What Are Chinese Girls Really Looking For in a Man?
Please Note: The information contained in this older article has been supplanted by a newer article containing recent empirical research findings. It has been left on the site for comparative purposes only. It is highly recommended that you read the newer version of this work titled Dating and Marital Preference of Young Chinese Women.
Prof Li Yinhe, China’s first sociologist on sex
Most foreign men, prior to visiting China—particularly ones who have never dated an Asian girl before—hold a stereotype of Chinese women that portrays them as these soft, demure, reserved, shy, alluring, and near ethereal-like “creatures.” What Western men encounter, instead, is often something much closer to the polar opposite. Although it is difficult, if not nearly impossible, to generalize about women from any specific country or culture, there is a great deal of strong anecdotal evidence to suggest that many Chinese women do share certain culturally-influenced characteristics.
Some years ago, Dr. Li Yinhe, a highly-renowned professor at the Sociological Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, conducted an analysis of personal ads in a local newspaper and rank-ordered the stated importance of each of the attributes or traits that was being sought in a potential partner. In descending order of importance, they were: 1) Age; 2) Height; 3) Education; 4) Character and Temperament; 5) Profession; 6) Marital Status and Personal History; 7) Appearance and, finally; 8) Health (Wu, 2005). These aforementioned findings warrant some explanation.
Age is important to the degree the Chinese maintain rather rigid guidelines as to age-by-gender differentials in a relationship: It would be highly unusual to find an older woman/younger man couple (with more than a two-year age difference between them). In addition, girls are expected to have a regular boyfriend (if not already be married) by 25 years of age (and these age standards are even younger in the countryside). Chinese women who reach the age of 30 and do not have a husband (or, at the very least, a long-term boyfriend) are often maliciously gossiped about with speculations that they are either mentally ill or homosexual (and, to the average Chinese, there is very little difference between the two: although more open tolerance towards homosexuality is very slowly emerging in Shanghai).
Height is important to Chinese girls but it is also relative: The average height of Chinese men in mainland China is 170cm (about 5′, 7″) and the average height for women is 160cm (5′, 3″) and it would also be highly unusual to find a couple where the man was shorter than his partner.
The Chinese, not just as a matter of national policy but as a deeply ingrained cultural norm, place an extremely high value on the importance of education. In 2007, China invested 4% of its GDP into improving the quality of its educational system and, one year prior to that, produced some 34,000 PhDs: more than any other country in the world barring the United States (Baker, 2007). Therefore it is not surprising that Chinese girls would rank education as more than twice as important as appearance in mate selection. Foreign men with advanced degrees who held “good positions” in their native countries, irrespective of overall appearance, age and even real financial assets will be fiercely competitive in China and will be highly sought after. However, the absence of a formal education above a high school diploma in a foreign teacher would pose no significant impediment, assuming the girl had no more than a high school education herself, if that man was perceived as hardworking, honest, responsible, and faithful. Similar to the findings on age and height differentials by gender, the Chinese do believe that a man should be better educated than his girlfriend or wife (certainly no less so).
In addition to age, height and education requirements, Chinese girls value the traits of honesty, kindness and responsibility far more than any other set of attributes typically associated with mate selection in the West. As will be discussed in detail in the next unit, infidelity among middle-class and affluent Chinese men is rampant in China and Chinese girls, once they start thinking about marriage, worry about this considerably. Any girl who feels she can trust the man she is currently with to be there for her and her family in the years to come will regard that man with deep affection and will feel quite devoted to him. Despite the fact that all young women in China are seeking “true love,” in the end, marriage is still very much regarded as far more of a practical matter than it is an affair of the heart.
Marital status and personal history are important only to the degree they inform the aforementioned higher ranking qualities (in regard to women only, as Chinese men will always prefer a woman who has never been married before, preferably a virgin). Foreign men who have been divorced once, even twice, before will be questioned about it in the context of determining cause (or, more accurately, with the hope of attributing primary blame to the ex-wife). As long as it is felt that the man acted responsibly throughout the marriage and that the divorce was not the result of infidelity on the man’s part, a history of divorce would not be a significant deterrent for most Chinese girls.
For reasons that should now be clear, overall physical appearance is simply not considered a very important factor for women in mate selection in China. However, having just written this, it is also true that most Chinese girls will more favorably evaluate a foreign man’s physical appearance than their Western counterparts do. The reason for this is that the Chinese tend to focus on specific facial features and other characteristics, such as skin coloring, rather than on the overall gestalt when evaluating Western beauty: They will focus on the size and shape of the eyes, the shape of the nose (particularly the definition of the bridge) and on skin and hair coloring. Foreign men with fair complexion and light hair will be considered very attractive in China even if most Western women do not think so (and this is generally true across Asia). Most Chinese girls, although they certainly like men who are in good shape and well-toned, will eschew those who could be described as “muscle-bound,” especially if they are well-tanned or dark skinned, primarily because of the connotation associated with it in China, i.e., it signifies manual labor and poor education. This latter reality exists in stark contrast to, for example, American-born Chinese girls who actually prefer, on par with fair-haired men, dark-haired, muscular, and Mediterranean, i.e., “swarthy” type of men (Tan, 2002). Related, Chinese girls also have a much higher tolerance for men who are overweight, as—even in China today, although far less so than twenty years ago—a “big belly” is associated with prosperity. Another interesting difference, in regard to appearance, is that most Chinese girls (Chinese in general actually) seem to have a pleasant curiosity about tattoos that is absent the social stigma they may hold for some Western women (it’s as if they are more or less expected on foreign men). See the next page for a continued explanation of the physical attraction to foreign men, in addition to material regarding what draws them to Westerners in an emotional capacity as well.
Finally, as the Chinese believe strongly in the influence of fate and destiny in all matters, including relationships, a foreign man’s health history and current physical condition play virtually no part in mate selection, unless the man presently appears to be sick, especially with chronic respiratory illness (and this fear is related to the SARS epidemic that occurred years ago). The only real concern most Chinese girls, especially younger ones, will have in regard to a man’s health would be limited to his ability to procreate: the vast majority of Chinese girls would like to have at least one child. In fact, it is expected of them by their families.
Unlike the rather significant role that it plays in the West, for the vast majority of girls in China, religious affiliation plays absolutely no role in mate selection here (most Chinese identify themselves as atheists which is why religion is glaringly absent from the list above). Most girls will just try to fit in with whatever religious beliefs the foreign man holds. The only exception to this will be among those who have recently converted to Christianity: They will only be interested in men with the same beliefs (although one’s particular sect or denomination would be irrelevant).
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