Boys and Girls in Beijing.

Boys and Girls in Beijing.


What do you get, coming out of high school with a head full of cheesy pop songs, a thousand movies about cliché romances and, thanks to the Chinese government, more than a working knowledge of contraception?

Not all that you’d guess, it seems.


One of the best things about our program here in Beijing is that we have a much deeper understanding of what things are like here in China for the kids, if just for the simple reason that we live with a bunch of twenty-year olds. So obviously we talk to them about things we have in common: boys and girls, girls and boys, taking sides.

What does that entail? All the crushes are still there; after all, we are a bunch of college students thrown together into one building. This includes any combination you could think of, you’re as likely to hear Chinese girls gossiping about the American boys as you are to hear the American boys discussing which Chinese teacher is hottest.


My roommate’s friend, another roommate here, has a boyfriend. They are interminably cute together. He wears goofy glasses and walks arm in arm with her as they head off to school, not too far away from our dorm. Every so often they exchange kisses on the cheek or something slightly more serious of an evening. The thing is, I’m not sure how far it goes beyond that.

The other day, as we were heading out to eat dinner, we ran into the couple. The girl was annoyed. Our shifu (doorman/handyman/house dad) wouldn’t let her boyfriend into the building. The reason? “He told me it’s too late,” the girl said, “he told me that there’s class tomorrow so we should be studying.” She laughed when I said that the shifu wasn’t her dad. So how are the Chinese kids supposed to get it on?


I suppose there’s always the clubs. Alcohol and dancing! Drinks and not very many clothes! Too bad there are the same problems here that we find everywhere. Does he like me? Is this just tonight? Why is she with that other guy?

Why are there so many Europeans? And why is everyone drunk?


I’d have to guess that it’s a little bit of a change for some of the Chinese students that didn’t really go out like that before. This past weekend was Halloween. A group of 30 CET students and roommates went out to a club and then came back at 5 the next morning. One of my friends, a Chinese girl, was worried that the way she danced made the other girls, American and Chinese, think badly of her. “A lot of Chinese girls can dance like that,” she said, “but they just don’t in public.”

This is also about double standards. A girl, dancing with all the guys, seen too often with different people? A little too open-minded? Telling some that they have a kaifang sixiang, literally an open way of thinking, is tantamount to calling them a slut. The same classification doesn’t really apply to guys. I guess it’s the same in America.


There are still the same non-intersecting lives. Girls are pretty much foreign territory to some of the Chinese guys, my roommate included. Do you want a career? Do you want a successful life? Maybe it’s best if you don’t have a girlfriend in college. Maybe it’s best to focus on what’s really important: learning. Drowning in textbooks, you can curl up in bed with your English primer and go to class in the morning.


The battle lines are laid like this: All the guys want the prettiest girls. All the guys want the girls that are unspoiled, and they all hope that it’ll be their First Time. Is it usually? I don’t know, I don’t really know if that kind of thing is quite open to discussion. As for the girls? Sometimes they’re still just dancing to have fun.


“Do you want to come dance with me?”

“Sure.”