Taiwanese love and Chinese love

Life Dating & Relationships
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Dear forummers ,

this is my second thread on this lovely forum and it got to be about love, so close to Valentine’s. <3 <3

To begin the topic I shall first provide you with some background information:
I don’t live in Taiwan, I live in a nice little country in Europe. I do however have a Chinese girlfriend. She’s not from Taiwan but from the Chinese mainland. I was hanging out with her the other day and she said she feels old. She’s about to turn 25. Now I myself think 25 is a conciderable age too but nonetheless I asked her why she feels old :stuck_out_tongue: She said its because most of her friends in China are already married

and are mothers by now. Me, finding this a bit early began asking questions. Turns out in China as soon as you’re 20 your parents push you to find a boyfriend and marry as soon as you feel even any connection. At least that’s how it sounds to me.

So I said that doesn’t seem very romantic. Lots of loveless marriages that would produce. She said: indeed in China most marry just to be married. If you marry out of love you are very lucky.

So now my question is how is this situation in Taiwan? Being Chinas most closest cultural neighbour. What is about the median age for marriage in Taiwan? Do Taiwanese parents or other family push their sons /daughters/granddaughters etc to marry as soon as possible? Do Taiwanese people often marry out of love or just to be ‘normal’ and be married?

And how do you perceive the culture of love and marriage in Taiwan?.

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It’s similar here to an extent, though attitudes are changing. Everyone I know considers 30 very late (and “dangerous”) to be having a kid. My gf’s coworker got married to his longtime girlfriend right out of college because his aging grandfather was pushing to see grandkids.

Now that I’m preparing for a wedding (at age 28, which among my American friends is on the early side and among my Taiwanese friends a little late), my girlfriend and I are talking about children. I am so wildly unprepared financially and emotionally to have children, as is she, and where I’m from (California) that’s enough of a reason to keep waiting until the time is right. In Taiwan, it’s a different story, though, because traditionally the bride marries INTO her husband’s family. I drew up this chart some time ago:

In the US at least, a bride and groom are considered to leave their respective families and start a new one, creating three independent but connected family units. In Taiwan (typically), only the bride leaves her family, which really does entail leaving since most unmarried people in TW still live at home. But the groom gets to stay where he grew up – often the very bedroom he grew up in – and the bride becomes a part of the groom’s family rather than the two of them starting anew.

The end result is that even if the new parents aren’t ready, meiguanxi, (fraternal) grandpa and grandma will help raise the kid. It doesn’t quite work that way in the West, and my gf’s family sometimes asks me questions about why we haven’t gotten started on working on children…

I’ve also seen a surprisingly large number of couples who race to put on a wedding as soon as they find out the bride is pregnant – something that doesn’t have as much of a social stigma here as you might expect. That could be because Taiwenes men and women tend to date with the expectation that it will lead to marriage. If you’re not marriage material, it will be hard to enter a relationship.

Of course all of that is changing, though pretty slowly because zhangbei still exercise an extraordinary amount of influence in their children’s and grandchildren’s lives.

I have no idea how much if any of this is applicable to China.

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Thanks for your meaningful replies!

From what I read I get the impression in Taiwan the pressure is there but the family is less of a pressure in Taiwan than in China. How about this: do Taiwanese look for a loving relationship before they marry someone or do they more or less rush into marriage without love being a concern?

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Yes, they look for love. But the closer to the threshold of the Big Three Oh (the Magic Number) that the woman comes to, the greater the possibility that she will get married out of obligation to pressures from family (“Be filial and give me grandchildren or I won’t have descendants to burn ghost money for me in the afterlife!”) and society (“Why are you not married yet? You’re 29! Nobody will want you after age 30!”) if she has not found a man she loves.

I have seen some terrible, loveless marriages form because of this pressure.

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Yeah the big 30 in Taiwan. Kind of ridiculous alright. Many marriages happen later these days and of course have kids later. There are a lot marriages of convenience as they are pushed to settle down, not only women but men also (stands to reason).
So many obligations…so little time.

It must be said many women aren’t getting married at al, the sad thing is they usually don’t have kids then even if they would like to have kids.

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This article is a few years old now and I can’t find more recent figures, but according to it, 28 is the median for women, and 31 for me. taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_c … ?id=975507

I have read articles since that show the median has risen since, I think it’s 29.something for females now, and maybe 32 for males. There’s also a fairly large percentage of people with no intention of marrying, maybe 25-30% of 30somethings if I remember correctly.

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the family still has the same amount of pressure. taiwan is just a bit more advanced in dating matters. not much, just a bit.

china is a bit more backwards, the women WILL most definately become what they term ‘left behind’ women if they are not married by age 27. picture what we call a crazy cat woman in the west… this is basically the fate of a left behind woman. yes, at young as 27. they wont do well at that age in that culture. you also wouldn’t bring your bf to meet your parents unless you were going to marry them, or even let them know you had a bf. in taiwan things are better, young people date quite freely and its not a big a deal to let your parents know about it. they wont give the same kind of marriage pressure so young and the left behind woman thing doesn’t seem to be so much of a thing. as we all know not many people are having kids in taiwan these days by their own choice. china is still over populated like a mother fucker.

now i am wondering if you have caught on to her not so subtle hints yet?

