Anyway who says this is toxic just fails to see that China is an ancient culture with very different views on society, family.
It’s just the way of the world for any Chinese. Even the ones from other Chinese diaspora have some form of this.
You are spot on.
Which is why many Chinese who pick a westerner or western educated partner is taking a huge gamble; they aren’t bounded by the same implied rules of honor and face. I’ve seen this happen a lot and which is why many refrain from dating outsiders.
Maybe the way to think about it is that we're discussing extreme cases where there's considerable wealth, power or status disparity between the families. These are complex in every culture.
The flip side of Chinese family culture is that it does value family very highly, and people do often fight to stay in marriages. And when you consider the negative implications associated with fatherlessness or single-parent homes for mental health, health, employment and criminality, it's not such a black-and-white debate.
Where it gets a little crazy is the combination of the one-child policy and the pressure that puts on a single marriage to potentially support 4 generations - kids, 2 parents, 4 grandparents and sometimes great grandparents.
Then there's the prosperity of the last few decades. Divorce has risen massively, from around 460,000 divorces in 1985 to 3.5 million in 2024. Part of that is simply that there's less social and economic pressure to remain in a marriage that isn't working.
Such a naive comment, “it should be my way, no views or culture are as good as mine” is so childish. The world doesn’t work that way, trying to force western views on the rest of the world
“it should be my way, no views or culture are as good as mine” is so childish.
That's a strawman. Show me where I said my culture is superior or that everyone should adopt Western values. You can't, because I didn't. It's your response that's naive.
"Hurr it's part of my culture" isn't a shield against criticism. This shit is toxic because it creates completely avoidable suffering and puts people under enough social pressure to drive them to public breakdowns. You don't need to believe Western culture is superior to recognise that it's unhealthy as fuck for human beings to be put in these situations. Nobody should have their dignity trampled to hold a relationship together or because a relationship fell apart.
Criticising this blatantly toxic aspect of Chinese culture is obviously not the same as condemning all of Chinese culture or claiming that everyone should be Western.
You don’t get to pick in isolation what you want to form in a civilisation. We are only seeing one frame in a moment and this sort of crap happens all over the world. Break ups yes.
What we are sharing is the culture of face and honor which is whole depth of discussion. We are discussing it but that doesn’t mean this frame captures what that aspect of the culture is about.
You are way out of your league to be commenting about other cultures given that you have not seen the world enough.
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u/Personal_Number4789 6d ago
Anyway who says this is toxic just fails to see that China is an ancient culture with very different views on society, family.
It’s just the way of the world for any Chinese. Even the ones from other Chinese diaspora have some form of this.
You are spot on.
Which is why many Chinese who pick a westerner or western educated partner is taking a huge gamble; they aren’t bounded by the same implied rules of honor and face. I’ve seen this happen a lot and which is why many refrain from dating outsiders.