Bari asks:

I am biracial, with a chinese mother and a caucasian father. Physically the only real asian things about me are my eyes and body stature, noticeable, but other than that I look pretty much caucasian. As for background, my mother was a foreigner, and I was born and bred in the united states. Throughout my life there were always chinese influences in the home, but it ends there (can’t speak chinese either, but learning!). There is much helpful advice on the internet for caucasian women to get a chinese man, but I’ve never seen any for halfies such as myself. Being biracial, I feel kind of awkward in the whole asian-caucasian dating scene, perhaps being too “white” for the more conservative Chinese men and too “asian” for the yangxifu lovers. What would the difference be in how chinese men and their parents view me because I am half instead of full caucasian?

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Sean Lennon said the following in the book Part Asian, 100% Hapa :

If, like me, you are half-Japanese and half-white, you will in Japan be considered white and in America be considered Asian. This can be lonely at times, but it mostly makes for good conversation.

He’s not a half-Chinese and half-White woman like you, but his words are telling. I can only imagine how awkward the Asian-Caucasian dating scene must be for you.

There’s little on the topic out there, as you said. Many Chinese shower half-Chinese, half-White people with the usual stereotypes (gorgeous and clever), but I’ve never heard or read anything on the subject of dating between Chinese men and women like yourself. When I searched the English-language Internet, I found some hapa sites, but few discussions on hapa women dating Asian men, let alone Chinese men.

Still, I found a few things after sifting through some forums. Here’s a quote from a discussion titled “Dating Asian people while hapa”:

I have met many Asian women who find Hapas very attractive- the exoticness factor thrown in with someone-you-can-take-home-to-mom I suppose. [Jocelyn’s note: maybe the “someone-you-can-take-home-to-mom” factor could apply with Chinese men?]

In the forums on the Fighting 44s, I found this in a discussion called “Hapas and IR”:

Full asian guy/hapa girl- Matters where you live. In Asia this seems like a trend for celebs. Like the black men and white women, it seems that some Asian men feel that to top off their success, they need a hapa girl. For the hapa girls in Asia, they are more in touch of their Asian roots and see all the whites their as bums…. …mixed race asians are considered better catches on the colonial ladder in asia than gweilos [white foreigners]… whereas mixed race people are “just asian enough” but with “good caucasian features” but more often than not, they are more easily integrated into the culture, which is still quite important for living in asia. being mixed race provides you with a lot of opportunities in a lot of fields and in day to day life, as well. i suspect that if you ask, most men and women in asia would choose a mixed race partner over a gwei.

But these are only a few opinions from online — hardly enough to draw any firm conclusions, nor to answer your question in full.

So I’d like to ask the readers out there. In your opinion, what would Chinese men think of half-Chinese/half-Caucasian women (as far as dating)? What about Chinese parents?

And, please, don’t keep this post to yourself. Share it and invite others to have their say. Maybe then we’ll get a little closer to providing some kind of guidance out there to women like Bari.

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Do you have a question about life, dating, marriage and family in China/Chinese culture (or Western culture)? Every Friday, I answer questions on my blog. Send me your question today.

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