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Desires and Anxieties in Self-Centred Relationships

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Television and Dating in Contemporary China

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Abstract

This chapter explores individualized desires and anxieties in personal relationships, which play an important role in understanding the identity of young Chinese professionals as regards love and intimacy in the post-reform era. By introducing Bauman’s (Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, Polity Press, Cambridge; 2003) concept of self-centred (or individualized) relationships, this chapter examines the changing emotions and attitudes of Chinese young people towards a lifelong relationship as well as the causes of the transition in dating and relationships. The easily entered and exited relationship not only reflects a more tolerant attitude towards changing emotional attachment in dating and relationships, but may also suggest that Chinese youth have a collective identity that is incomplete and subject to change.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Chinese family was greatly shaped by Confucian culture, as well as work practices, as a self-governing unit under a system of state control for more than 2,000 years. Specifically, several generations of an extended family used to live under the same roof and the family members were required to submit to basic hierarchical relationships between the ruler and the people, the old and the young, father and son, as well as husband and wife. In each of these pairs the former person had a superior position towards the latter one, who ‘was expected to offer respect, obedience, and an attitude of deference’ (Reid 1999, p. 109).

  2. 2.

    Naked wedding is a new term in recent years in mainland China. It means newlyweds without a house, car, diamond ring or grand wedding ceremony.

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    Chao Yang

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Yang, C. (2017). Desires and Anxieties in Self-Centred Relationships. In: Television and Dating in Contemporary China. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3987-4_3

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