Women

I have a friend who works in the hospital affiliated with my school. She is about my age, and hasn't been working for too long. Our friendship is somewhat difficult for me, because I generally feel more like a therapist than a friend in our interactions. When she isn't talking about herself, she asks questions about me that seem to serve as points of comparison for situations in her own life. Despite this rather annoying relationship, I somehow spend a lot of time with her. She needs a friend, and I guess when it comes down to it, so do I.

Tonight she came over for dinner, as it has long been her desire to have a home-cooked "Western" meal. I dutifully complied with baked chicken and macaroons, and in the process was served up some food for thought. My friend, who we can call Xiao Mei for purposes of anonymity, has a boyfriend who she isn't too thrilled about most of the time. This is Xiao Mei's first boyfriend, and she is terrified that is she messes it up, it'll be her last. When asked to describe him, she is uniformly lukewarm. Is he funny? Not really. Handsome? Not so much. Nice? Um... The boyfriend in question repeatedly points out Xiao Mei's flaws--she is too fat, spends too much money, isn't outgoing enough, or sometimes is too outgoing--and seems to be a terminal mama's boy, from all accounts. When I ask why she is dating him, after what is usually a litany of complaints and worries about him, Xiao Mei replies that she thinks he might marry her.

Baffled by this, I try to delicately (or sometimes not so delicately, if I've lost my patience) point out that he sounds like a jerk who could never make her happy in a marriage if they aren't even happy together in the early stages of dating, when couples are theoretically supposed to be nicest to each other. Xiao Mei thinks he can change, though, and if he changes enough, she'd marry him.

Chinese society, as is much-commented upon by everyone, is evolving rapidly. Sociologists talk about generation gaps existing between 12 year olds and 15 year olds. Of course, the role of women is mixed in there with the rest of the changing norms and mores. In my experience with women of my age group, they seem caught between the traditional Chinese ideal--modest, quiet, subservient--and the "modern," increasingly Western model of femininity. While women are being educated and enter the work force in roughly equal numbers as men, there is still incredible pressure to marry and have their one child, especially before the age of 28, the approximate year that a woman becomes an "old shoe." If a guy or girl can't find a mate on their own, family members step in to orchestrate a match. Xiao Mei broke up with her boyfriend briefly this winter, and in the interim her family set her up on a dizzying round of blind dates, none of which took.

Xiao Mei is constantly asking me questions about what I think about premarital sex, what is considered beautiful and attractive, how often women should go out on their own, how to stand up for herself in her workplace, what is appropriate for a women in relation to drinking alcohol, and so on. It isn't easy to answer these questions, because my answers usually are so culturally-specific that I feel like were she to take my advice and live by my standards, she'd run into serious trouble with her social groups.

For example, tonight she asked me if in the States it was alright for women to go to bars. I explained that most of my friends and I, male and female, enjoy going to bars on occasion without serious risk of tarnishing our reputations. Happy hour, Friday night, for drinking, dancing, meeting friends, dates--bars are generally socially acceptable for women in the States. She explained essentially that proper women shouldn't go to bars, and if they do, they shouldn't appear to enjoy it too much. Western style pubs and clubs are mushrooming in large and medium-size cities in China, and they are very fashionable, but the clientèle is mostly men. Prostitutes frequent many, for obvious reasons.

Tonight after dinner, Xiao Mei and I took a walk through the park nearby my campus. Our conversation meandered down its usual paths, about her boyfriend and their shared misery together. After a while, we lapsed into silence. Xiao Mei then suddenly piped up, "You seem to live your life just as you please. I wish I could live that way." This comment has stuck with me throughout the evening, and I realize that she's mostly right, especially considering her perspective. I live my life how I want to, because I'm allowed to. My family, my friends and my culture give me the freedom to live a life that I feel I can shape by myself, and that is an incredible gift.

Though I had been somewhat dreading tonight's little dinner party and its attendant conversation, I'm glad that Xiao Mei came over. Turns out, I'm actually not the only person providing perspective in our relationship.