As an exchange student from China, I’ve been in the United States for three months. One thing that surprised me is that Chinese and American women have different visions of age.
Before I came here, I used to think all women in the world would be happy to hear praise that they look so young, for we do think so in China. For example, in China, when you say a 25-year-old woman looks like a high school student, she will feel very pleased and appreciate you, while American women will probably think you are saying that they are childish.
When I began my job as a security worker in a residence hall, one of my responsibilities was to record visitors’ information. I got to know their ages, which made me surprised.
“Why do they look so mature?” I wondered. “How can I tell whether a girl is 15 or 25 when they have the same look?” It was impossible for me to distinguish freshmen and seniors, which I always did at my home university.
Hou Huixin, another exchange student from the same university as I am, told me an interesting thing she experienced. Some Asian students took photos with some American students, and she found that the three Asian girls had almost the same pose: “V” gesture, large-eyed naive expression and childish pout. At the same time, the American girls “all smiled, with 24 teeth seen.”
“Asian women are supposed to be modest,” said Janice Bogstad, professor of women’s studies. “They are not encouraged to show they’re smarter than men, which is considered to be eager and aggressive.” She has studied women’s studies since the 1970s and visited Mainland China and Taiwan in the early 1990s.
Bogstad said the main reason for the differences between Chinese and American women is the different cultural tradition. Confucianism is the dominant traditional philosophy in China and some other Asian countries. However, as the United States is an immigrant country, people come from different cultural backgrounds; there is not a standard value accepted by all.
“Irish-American and African-American have totally different traditions and culture, so they also have different requirements and models of women,” she said.
Although it’s hard to have a standard model, there is one thing most American women regard as important: physical appearance. Affected by media, American women are very easily anxious about their looks.
“In fact, fewer than 5 percent of women can have movie star faces and shapes,” Bogstad said. On the other hand, Chinese value mental characteristics more than physical appearance.
Thus, women in the United States spend a lot of money and energy on their looks.
Meanwhile, without a model of modesty, they tend to show themselves as independent, mature women.
This difference is not only for women, but also for men. Sports are considered more important by American men, while wisdom and social responsibilities are the main goals for Chinese men. They tend to be good sons, husbands and fathers rather than adventurers or travelers.
“That’s why I married my husband,” said Becky Olson, a graduate from UW-Eau Claire who married a Chinese man when she visited China two years ago. “He is a good husband.”
After a couple of weeks, figuring out a girl’s age is no longer that difficult for me, because physical appearance certainly is not the only way to do this.
Though there are a lot of differences between Chinese and Americans, trying to communicate with each other and to learn from each other is always the target for both. American and Chinese girls are both interested in classes, career plans and families, as well as movies, hot guys and cosmetics.
I remember a lot of scenes of Hollywood movies, in which women are so indomitable that, when facing failures and frustrations, they will shout to themselves: “Never give up! You can!” I also remember, in a lot of Chinese movies, women take care of the whole families – which is definitely not easy either.
For me, I dream that I can be independent as well as caring; ambitious as well as modest; attractive as well as cordial. This should be the dream for both American and Chinese women.