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It seems odd considering the gender imbalance there, I heard there are many picky women aswell and huge pressures on men financially. Still the roles reverse as women get older usually.
What a pain in the ass it all is living to others expectations.

In thinking your Chinese friend is looking for marriage.

However I would definitely be wary of such a push in terms of looking for a visa.

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[quote=“Hokwongwei”]It’s similar here to an extent, though attitudes are changing. Everyone I know considers 30 very late (and “dangerous”) to be having a kid. My gf’s coworker got married to his longtime girlfriend right out of college because his aging grandfather was pushing to see grandkids.

Now that I’m preparing for a wedding (at age 28, which among my American friends is on the early side and among my Taiwanese friends a little late), my girlfriend and I are talking about children. I am so wildly unprepared financially and emotionally to have children, as is she, and where I’m from (California) that’s enough of a reason to keep waiting until the time is right. In Taiwan, it’s a different story, though, because traditionally the bride marries INTO her husband’s family. I drew up this chart some time ago:

In the US at least, a bride and groom are considered to leave their respective families and start a new one, creating three independent but connected family units. In Taiwan (typically), only the bride leaves her family, which really does entail leaving since most unmarried people in TW still live at home. But the groom gets to stay where he grew up – often the very bedroom he grew up in – and the bride becomes a part of the groom’s family rather than the two of them starting anew.

The end result is that even if the new parents aren’t ready, meiguanxi, (fraternal) grandpa and grandma will help raise the kid. It doesn’t quite work that way in the West, and my gf’s family sometimes asks me questions about why we haven’t gotten started on working on children…

I’ve also seen a surprisingly large number of couples who race to put on a wedding as soon as they find out the bride is pregnant – something that doesn’t have as much of a social stigma here as you might expect. That could be because Taiwenes men and women tend to date with the expectation that it will lead to marriage. If you’re not marriage material, it will be hard to enter a relationship.

Of course all of that is changing, though pretty slowly because zhangbei still exercise an extraordinary amount of influence in their children’s and grandchildren’s lives.

I have no idea how much if any of this is applicable to China.[/quote]

so will you being a westerner effect the outcome of the diagram at all? the girl doesn’t need to leave her parents… so you 2 go it alone? or does it mean she stays connected to her parents and you are the one who has to join them?..

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[quote=“headhonchoII”]It seems odd considering the gender imbalance there, I heard there are many picky women aswell and huge pressures on men financially. Still the roles reverse as women get older usually.
What a pain in the ass it all is living to others expectations.

In thinking your Chinese friend is looking for marriage.

However I would definitely be wary of such a push in terms of looking for a visa.[/quote]

yea, there is definitely a picky factor. to be a good prospect the guy needs to have a house, car, good job ect. the girl needs to be good looking/young/innocent. big society pressures for the young people there.

it might not be visa as much as just a ticket out of the living hell she will face from her parents and the pressures from around if she stays single.

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[quote=“cfimages”]This article is a few years old now and I can’t find more recent figures, but according to it, 28 is the median for women, and 31 for me. taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_c … ?id=975507

I have read articles since that show the median has risen since, I think it’s 29.something for females now, and maybe 32 for males. There’s also a fairly large percentage of people with no intention of marrying, maybe 25-30% of 30somethings if I remember correctly.[/quote]

Yep, age keeps getting higher and higher:

In China the pressure comes from being just The One (and by this I mean one kid only). And how it is enforced. Not only this generates Little Emperors but also makes parents even more dependent on their only child. This is I think the most important factor. If you thought parents influence in Taiwan was strong… ain’t seen nothing yet. Plus in the Mainland society is more competitive and “unraveled”. Hard to explain.

So yes, relationships here carry a level of seriousness and sense of urgency that do spoil some of the fun.

Auntie Peng’s :2cents: : be willing to make some concessions but do not let your soul be crushed and your will stepped on. Do things out of love, not guilt. Love is a two way street.

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[quote=“Black Beauty”]The reason women in Taiwan feel a lot of pressure about marriage because they are in a competitive environment with relatively less feminist influence than Western nations. Most men are attracted to looks, so there is a limited window of opportunity for a woman to make the most of that (whereas women tend to be attracted to confidence in men, which is not as age dependent). From what other Taiwanese people have told me, 28 is generally considered the cut off year where a woman is deemed too old to get married. Of course, if a man comes across a very attractive 29 year old woman, he’s unlikely to care about what society thinks the cut off age is.

In terms of children, I reckon there’s already too many starving African kids that can be readily adopted:

vhemt.org/biobreed.htm[/quote]

That link… :astonished:

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In Taiwan there is as much pressure as you put on yourself. As cfimages noted, the median age of marriage is around 30. There is also reportedly around half a million single women and an equal if not greater number of men in their 30s and 40s. I know I don’t look at those statistics and think wow this place is such a straightjacket.

