, she kept on complaining how girls are too picky and seem to be more concerned about a trophy husband than love. She said when she got married, her and her husband rented a place with no furniture...if her husband tried to find a girl now, he wouldn't stand a chance.

So what happens to the excess guys? Well, they'll join the legions of other guys who are fed up with Chinese girls and find girls in other countries. The current trend is for Chinese men to go to Vietnam and find wives there. They usually have to pay a finder's fee of 5,000 USD or so but this is much cheaper than buying an apartment. Apparently men prefer Vietnamese wives because they've more submissive and "less independent" To be a dorky economics person, I don't think Vietnamese women are a true "substitute good" so Chinese girls will continue to have the upper hand for the foreseeable future.

People always told me China is very different from America. Who knew that meant guys are the ones crazy about getting married and the girls are the ones who are reluctant?

So what does this entire post mean?

First, I'm sure my mom is breathing a huge sigh of relief. Second, this means my plan on running around with my U.S. passport and screaming 'I'm an American!" will not likely result in me getting a hot Chinese girlfriend. Third, as Logan pointed out, this basically means every Chinese guy is like Ted from "How I Met Your Mother" Finally, and most importantly, I'm going to thank god every night that Indian girls haven't capitalized on this despite being in the exact same boat as Chinese girls.