Dating Nightmares: Today is the Chinese Valentine's Day! 七夕节快乐!

Source: tianjimedia.com

If you have missed the Valentine's Day earlier this year on 14 February because you haven't found that special someone in your life, you have another choice here to celebrate, if you have found your man. Today is the 7th day of the 7th lunar month of the Chinese calendar.

Little is known about our Chinese Valentine's Day, called the Qixi (七夕) Festival.

The Japanese also have their own Valentine's Day, called the Tanabata Festival. It originated from our Chinese Qixi Festival as well.

This festival comes from the story of the cowherd and weaver girl (牛郎织女). The earliest time this story had been found documented was during the the Han dynasty, about 200 years before birth of Christ. So this story has more than 2000 years of history.

The cowherd boy was a mortal while the weaver girl was an immortal fairy. One day, the weaver girl came down to earth from the heavens and fell in love with the cowherd boy. They married each other and have two lovely kids. Then, the weaver girl's mother, the goddess, found out about this outrageous act and was infuriated. An immortal and a mortal was not allowed to fall in love. She immediately commanded her daughter to return to the heavens. The weaver girl did, after which the goddess created a galaxy (the Milky Way) that separated the weaver girl from the cowherd and her two children. As years went by, the goddess took pity on them and allowed them to be reunited just for day in a year. On this day, countless magpie could fly in and form a bridge over the Milky Way and allow the devoted lovers to meet each other.

Here's a link to the complete story of The Cowherd Boy and the Weaver Girl.

It's a little sad reading about the story but the upside of this story is that it informs us that true love does surpass everything.

I hope that you have found your true love. If not, don't give up easily!

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Black is choosing White but White may not choose Black

Source: www.emirates247.com

The Blacks that I'm referring to are the Indians while the White that I'm referring to are the Chinese. Although I'm just referring to these two ethnic groups, we can definitely extend our thoughts to any pair of ethnic groups.

Whenever people or the media talk about interracial dating, interracial couple and interracial marriage, the words of my cousin would come to my mind easily. My cousin was happily married two years ago and now has just given birth to a baby boy. She achieved her goal. She's a locally-born Chinese and she said other than a Singaporean Chinese, there's no one else she would consider. I don't know why this has to be the case. Perhaps it's fear? Perhaps the determination to preserve one's culture?

For me, I have been an avid music student and recently have started teaching piano as well. I love music and piano. Music can be found everywhere, in every country, every culture and every tribe. Music opens my mind to politics and religions and shows me that music-making is not just and aesthetic pursue but one that is rigged with money, business, royalties, politics and religions. Because music is made everywhere, we music learners have to learn many different languages such as French, German, Italian and Russian. I love the exposure. So I have always been very open-minded about people and cultures and I have chatted and dated men from among local Chinese Singaporeans, Malay Singaporeans and Indian Singaporeans. I have also dated ang-moh (Caucasian) expatriates and recently an Indian expatriate from India. 

Regular surveys among Singaporeans also showed that they prefer to marry within their ethnic group. For certain groups, especially the Malay Muslim community, there's more tendency to marry within the same group because of religious reason which is very difficult to overcome for non-Muslims from other ethnic groups. However, that has not deterred Chinese and Malay Muslim or Indian and Malay Muslim from marrying each other in some cases.

The Indian expatriate which I'm currently dating has told me he has also liked Chinese girls but when he revealed that he was an Indian, the girls immediately stopped communicating with him. He is a worldly man who embraces globalisation and is very open about finding a partner coming from a difference skin colour from him but he found that local Chinese Singaporean women have been very conservative.

Biologically, there's really no difference among people from all over the world. We all belong to the same species and can mate with one another. So the barrier that prevents different ethnic groups from interacting with one another is really artificial. Even if you quote culture, but what culture really is is a set of norms that have been devised by people (again) and conformed over time by the people within that ethnic group.

I can think of another obstacle and that is skin colour. Recently I read news that African women are using all kinds of cream to lighten their skin. It seems lighter skin is preferred over darker skin colour. I don't know if that's exactly what my cousin was thinking or any other Chinese Singaporean girls are thinking. This is something that will take a long time to change because it seems we all have coloured glasses when we look at people. It will take some time for people to realise that skin colour doesn't affect the IQ of their children and for companies to realise that skin colour does not affect competencies.

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