Why the Chinese don't say "I love you" success fail Jun JAN Jul 24 2009 2010 2011 8 captures 08 Feb 2009 - 05 Oct 2011 About this capture COLLECTED BY Organization: Alexa Crawls Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. Collection: alexa_web_2010 this data is currently not publicly accessible. TIMESTAMPS Home I ♥ SHANGHAI FOOD & DRINK LIFE & STYLE ARTS COMMUNITY SPORTS CITY GUIDES VENUES EVENTS JOBS FRIENDS Sign in.     Remember Me       Create an account New podcast / Classifieds / Other Cities Guangzhou Shenzhen I ♥ SHANGHAI Features Daily Blog Streets Ahead Podcasts Expo Update Why the Chinese don't say "I love you" Features Wednesday, 04 February 2009 08:02 Written by JFK Miller The Chinese are supposedly prudish about sex, but you can still purchase a 9-inch vibrator at your local supermarket checkout. Meanwhile, the government has recently cracked down on online pornography, warning Google and Baidu they must do more to clean out the smut from their online houses. So, while you can pick up a dildo with your meat and veg, they don’t want you to get off online. Clearly, we’re not in Kansas anymore… But we’re not here to talk about sex. We’re here to talk about its occasional and often-neglected handmaiden: love. The Chinese are supposedly prudish about that, too. Shanghai Love Education Institute founders Ni Meiqi and Dong Xingmao say Chinese love is “like a thermos – cold outside but hot inside.” Western lovers (particularly those of the American variety), they claim, say “I love you” far too much, and what’s worse, “they don’t actually mean it all the time.” So while some Westerners tend to overuse “I love you,” those three little words (or rather, their Chinese equivalent, “Wo ai ni”) just don’t seem to roll off the tongues of Chinese lovers so nearly as readily. Between parent and child, yes; but between man and woman, well, Chinese people seem to subscribe to the notion that some things are best left unsaid. Why the Chinese don’t say ”I love you” Yan Wenhua, professor of psychology at Shanghai’s East China Normal University, says part of the answer lies in the difference between ‘high context’ and ‘low context’ cultures. High context cultures (for example, Chinese and other East Asian cultures), have a strong sense of tradition and history, and change little over time; while low context cultures (for example, American culture) change dramatically from one generation to the next. People from high context cultures don’t say things clearly or specifically, but instead derive meaning from the context – what you might call ‘reading between the lines.’ In low context cultures, people generally say what they mean. . “Chinese culture is like this,” says Prof. Yan. “I tell you everything around the center. So you must know what I mean. From all the information I give you, you should know; you cannot miss it.’” In the high context Chinese culture, actions speak louder than words, especially when it comes to love. “To the Chinese mind, if I do all these things for you, then you should know I love you,” explains Prof. Yan. Prof. Yan says modern Chinese are more likely to say ‘I love you’ in English or other foreign languages than they would in their mother tongue. “If Chinese say ‘I love you’ in English, it’s like touching someone’s arm who is wearing a coat. If they say it in Chinese it’s like touching the skin, it’s very sensitive. ‘Wo ai ni’ is very specific. It means responsibility, commitment, loyalty, if you say it.” “In Chinese people’s eyes, if I say ‘I love you’ too often, that is, use a high context way to say it, then maybe you don’t really love me because you say it so much,” says Prof. Yan. According to Prof. Yan, Chinese culture has devised other ways to express adult love. “Instead of saying ‘Wo ai ni,’ Chinese people are more likely to express the same meaning in a different way. They might say, ‘If I have a next life, then I would like to be your husband or wife.’” “We Chinese also have a saying: ‘Xin you ling xi yi dian tong,’ which means we have common points beyond language. Even if we don’t speak, you can sense what I sense; you can feel what I feel.” About face The other part of the reason why Chinese people don’t say “Wo ai ni” lies in the concept of ‘face.’ “Chinese people don’t want to lose face or let others lose face,” says Prof. Yan. “If I say, ‘I love you,’ and it isn’t reciprocated then that’s a loss of face. So Chinese people use subtler ways to express their love in order to save face.” James Farrer, Associate Professor of Sociology at Tokyo’s Sophia University, and author of 2002’s Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai, agrees with the saving-face hypothesis. “George Simmel [the 18th-century German sociologist], said Eros is always about revealing and hiding, revealing and hiding,” says Prof. Farrer. “In any culture there’s this element of showing something and keeping something back. It’s a way of self-protection.” “In Chinese culture, to say ‘I love you’ is too touchy, too creepy; it opens one up too much. So people find other ways rather than say it directly,” adds Prof. Farrer. “In Shanghainese, it’s ‘Wo huan xi nong’ (I like you), or in Mandarin ‘Wo xihuan ni.’ The Japanese say ‘Suki de’ (I like you). ‘Like’ is a way of expressing affection; it’s playful, not so serious.” Why so serious? Sharon Lui, a marriage and family therapist at Community Center Shanghai, says not saying ‘I love you’ can sometimes cause problems in Chinese relationships. “I have one case where the husband never said ‘I love you’ until his wife said ‘I want to leave you,’” says Liu, who counsels both Western and Chinese couples with rocky marriages. “‘Wo ai ni’ is really difficult for Chinese to say,” says Liu, “because essentially the phrase means a solid commitment.” “In the Chinese culture we don’t really have ‘casual dating.’ We’re either boyfriend and girlfriend, or just friends. We don’t have this Western dating concept where two people go out on a date that doesn’t really mean anything.” Liu says Chinese also look at love, or passionate, intimate relationships in a much more functional way than Westerners. “Chinese get married because they need to have children, or because of societal or parental pressure. They ‘fall in love’ because it’s the social norm. It’s more functional then feeling oriented.” But times are changing. “The younger generation are more open to the dating concept, or what the Americans call ‘seeing each other,’” says Liu. “But in the last generation they don’t have that. Saying ‘I love you’ is pretty much like saying ‘I want to marry you.’” Bookmark Email this Hits: 2640 Comments (8) Show/hide comments ... written by Shi B., April 27, 2009 I find this is one of several similarities between Norwegian and Chinese. Norwegian also seperate between the expression "love" = "ai" and the more wider term "xihuan". Actually, Norwegian has a 3rd word meaning "love" or "care for" - I recon there may be a Chinese equivalent for this, but it escapes me at the moment. This word is commonly used within family and friends. Love as in "ai" is mainly used for the love of your life, it is a very strong word and has a distinct connotation; in other words - using this word to your friend may cause some unexpected reactions... And like in Chinese it also contains a lot of commitment; such as faithfulness, a relationship that is meant to last , to fit the other person in to your own "schedule" as something more than mere dating - depending on cultural differences this is a point of life it will be natural to think of living together, engagement and marriage. +0 ... written by SkinX , April 17, 2009 I think/feel the lose face section is not only true but interesting in the midst of calling a chinese girl whom i like for a date, even merely for a drink. My mind wanders along the line of rejection and wanting it to happen.. gawd! In a way, I feel proud being a chinese to have these soo deep approach toward relationships, tho can be complicated at times. +0 ... written by banana head, April 15, 2009 How "Chinese don't say "I love you"" got into AFS board really beats me. Nonethless this is an interesting article on an interesting subject, therefore thanks for sharing, very much. My understanding is Chinese like to feel it (love and other things) than tell it. Chinese word for emotion is gan-qing, which is pratically two words: gan means "to feel," and qing means "the feeling." If love has to be said out loud before being understood, it'd be either the recepient is so dense or the "qing" is not strong enough to be called love. Westeners say "I love you" all the time because it's romantic. But in traditonal Chinese (dictionary as well as culture), the word romantic did not exist. Lang-man is a phonetic transliteration from a western languange no more than 100 years ago. +0 ... written by Gil Barata, April 08, 2009 Very interesting paper, the difference between ‘high context culture' and ‘Low context culture’ As a Portuguese who has lived in Kansas (US) but has also travelled to China (Cantonese are) I would consider my self belonging to a some kind of 'middle context culture'. I’ve lived most of my life with the principle that better than hearing you say ‘I love You’ is to ‘feel you love me’…. Although sometime I find it necessary to hear some kind of statement to clear out with no doubt, what message is being passed… +0 ... written by Ugh, April 05, 2009 I find the traditional Chinese view on relationships far more appealing than the modern American one, and that's coming from a 45 year old white guy. +0 ... written by asian girl, April 02, 2009 What if a man say" I want to marry with you" on the first date.Is it the westerner's way ? +0 ... written by penny, February 05, 2009 The conservative times has passed. the young generation seems to be open enough to do so... +6 ... written by hardy meldrum, February 04, 2009 in what supermarket can i buy a 12 inch vibrator????? Never seen that here before. +4 Write comment Show/hide comment form Name Comment smaller | bigger Subscribe via email (registered users only) I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage. 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