How they see us: ‘Chinese girls’ on Quora

By Yang Ziwei

When I get bored, I do random searching on Quora. Mostly, I type ‘Asian girl’ or ‘Chinese girl’ in the search bar. Not only because reading comments is such a good time-killer, but because it is interesting for me to see how people outside (especially westerners) see us. 

Last time I searched the keywords ‘Chinese girl’. Then numerous questions and topics showed: 

‘How it feels to date a Chinese girl.’ 

‘How to date a Chinese girlfriend.’ 

‘What are the characteristics of Chinese girls?’ 

‘What are the pros and cons of dating a Chinese girl?’ 

‘Why Asian girls are easily attracted by white men?’ 

You name it. 

Most asked questions evoked yellow fever suspicions, for instance, how to have a Chinese girlfriend. While normally, you would like a Chinese girl first,  then you try to have a date with her, here, rather, the goal is to target Chinese girls at first. Yellow fever is never a new topic for Asian girls. Sadly, we ‘accepted’ it as the real-life issue that we’ve been so familiar with. Therefore, most questions that showed a yellow fever intention didn’t surprise me a lot. Instead, the interesting thing I found was the people who answered the questions.

As Quora is a platform to answer the question with a ‘unique insight’ (how it defines itself), it provides a rationale to the answer based on personal experiences. Of course, in daily life, we all build up our impressions from what we’ve been through. Thus, I’m not here to judge the ones who leave their impressions about Chinese girls. The point is why they think they can answer. Do the ones who answered have a relevant degree in Asian Studies or are they scholars in gender and race research? No, none of them. They choose to answer because they’ve dated one or two Chinese girls, they had or have a Chinese wife, or some Chinese girls like them. They put it on their bio as a qualification. They qualified themselves to answer by showing off the intimacy with the Chinese girls they knew before. Then look at their answers.

“While talking about the characteristics of Chinese girls, they describe us as innocent, super feminine, skinny, good at cooking and submissive. Apparently, those ‘features’ are why they love Chinese girls and are typical stereotypes of us.”

They see us as good girls just because we satisfied their assumption of Chinese girls. Asian girls have been imaged as wife material for a long time. We are expected to be weak women with few ambitions. From the pictures they posted while demonstrating their types, I noticed those girls are undeniably beautiful with big eyes, long eyelashes and high bridge noses, which somehow fits the Eurocentric beauty standard. Can I say that they idealised girls under their beauty criteria but with Asian characteristics? They fetishise ‘eastern’ but not that ‘oriental’. I always think that beautiful girls are beautiful by all means. When people emphasised how beautiful they are for Chinese girls, it gave me the same feeling as when the microaggression comment about an Asian girl being ‘too cute to be Asian’.

One specific answer caught my attention. This man validated himself by showing the picture of his Chinese girlfriend. He then listed the characteristics with an explanation alongside. He started with a compliment of how sweet Chinese girls are, especially mentioning his girlfriend. He also delivered one message that he was not planning to have a long-term relationship. But his girlfriend is too sweet to handle, which he enjoys a lot. At the end of his answer, he clarified why he likes Chinese girls and spoke for the men with so-called ‘yellow fever’. He made a comparison between western girls and Chinese girls. He said, ‘who wants to be with a fat pizza-eater?’ I guess his girlfriend would never see what he had left on the internet,or she would realise he is such a misogynist with disgusting yellow fever.

“I couldn’t help but wonder how many yellow fever fetishists exist but hide behind the screen, behind the mask they have prepared for Asian girls after other men have taught them the tricks to get Chinese/Asian girls on Quora.”

Yellow fever is such a thing that almost every Asian girl has experienced it. As an ordinary Chinese girl, I have received messages from strangers asking me to be their sugar baby. You may think it’s normal nowadays. Yes, it is. But the funniest part is my Facebook name was in Chinese by the time I got those requests. They don’t even know how to pronounce my name. 

Last week, I travelled to London for a job interview. I got out of the King’s Cross station, walking by UCL while on my way to the hotel. A man approached me and walked with me in the same direction even though he was supposed to go opposite. He asked if I’m from China and if I study at UCL. I told him that I’m studying in Sheffield. He then turned around and went in the direction he was supposed to go.

What upsets me is to see how other Chinese girls easily trust those people with proposals. We’ve been taught to be polite and friendly. We’ve been cautious with anything we do. And as we grew up in a collectivist culture, we believe that how we behave represents our country overseas. Especially when you are an international student, you would be delighted at the chance to have some local friends here. Sometimes we would even glorify them. I’ve seen some posts on Chinese social media in which Chinese girls shared the stories of how random men on the street asked if they were Chinese and then said ‘nihao’/ ‘zaoshanghao’ (‘hello, good morning’) to them. They were happy to see someone ‘friendly’, seeing it as a warm welcome from locals. 

In the Quora answers, there are also Chinese men. When yellow fever fetishists advertise to the public that Chinese girls don’t care if they are wealthy or not, Chinese men jump out and strongly agree with what they say. They further mention that Chinese girls are easy girls. As long as you are a foreigner, Chinese girls want to be with you no matter what. From the comments they’ve made, Chinese girls are built as a group of traitors and materialists. Wasn’t it funny for me to see this view? While people outside China have yellow fever issues, people inside China have stigmatised and labelled us as easy girls. 

Studying abroad has made me think more about self-identity. But, of course, it does not just happen to Chinese girls, and of course, Quora can’t represent everything. But it gives me a glimpse of the world I’m facing as a Chinese girl. Chinese girls as a topic are complex, just as women from other minority groups.  How we were seen was built both on our ethnicity and our gender. And who we are –Chinese girls– has also been given certain other concepts by different people.

“Being Chinese during a pandemic is hard with racism and microaggressions. Being a girl is hard with harassment and feeling alarmed on a daily basis. Being Chinese girls, we have to experience both, and the situation is even more complicated when we lack exposure to the Western world.”

I’m not even a good-looking Chinese girl, but I still have to face the weird people both online and in real life. It’s not hard to imagine how exhausting life could be for those good-looking girls. There was one time I had a little talk with a guy. I described how frustrating it is when people speak a little Chinese to approach me. He couldn’t understand why that upsets me. At that moment, I realised that it’s not easy to sympathise when you don’t experience it yourself.

“Sometimes I also self-reflect on whether I’m too sensitive to feel uncomfortable. I ask myself if I put myself in a victim complex. However, I have realised that it’s not okay for me if I don’t feel okay.”

The New York Times once published an opinion piece in 2019, written by R. O. Kwon, with the title ‘Stop Calling Asian Women Adorable’. I read the comments section to get all the points from both sides. Personally, I do realise the feeling is individually different. But it is essential to have your say when you aren’t ok with it.

There have been several times where I asked myself why I had such unpleasant experiences. Is it because I’m Chinese or because I’m a woman? Now, I understand that I can’t just see myself just by my race or my gender, but rather, I must process it as a whole. I hope this article finds someone who may also doubt ideas and feelings about their own identity, so they may speak out for themselves about how they feel in the end. 

Ziwei is a Chinese student who just finished a Master’s programme at Sheffield University this September. She is currently looking for a full-time job in the UK.