交集 ｜ Love Without Borders: Navigating the Global Game of Hearts

Young people from over 60 countries are all thrown together here on the Duke Kunshan University Campus. Around 1,700 young students aged 18-22 are all studying hard at a top university in a country on the rise. They have any number of intellectual questions they’re exploring… but others as well…

“Is this a casual relationship – or a long-term dating partner?”

“If you go out for dinner, who pays for the bill?”

And when two people collide who have an aligned need for physical intimacy and not emotional needs, is Western-style “hook-up culture” acceptable? Or is dating a kind of “khatuba” – as it is in Morocco –an “engagement” and a precursor to marriage?

Coming from at least 67 different countries, DKU students, when getting romantically involved with each other, can find themselves in unfamiliar, curious, and often awkward situations. Across the world, different communities all have different values and opinions on what a normal relationship should consist of and what it should entail for the future. But what are some shared values among countries worldwide? And how do couples from different countries navigate cultural differences in romantic relationships?

While it’s difficult to determine the specific number of cross-cultural relationships at DKU, at least 30 individuals on campus have been identified who date students of a different nationality from their own. The young adults in international relationships are all involved romantically with people from diverse cultures, and their relationships have developed by intertwining online interactions and a new standard of traditional and contemporary approaches to forming connections. And their host country plays a role in these cross-cultural relationships; several Chinese-international couples say, “Multicultural relationships are tough.” But fully international couples add to it: “But dating in China is tougher,” when partners from different places in the world have to navigate their lives and their romances in yet a third culture that is not their own.

So, how does being in China affect the dating scene when everyone has different cultures and goals?

In many countries across the world, apps, such as Tinder, Bumble, Tantan, or Badoo, are popular sources of finding potential partners. But some Chinese students at DKU say dating apps are not that popular here. Being immersed in the dating scene here in China, individuals are more likely to make intimate connections in real life, they say.

Data seems to back this up by showing that in the U.S., 21.9% of the population uses online dating apps, which makes it the country with the highest percentage of users of such platforms, according to an article about online dating worldwide from “Statista.” In China, on the other hand, only 9.1% of the population uses online dating apps. In this country, as Ivy Chen, a Chinese graduate student says, “people mostly make connections offline.”

Throughout interviews about the Chinese dating scene, some international female students said that Chinese guys were usually shy at first, but then it turned out that their mentality was not that far from the famous American “hook-up culture,” in which “people have various types of sexual encounters without expecting emotional intimacy or relationship commitment,” as Tawkify, a romance-based online blog network, describes it. Hook-up culture is prominent in the younger generation in the U.S., especially during students’ four years in college. In America, “60%-80% of college students report participating in hook-ups at least once,” according to Gitnux’s article “Must-Know Hookup Culture Statistics.” In comparison, only 26%-40% of Chinese college students have involved themselves with such practices, according to an academic article on sexuality in China published in Sage Journals.

With the lower popularity of  “hook-up culture” in China, the “talking stage” questions, or the “pre-dating phase” questions, as Cosmopolitan puts it, arise more prominently here.

No matter the country, many students support the traditional view that the man should make the first move. For example, Ivy Chen stated that “in Chinese traditional culture, girls should be more conservative. They should let the guy make the confessions, but when it comes to asking each other out, it does not matter who makes the first move.”

Students from multiple countries say that in their country’s traditions, the couple should know each other well before going out. Sean Bugarin, the Filipino sophomore, says that back home for him, “there is a huge texting culture” and “to ‘court’ someone, you must completely understand the other person first.” Marielle Williamson, the French freshman, has a similar position to Bugarin’s: from her perspective, she believes that her peers “like to follow a more traditional relationship approach,” meaning that first there should be “multiple interactions at school, then extended conversations after classes,” and only after that “the guy asks the girl out.”

But Ivy Chen, the Chinese graduate student, believes that in China it is different: if a future couple gets to know each other in person, then it is okay to go on a first date just after a few days of texting. Moreover, she states, that “a relationship does not need a full understanding of the other person” she is about to embark on a journey with and that she “gets to know the person as [they] continue dating.”

But what if a student comes from a culture where dating itself is viewed as the first step to marriage?

For students from more conservative cultures, navigating international dating follows a more traditional-like approach. Ilias Mahboub, a DKU freshman from Morocco, simply says: “It is very discouraging to go around dating people if you are not sure you are going to stay with them for the rest of your life.” However, he says, modern times bring new traditions: “…but with the newer generation, I’m gonna be honest, many of my peers go around dating a lot.”

Again, data seems to support Mahboub’s views. According to an article published in Research Gate “Teenagers Attitudes and Practices of Dating in Morocco,” most people in Morocco (60.6%) aged between 16 and 24 had a dating experience that lasted at least a month. While this statistic offers evidence that liberal dating tendencies have spread in Morocco nowadays, the daters’ attitudes in that country still lean towards the traditional, when it comes to serious relationships: 65.2% of Moroccan males aged 16 to 24 refuse to marry a person who previously was involved in a romantic relationship with another person, according to the same source. Mahboub elaborates on the definition of dating according to his culture’s traditions: “Only after parents agree with each other that their children will become a husband and a wife, you enter a stage called “khatuba”, or, in other words, you enter a dating stage that is meant to lead to marriage”.

It seems as if for the Americans, according to Tommy Li, an American DKU sophomore, the initiative in the relationship can be split between the significant others. He says, “I value when my girl makes a move first even early in the relationship, and can share some of the burden of being in a relationship with me.” However, Xinyun Li, a Chinese freshman student, says: “It is much harder to be proactive and take charge in the relationship…it is easier for me to reciprocate with what my boyfriend does and follow the lead.”Xinyun adds that she “still gets him gifts and makes sure he knows [she] loves him,” but she does not “really feel the need to plan out a dinner or make plans all the time.”

An international couple, Ricardo Vargas, a Colombian junior at DKU, and Lishi Qu (Coco) a DKU sophomore from Shanghai, China, shared some insights on what it is like to be in a relationship with somebody from another culture for more than a year. “Man, it’s tough” shares Vargas, elaborating on the linguistic and cultural differences. Qu says, that “language is a difficulty…He speaks Spanish, and my English is not that good.” She adds “sometimes I don’t get the slang and the emotions behind it.” According to Vargas, the understanding of what the dynamics in the relationship should be like is also different. Vargas says that Colombian culture is much more open sexually, “while for people in China the topic of sex is more taboo.”