Sex and love in China

In 2019, Inkstone published some 250 issues and about 1,500 stories about China. By our rough estimate, that’s more than 1 million words, or about the length of the whole Harry Potter series.  That’s a lot of news, owing in part to an eventful year. But as unrest in Hong Kong and tensions between the United States and China dominated the headlines for months on end, there were stories that we liked that you might have missed. At the year’s end, we have put together a list of interesting, but lesser-read articles 📝 and videos 📺 that deserve a second chance. 1. ‘Let’s find somewhere private’: Single, retired and looking for love in Beijing 📝 China's widowers and single elderly people are lo

Under Chinese law, unmarried women are not allowed to freeze their eggs for in vitro fertilization. Xu Zaozao, a 31-year-old single woman, says it is time to change the rules to give women more control over their bodies. Xu has filed a lawsuit against the hospital that denied her request to freeze her eggs. The case brought attention to the plight of women struggling to access IVF in China.

Nearly 200,000 people have appealed to the Chinese authorities to recognize same-sex marriage, in a month-long push sparked by a review of the country’s civil law provisions. The country’s LGBT community and its supporters have been writing to legislators and leaving comments in favor of a change to China’s marriage laws during a public comment period which ended on Friday with more than 190,000 people responding. Among them is Ling Gu, a lesbian from Wuhan in the central Chinese province of Hubei. All she wants is a marriage certificate. Ling and her partner have had their wedding photos taken and together run a real estate business. In all but the eyes of the law, they are a married couple

For Beijing’s elderly people, Changpuhe Park, next to Tiananmen Square, has long been a popular spot for lonely hearts to meet and find a match for their twilight years, but the search for a companion is complicated, particularly for those without a sizeable pension and other assets. Zhang Daisheng, a 65-year-old widower, wants to find a shrewd woman and, on one of his few trips to the park, met someone just like that. After chatting with him a few times she told him, “If you think we are a good match, then let's find somewhere private to talk, let's not talk here.” Zhang said he realized the woman wanted to catch her fish, but was afraid of being bested by someone else. “That’s quite smart,

A wealthy Chinese tech bro has stirred up a hornet’s nest with a brutally honest online ad looking for love. Actually, he doesn’t talk about love at all. Instead, he lists his salary, job, education, financial assets and family background and gives a detailed description of the kind of woman he is looking for.  The ad was posted on the Twitter-like Weibo last week by an online influencer, Beijing Big Potato, on behalf of the man, who says he’s an employee at tech giant Alibaba. Inkstone, which is also owned by Alibaba, was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the viral ad, but it appears to be a genuine window into how marriage, money, childbearing, gender roles, heightism and

Chris Zou had just broken up with her boyfriend when she learned she was pregnant. She shared the news with him and, despite his opposition, decided to raise the baby alone. Three years later, Zou is blazing a legal trail for China’s growing number of single moms. Zou, 43, works at a multinational company in Shanghai. She has managed to provide for her son Xinxin alone and has navigated the complex process of getting him identity papers.  But she has so far been unable to make a claim for her employer-provided maternity insurance. Local authorities told her she could not lodge a claim without providing a marriage certificate and the father’s information details. Believing single mothers had

Like many single women her age, 24-year-old Sunny Xu has received lots of advice from friends and family about dating. A native of the eastern city of Wenzhou, she has met a few men online — and has been let down by those who didn’t measure up to their profiles. Sounds like another day in online dating. “Some of them don’t know how to find a proper topic to start the conversation,” said Xu. “One time, someone asked why my online replies were slow – which was rude and irritating.” While online dating services offer access to massive databases of potential lovers, finding a true match seems to remain as hard as ever. But a slew of technologists have in recent years doubled down on building mat

The seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar is the Qixi Festival. This year, that falls on August 7th. (It was August 17th last year.) It’s also known as China’s Valentine’s Day. In honor of the festival, we’re bringing you the tragic love story behind this festival: the tale of the humble cowherd and the heavenly weaver girl.

In mid-June, more than 1,000 members of China's LGBT community and their friends and families embarked on a five-day holiday cruise making a round trip from China’s southern city of Shenzhen to Vietnam. Organized under the slogan “Be Yourself,” the cruise was described as a trip “without closets.” On board, passengers were able to take part in workshops and sharing sessions meant to help gay and lesbian people better connect with parents who often struggle to accept their children’s sexual orientation. We had previously published a diary by a lesbian holidaymaker on the cruise. Now, we bring you a film featuring one of the gay tourists and his mother.

Macy felt great. Alan, the man she was dating, was good looking and apparently lived a life of luxury. They had met on the dating website Coffee Meets Bagel, then twice in person. He had seemed interested in getting to know her, Macy says. The “tall, handsome gentleman” told her he worked in marketing, and his Instagram feed opened a window on his luxury lifestyle. All seemed to be going well, until he asked her to join him on a visit to a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner. “He asked me to buy a package of 10 treatments of Chinese medicine, before he’d have dinner with me. I thought to myself, ‘Why should I have to buy that just to have a meal with him?’ It made me feel terrible,” t