Kevin McGeary

    AN interesting country, like an interesting person, will always be full of contradictions. In many Chinese cities, there is an abundance of not very discreet adult toy shops. But the mainstream media allows no explicit sexual content.

    Kept women (二奶) have become so common that the Supreme People’s Court is said to be considering a draft interpretation of the country’s marriage law that deals with the problems they and their lovers create. But the popularity of hymen restoration surgery, as described by Dr. Zhou Hong of Beijing Wuzhou Women’s Hospital, suggests that this culture still likes its women to be chaste and virginal.

    The fairer sex are a mystery to men everywhere, but Chinese women, coming from such a contradictory society, can be more puzzling than a tangram. When I ask a Chinese to explain these contradictions, they usually respond with the saying: “When the forest is big, you’ll get every type of bird.” But that information does not lessen the confusion.

    For this reason, the dating pool for men in Shenzhen may be deep, but it is also hazardous. It is a generalization — but not much of a generalization — to say that Chinese women in their 20s and 30s are beautiful but insecure about their looks and heavily pressured by their families. Sculptor Chen Lianfu currently has a display celebrating the Chinese female body in ways that would not have been allowed during most of the country’s puritanical history. But this beauty is generally coupled with a lack of confidence. According to a 2005 feature in China Daily, the beauty standards for a Chinese woman are height (165 to 170 cm), an oval face, long straight hair, slender, pale complexion, no moles or freckles, large eyes with a crease in the eyelids, and a pronounced bridge of the nose. In other words, they want an appearance that represents well under 1 percent of Chinese women.

    Beauty matters in China. At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the prodigy who sang “My Motherland” had to be replaced by a girl with more perfect teeth for the cameras, to present a beautiful image.

    The Web site, Middle Kingdom Life, also points out the pressure Chinese women are under — especially those born since the one-child policy was introduced — to provide for their parents in their old age. One of the most obvious ways to do that is to marry a man who is a reliable provider. Therefore, to prove to a Chinese girl that you are husband material, you often have to reliably provide food and water, as well as compliments.

    The reason I mention the word “husband” in an article about dating is that, except in major cities and among university students, casual dating is not commonplace. That is why a date with a Chinese girl can often feel more like a job interview than romantic. Therein lies another contradiction. The Chinese film industry regularly pumps out movies about pure romance, such as last year’s “Under the Hawthorn Tree,” and the music scene is dominated by love ballads. But all of this talk of providing a house, a car, and financial support for her parents is highly unromantic. Perhaps the reason the media is so full of romantic love, unblemished by practical concerns, is because it is human nature to want what one doesn’t have: such as pale skin, height, large eyes, and so on.

    (The author is a Shenzhen Daily senior copy editor and writer.)