别爱这样的男人

"I'm not going to talk to you until you take care of the problem."

That's what he said to her when he found out about the new life growing inside her.  So instead of going home for the spring festival, she went to the hospital.  She got rid of "the problem," and won his affection back, at the cost of her self-respect.

She was my student last year, and she called me and asked if I'd ever been in love.  I told her I was far from an expert on the subject but probed further.  It's rare that my students call me out of the blue, just to chit-chat and I sensed there must be a reason.  She stumbled for a while, unsure of how much to reveal to her teacher but finally started telling me that she'd fallen in love with a foreigner on campus.  She'd been dating him for a few months when she got pregnant.

I wish she'd called me sooner—before she went to the hospital.  But it was after that she was hurting and alone and she called me.  So I took her to lunch and she told me about him.  I asked her why she thought she loved him.  Here were her three reasons: 1) He's foreign 2) He has a beautiful smile 3) He's going to be a doctor.  If that's all it takes to inspire love I can think of a few guys who should be married by now.  She admitted that he was also seeing other girls while dating her, but she still gave him her all.  Then he dumped her.

I've seen it happen time and time again, with the names and a few of the details changed, but the story relatively the same.

I hate to categorize people.  Anytime I label someone I am reducing them down to preconceived notions and dismissing the need to get to know them further.  But I find it relatively easy to file the foreigners who come to China into groups depending on their motives.  I know that to do this is to possibly make erroneous judgments but, there is one group of people that persistently forms a category in my mind, and I have trouble seeing them as anything other than this:  foreign men who prey on Chinese women.  I've just seen too many men come to China with the explicit purpose of finding a Chinese girlfriend because they couldn't find one in their home country.  Which would be fine with me if a) they didn't abuse their rock-star status as a foreigner; b) the women weren't quite so easily misled; c) they stayed within the accepted cultural relationship rules and treated the women the way they expect to be treated.  I'm not saying there's something wrong with trying to find a girlfriend.  What bothers me is the abuse of power.  They know these women will fall easily for someone from an "exotic" country and they use that to their advantage and then toss the woman away like garbage when they're through.

It is difficult for me to write this and be remotely objective; I'm seething with anger as I type.  Because some of the women being used are my friends, my students, and beautiful faces of this country I've come to love.  I've heard more than one of them announce that they want to marry a foreigner.  I try to instill in them a sense of what's important in a relationship (which in my opinion does not include someone's status as coming from another country) but my admonitions seem to fall on deaf ears.

Part of me would like to place at least some of the blame on the women who become victimized.  They really should open their eyes; use their brains, and stop believing whatever they're told.  Really, if some women were more rational the problem would be much smaller.  The tendency to fall to easily does not give someone else permission to use that weakness to their advantage.

Far be it from me to say that all Chinese women are naïve and easily swayed.  Many of them are confident, intelligent, and driven.  But many are also sheltered and innocent, with no idea that some people date and break up at the drop of a hat.  They sometimes assume that if a guy wants to date you, that also means he wants to marry you.  I tried to tell my student to have more pride in herself, and not to let someone treat her like this.  She just couldn't believe that he would willingly hurt her.

So I'll continue to lecture all of my female friends and campaign for the scum who call themselves men to be revealed for what they truly are.  If that fails plan B is to try to give foreigners a bad name so that people will stop idolizing us.  Suggestions?

**Let it be known that I'm not a misandrist.  Not all men are worthless—in fact I'm quite partial to them.  I just happen to see an unfair proportion of less-than-honorable ones in my current career.