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[quote=“Black Beauty”]The reason women in Taiwan feel a lot of pressure about marriage because they are in a competitive environment with relatively less feminist influence than Western nations. Most men are attracted to looks, so there is a limited window of opportunity for a woman to make the most of that (whereas women tend to be attracted to confidence in men, which is not as age dependent). From what other Taiwanese people have told me, 28 is generally considered the cut off year where a woman is deemed too old to get married. Of course, if a man comes across a very attractive 29 year old woman, he’s unlikely to care about what society thinks the cut off age is.

In terms of children, I reckon there’s already too many starving African kids that can be readily adopted:

vhemt.org/biobreed.htm[/quote]

Readily adopted? Tell that to my bro and sis in law who couldn’t have children and ended up paying out massive sums of money and getting scammed on an adoption.
I always thought, “I’ll just adopt! So many kids need homes!” but it’s really not that easy. Heartache, tears, massive amounts of research, money, struggle…adoption is not easy. GEtting knocked up- far easier.
Of course, it all turned out well- I’ve now got my nephews (both adopted) and our family wouldn’t be complete without them.

This isn’t so much an argument against what you’re saying, because in general I agree, that’s the way it is. However…
Am I alone here in preferring the attention I get in my 30’s (I get LESS attention, but higher quality) to that that I got in my 20’s? In my 20’s it seemed like guys would decide they loved me before they knew me and then when my personality came out they weren’t sure what to make of the fact that I had one. Also every interaction I had with men seemed to be fraught with the white noise of the male libido- hard to tell who was sincere and when a connection was real or contrived. And this from a girl who’s pretty much average looking- youth is what really covers 3 kinds of ugly, not whiteness :wink:
These days, attraction isn’t pre-supposed, but I seem to draw attention from guys who actually dig me instead of just having a blanket interest in girls in their 20’s. I think I’ll fare better choosing a mate under these circumstances. Would hate to end up like this woman:
huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10 … 37141.html
Attraction is absolutely important, but wouldn’t it be shitty if that were the only reason they were with you? Glad my signs of aging can weed out some of the guys right off the bat!

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Good question. We’re still trying to figure that out since I lately feel that Taiwan is an antonym for career development, but I haven’t found any opportunities anywhere else, so… :ponder:

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I looked at the picture first, and TOTALLY misinterpreted it as a comment on the prevalence of cuckoldry.

But yeah, when we got married (me foreigner, she TW), we did a little ceremony in her house informing the ancestors of her transfer from their family roll to ours.

I wonder whether Chinese from China care about the ghost thing? I thought that the folk religion there was a lot weaker. Also, One Child Policy.

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[quote=“headhonchoII”]It seems odd considering the gender imbalance there, I heard there are many picky women aswell and huge pressures on men financially. Still the roles reverse as women get older usually.
What a pain in the ass it all is living to others expectations.

In thinking your Chinese friend is looking for marriage.

However I would definitely be wary of such a push in terms of looking for a visa.[/quote]

Here’s a few random stories about marriage/relationships in China…

Guys in China really like young chicks, a foreign friend of mine went “out on the town” with a local friend, they went to a KTV and this 30 year old guy called some chicks to come hang out and they were like 19-20 year old girls. There are usually some pretty attractive “leftovers” to be had. Like OP, I had a lady friend who was like 25 was sad because she was single and not married.

In Shanghai things get crazy! You aren’t marrying the chick, you are marrying her family, expect random visits from in-laws at random times of day. You better have an extra bedroom or a really big bed because they will practically move in. My friend came home one day and found his father in law was dropping a deuce and called him in to have a conversation(think the scene from Friday). Once you have kids, grandma is going to run the house and expect you to take care of everything. This former coworker was telling me about how life changed dramatically after getting married to his local gf. Shanghainese women are notorious for micromanaging your life.

I got a buddy who married a Shanghainese chick, they have a pretty good thing going on but he says from time to time she starts arguments out of thin air and later he’ll ask her what happened and she doesn’t have a good answer. Taiwanese/Korean dramas are HUGELY popular in China and girls soak them up like a sponge so he believes that Chinese girls think their marriages should be perfect like on TV. The divorce rate in Shanghai like 60% higher than anywhere else in China. People rush into marriage and then hate each other, divorce.

Girls are picky but I think guys are just as bad if not worse from what I’ve been told but I didn’t know too many local guys(they aren’t as interested as foreigners as the females are )

During Chinese holidays there are “boyfriend rental” services for single chicks who don’t want to face the family solo. I almost did this to help out a friend, wish I had done it in the end because I think it would have been an awesome story to tell.

Also, everyone wants to have boy so the gender imbalance keeps getting worse. My female friends usually had daddy issues because they aren’t treated well by their fathers.

I could go on and on but I’ll leave it at that.

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