"They fulfill their fantasies about marriage": Why interracial couples are so popular in China

Chinese blogger Laura Deng was surprised by the enthusiastic response to photos of her first Christmas celebration in London with her new British boyfriend. She didn’t expect it when she decided to upload them to Xiaohongshu, a Chinese app similar to Instagram, three years ago.

In addition to a selfie The post featured photos of presents, a Christmas tree and a festive table covered in Christmas paraphernalia. The post was much more successful than her usual fashion and makeup posts, and gave her hundreds of new followers.

Since then, the 29-year-old has changed her social media strategy and started sharing content about her relationship, in which she addresses the cultural differences between her and her partner.

Her followers have grown from 1,000 to more than 80,000, an increase that has allowed her to sign advertising deals that bring in an extra monthly income of between 3,000 and 70,000 yuan (US$400 to US$9,800) that she now adds to her salary from her marketing job.

After more than 10,000 people started following her, news agencies influencers They started to approach her. She now has a team of four people who handle different tasks, such as video editing, advertising management and developing strategies to increase her audience.

Laura Deng and Charles Thomas are among hundreds, if not thousands, of interracial couples gaining increasing popularity online in China. In most cases, the foreign partner is a white man and the accounts are followed by young women living in China’s wealthier regions.

One example is TJandClaire, an account run by a Shanghai woman and her American husband, which has amassed more than 3.8 million followers on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. Sixty percent of them are women between the ages of 18 and 30, according to data analytics firm Chan Mama.

Deng announced her engagement to Charles Thomas in May, and many of her followers sent her heartfelt congratulations. “I’ve been following your story for so long. We’ll finally get to witness your big day!” wrote one of them.

“For many young women, seeing interracial romantic relationships on social media is like reading a digital romance novel. It fulfills their fantasies about marriage, and also shows that they are unhappy with reality.“says Li Chen, a media studies scholar at Texas A&M University.

China remains a patriarchal society. Women are expected to take on the bulk of housework and childcare.; Workplace discrimination is common; and there have been no legislative changes in recent years.

More and more young Chinese women reject traditional gender rolesalthough the state is pushing them to marry and have children in the face of falling fertility rates. In 2023, China’s population declined for the second consecutive year. It fell to 1.409 billion, 2.08 million fewer people than the previous year.

Many of the followers of these accounts seem to assume that relationships with Western partners are more equal, although this is not necessarily true. “Western men tend to prioritize taking care of the family more than Chinese men,” was the comment of one follower of Laura Deng’s account.

Qian Huang, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, agrees that the trend could signal a rise in feminism in China, especially among middle- and high-income groups.

The expert points out that influencers who promote singlehood are also increasingly popular.

It is common for accounts dedicated to interracial couples to show the Western man trying Chinese food, singing Mandarin songs, visiting tourist attractions in China, or exploring advanced Chinese technology.

A video of Charles Thomas dressed in traditional Chinese clothing walking around London’s Leicester Square was one of the best-performing pieces of content on Laura Deng’s Xiaohongshu.

This type of content is different from videos posted by foreigners who are sympathetic to the Chinese government and often document their daily lives in China, and express support for Beijing’s stance on highly controversial issues, such as the conflict with the Uighur minority in the Xinjiang region. The influencers dedicated to interracial couples rarely touch on political issues.

Deng, who has lived in the UK for ten years, sees it as natural to show her partner and family her culture. “I’m looking forward to showing them the best of China,” she says, adding that Western perceptions of her country are shaped by negative media coverage.

She recalls how impressed her boyfriend’s parents were during her first trip to China. “They said, ‘A lot of things here are even better than in the UK.'”

Dr. Huang describes this as “cultural nationalism,” since There is widespread resentment at the belief that Chinese culture has been “eclipsed” in a “Western-dominated” world..

For example, French luxury brand Christian Dior attracted the ire of Chinese netizens in 2022 who accused it of appropriating the “horse face” skirt, a traditional pleated dress whose history could date back to the Song Dynasty (960 to 1279).

Chinese President Xi Jinping first coined the concept of “cultural confidence” in 2016. It is the idea that the Chinese people should be proud of their millennia-old history and culture. The Communist Party Congress that granted Xi an unprecedented third term in 2022 adopted “cultural confidence” in its final report.

As its relations with the West have grown more strained in recent years, China has become more inward-looking.

The Internet is subject to heavy censorship in China, meaning that influencers who talk about interracial couples are “aligned with the government agenda,” says Dr. Chen. “They may not be motivated by nationalism, but they can capitalize on it,” she says.

However, nationalism can be a double-edged sword.

Wendy, who does not want to give her last name, lives in Europe with her French fiancé. She has nearly 20,000 followers on Xiaohongshu, although she has avoided using hashtags such as “interracial couples” or “intercultural lovers.” Posts featuring her fiancé attract more views than others.

But also receives many hateful and racist comments. In some cases, she has been accused of being a “worshipper of Westerners” or even a spy. The attacks have led her to close her accounts at least three times.

This 28-year-old also received collaboration offers from different brands, but She felt uncomfortable with unrealistic stereotypes of the sponsored content they were proposing to her. “They want you to make it as romantic as possible,” she says.

She says that wasn’t the type of content she originally wanted to share and it ended up putting a strain on her relationship with her fiancé. This year she has turned down every sponsorship deal that has come her way.

“I just want to be true to myself and capture the happy moments.”

Laura Deng has been accused of using nationalist sentiments for self-promotion. But she insists that she does not understand politics and that her content is based on her feelings and personal experience.

“People like to see how we Chinese proudly show our culture to others,” he says. “I don’t care what they say about echoing government policies. If I enjoy posting, I will continue to do so,” he concludes.

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