at home in…, w| Gerald Zhang-Schmidt

They are some of those strange observations the foreigner makes in China: Guy and girl sit next to each other in the park. They coddle each other, obviously very much in love. Same people, same place, half an hour later: she has her back turned to him, sullenly plucks on some leaves, obviously irritated. He [...]

Is sex fun? You’re probably wondering where this is supposed to go now, thinking something along the lines of “well, if it’s consensual, yeah – why else would people do it?” Even cultural backgrounds should not matter much, except where they shape the conditions when it’s acceptable to get busy. It’s just a biological thing [...]

So much can be heard about social issues in China – about China itself, in fact – it can feel as if the country and its people are, in all their oddities, becoming ever more familiar. In talking about relationships, for example, one commonly hears about two sides: Men who get rich and find themselves [...]

“What are *they* like?” oftentimes turns into a question of men and women. Thus, one of those things one often rubs up against, whether observing China or being involved in an intercultural relationship, whether being in-country or hearing about it from afar, are issues of gender. How you are, as a man or woman, seems [...]

Whatever “Charisma Man” tells you, the pairing of a Western male and a Chinese female is seen so often, it’s become quite the stereotype. As such things go, how you see it on even the most superficial level is a matter of greatly diverging opinions: – The positive view (which I have only ever encountered [...]