Having married a Chinese bride myself and also having lived in China for over eight years I’ve heard a great deal of comments that are way off the mark where Chinese brides are concerned. Take my friend for example, who the other day called me up from America and informed me that he had heard that the Chinese government was going to put a heavy tax on its countries females if they wanted to marry a non-Chinese!
Now before you get worried, let me first tell you that, that is plainly ridiculous. It turns out my friend had heard this from another friend who in turn had read some kind of article online. In fact the ‘article’ turned out to simply be a forum post by someone who had just commented that he thought ‘maybe’ the Chinese government should do that in order to reduce the amount westerners marrying them!
Although the above is a fairly uncommon example, I’d like to bust a few very commonly held myths about Chinese brides for you, right here, right now:
1. Chinese brides are all short! Actually not. China is a vast country and the genetics vary from region to region. This belief came about due to the first Chinese migrants to the west being from the more prosperous south of China, and this region is famous for ‘short’ girls as every Chinese will tell you. The more north you go, the taller the females. There are some really tall Chinese women in the north in serious need of men of matching height!
2. Chinese women are all dying to leave their country! This one is really more uncommon than common, in fact. Chinese women are exceptionally filial, family is everything and most wish to stay close to them. It’s really only a small percentage of Chinese women that want to leave their country by comparison to the population. If you can find one that is willing to leave their own country and is also loyal and filial, then you are onto a winner where marriage is concerned!
3. Chinese girls only care about money when looking for a man to marry. This one is repeated so often that you’d be surprised if someone doesn’t mention it when talking about Chinese females! It’s not quite the case, in actual fact what a Chinese woman may hope for from a material perspective, is often much less than what a western female expects!
The difference is this: In Chinese culture it’s perfectly acceptable to talk about material desires in all situations (so they do so, openly and honestly), whereas in western culture it’s unacceptable for females to materially expect anything from a male, so they hide it, but it’s still one of their unspoken criteria in their choice of marriage partner!
China is a country that only started to open up to the rest of the world in nineteen seventy-nine, and still now, there are a great many misconceptions about the country and its women. Make sure you clue yourself up and you can be sure to end up with a truly happy marriage!
