I took this aerial picture of Beijing the night I left as the plane was taking off. The sky was so clear. So different compared to when I arrived in Beijing 7 years ago, as we landed in the thick pollution and I couldn’t see anything. This picture of Beijing symbolizes how I feel today, how clearly I can see things… What I like about Singapore is that people doesn’t need to “show” to have a good life, because people simply “have” a good life. And that’s refreshing as everything looks more real…

If there is one thing I learnt from this painful break up experience with my almost one year relationship with Faye is that abuse has many different forms. We often assume that abuse can only be physical or verbal, but I learned with my therapist last week that being lied to, being betrayed, being disrespected, in some way these are all different forms of being abused. That really opened my eyes and made me understand why I was suffering so much, first with Lily the year before and then following to her with Faye; those were the last two relationships I’ve had.

Both were married women running away from their troubled situation at home. Both found comfort in my arms and in my bed. Lily was an abuse victim herself, since her husband would often resort to beating her during arguments. She also was mentally unstable, probably suffering from bi-polar disorder. She broke up with me more than 60 times in a year when we were together. Her mood swings would constantly keep me on the edge and when her depression kicked-in she would feed me her usual cocktail of pain: out of the blue she would text me “Goodbye forever”. And after a few days, when her emotions would settle, she would try to lure me back in with a melancholic “I miss you”. And stupid me I always fell for that and returned like a fool to the fountain of pain. When I met Faye she helped me to get rid of Lily but I guess I didn’t learn the lesson that I should have stayed away from troubled married women. With Faye I ignored the early signs that she often resorted to lies to hide things from me. Faye broke up with me less frequently but her abuse was more painful because at some point it became physical. Her violent reactions, believe me, were very scary. Don’t get me wrong, I did my share of mistakes of provoking her sometimes. For example one night she came home late and I had doubts about her whereabouts because I didn’t really trust her. It was hard for me to hide my anger and I harshly demanded her to leave my place and return back home. But you can’t disrespect a Chinese woman which such an offense, her Chinese pride immediately stood up and her emotions started spiraling like a tornado. Then she screamed at me: “You should respect me, I am a woman” and hit me on the face and fiercely pushed me, knocking me down on the floor. While doing that, she glanced at the knife on the kitchen counter. In that split of a second, her mind probably would have liked to grab it… But luckily she didn’t.  It is crazy just to think what could have happened. But I didn’t react to that and kept my composure.  I was really frightened that night and feared for my own life because I didn’t know how to get her out of my house without provoking another reaction. “What if she grabbed that knife in the middle of the night while I was sleeping?” I was thinking.  So I tried to play nice, calmed her down, played a trick to walk outside of my apartment while she was in the bathroom and luckily she followed. Then I managed to get back in my apartment before her and I securely locked the door behind me. It was like one of those drama movies. 

Faye was indeed aggressive but can you blame her? If I look around in China I see all sorts of abuse and aggressive behavior. There are plenty of examples, from the way people are driving cars or rush to quickly get into the subway train pushing everybody like a sardine, to the aggressiveness in the way this country has been trying to emerge and develop economically. They can be aggressive when crossing the streets or standing in line, few of them are good enough to wait for their turns. Aggressiveness is their secret weapon also when doing business particularly when bargaining.  There is aggressive competition in sports but also on the job among colleagues. Often they are nice on one side and ready to stab you on the back if you are a threat to their career. Also Chinese bosses seldom promote their Chinese employees, and when people are being laid off, they are always the first to go. I have experienced all this directly. They can even display some aggressiveness with their chopsticks when they quickly and avidly shove food into their mouth and down their throat. Not to mention that domestic violence is pretty much tolerated here. There is no law that protects women from being beaten by their husbands which keeps the door opened to a wide spectrum of abuse and violence. Even in the confines of the bedroom, where Western couples habitually address each other as ‘honey’ and ‘darling’, Chinese couples prefer such endearments as ‘You deserve death by a thousand cuts!’. And in matters of politics or money, and in power struggles of any kind, Chinese people’s spite knows no bounds. I wouldn’t be surprised that there a lot of abused children as well behind closed doors in this society. 

And if you want to get an apology for their aggressiveness you can pretty much forget about it. Chinese people are highly reluctant to admit their errors, and can produce a myriad of reasons to cover their mistakes. There’s an old adage: ‘Contemplate your faults behind closed doors’. Whose faults? The guy’s next door, of course! To cover their mistakes, Chinese people go well out of their way and even commit additional mistakes, merely to cover their initial blunders. I read on Internet a Chinese man writing this: “Sorry is a big word for us.  We don’t say it, we never say it because it is chicken.  Parents will not tell their children that they are sorry, instead, they will give them money. Men will not tell women they are sorry, they will shower her with gifts and money. In many ways, in Chinese culture, giving money is acceptable practice for saying I’m sorry”.

Chinese pride can be perceived as indestructible, at least on the outside. That explains why censorship by the government is widely accepted in China, it helps protect their pride and mask their national mistakes that nobody wants to admit publicly. For them is hard to stand any form of criticism, and in order to defend themselves the have two choices: either to silent themselves or attack. I have witnessed Faye one day sitting on the sofa listening to me as I was criticizing her behavior. For a while she didn’t say a word. Then, when she had enough of it, she suddenly went on the attack and ran for the balcony ready to jump off from the 12th floor. She couldn’t stand the criticism anymore. I was really lucky I grabbed her before she killed herself. But then she escaped from me and started hitting her head violently against the wall. I was one of the most shocking experience I have ever had. Thanks God she survived. But trust me I was careful on how I would express my criticism to her after that.

We are humans, we are not perfect, we have many flaws. Looking at our mistakes and imperfections, analyze them , being self-critical, can help us understand ourselves can make us stronger. There is value in all that, but I don’t see Chinese doing it and don’t see any possibility that they will change. So having lived here for 5 years already and, having witnessed all of this, I am getting increasingly discouraged to continue my journey in this chaotic and uncivilized land. That’s awfully sad because I once loved China and part of me still love living here nevertheless. Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that it’s going to be difficult for me to have a relationship with a Chinese woman. The cultural differences are already hard to overcome. If you add the difficulties to accept criticism, it is easy to predict that in a relationship there is always going to be conflicts and tension. It is sad because indeed I like Chinese women. They can be very sweet, feminine, sexy, generous and steal your heart. But life can be a hard battle with them and I am sadly, slowly giving up.