a little coffee

Someone told me this story that happened recently.

A guy, we’ll call him Harry, was dating this wonderful Chinese woman, we’ll say her name is Wang Li for over three years. She was studying for her Master’s degree in English at a university in a city only an hour’s train ride away from where Harry lived. They say each other on weekends and frequently talked during the week. 

Out of the blue one day, Wang Li calls up Harry crying because she can no longer be his girlfriend. She wants to be and Harry still wants to be her boyfriend.

She tells Harry that her family does not like Harry. Why we don’t know. Maybe he offended them in some way, they don’t like some aspect of his personality, or that he’s a Westerner? It doesn’t matter because the Wang family has decided that their dear Wang Li can no longer see Harry. Her uncle went so far as to pay Wang Li’s cell phone provider for a list of her recent phone calls. Now she’s afraid to talk to Harry at all because her uncle has lots of cash to spend.

Well, they’re both miserable, especially Wang Li. Her family doesn’t blame Harry, but Wang Li. For what exactly is unclear. But it’s all Wang Li’s fault. Maybe for using her feminine wiles to seduce Harry into being her boyfriend for three years. We don’t know.

What the what?!? Chris and I were in shock when we heard this story. This is the kind of bullshit that happened hundreds of years ago, but these traditional values still thrive in China. Sorry parentals, but if you told me you didn’t like Chris, I’d have said “too fugging bad.”  But in Doodle Land, defying the family happens on only rare occasions, if ever. And I find it hard to be angry with Wang Li for not standing up to her family, even for so obviously illegally invading her privacy. She comes from a small, formerly poor village, riddled with the typical traditional family values.The family has an enormous control over your personal life. From school to career to love life. And Wang Li is still financially dependent on her family. What would have happened if she said to her obscenely nosey uncle “Fug you!” From what I understand, after the beating, she probably would have been tossed out. Then where does she go? China surely does not have social programs to help people that defied that family, especially the family that had their dear girl’s best interest at heart even if it was wholly contrary to the girl’s heart. But rebellion isn’t something that enters into most Doodles’ mindsets. 

What galls me most is that Wang Li is being entirely blamed for this situation. Blame? The misogyny of that thinking is sickening. Blame. For falling in love with a smart, caring man with a good job who returned that love? Who, just by being Western, provided more opportunity for Wang Li than most Chinese would ever get. Oh, that damn seductress! She should know men don’t have control over themselves. Harry doesn’t have a will of his own!

Well, there’s a nice bucket of sad. Chris and I weren’t really liking China after hearing that.