chinese girls and their periods

[Saxondale]

So over the years i've noticed my chinese female friends are very open about their periods and the other night confirmed it over a few messages...

 

situation: my friend went out for her work leaving meal

me: how was your night?

her: terrible

her: i had period pain last night

 

lets be honest, i was expecting something about the food... so it got me thinking, is this pretty much a chinese thing?

 

discuss!

[skylee]

Define "Chinese female".

[tooironic]

I too have been in this situation a number of times (i.e. Chinese women openly telling me they couldn't make an appointment as their period had come). At first I thought it was a cultural difference (in Australia women rarely tell their male counterparts about their menstrual cycle) but my male Chinese friends told me their female counterparts rarely used this excuse around them either, so I'm not so sure.

[ChTTay]

Generally I find people in China more open about bodily functions. Not just women and periods but men and other stuff that comes out of you or that happens inside of you.

I've had a few teachers at school use periods as a reason for something (can't recall) happening or not happening. Also, A Chinese tutor of mine had just had a baby started talking about her breast milk to me. Does that happen in the west? I don't have any friends. ... With children :-)

[淨土極樂]

Same reason they keep throwing words like 拉肚子 right and left.

[gato]

Feminism makes talk about differences between the sexes more taboo in the West, or at least in the US. "PMS" is a term of insult, for example, and wouldn't be in polite company.

[Demonic_Duck]

I dunno, I consider it more feminist to not make a taboo out of something that's completely natural and will be experienced personally by half of the human race, but maybe that's just me.

 

I have noticed this cultural difference before.

[Nathan Mao]

At the risk of derailing the thread, I've seen people on both sides of many different arguments claim theirs is the feminist viewpoint.

 

The different waves of feminism disagree with each other.

[Nathan Mao]

But back to the issue at hand:

 

It might be a generational thing. The 70s and 60s generation that I'm most familiar with seems more circumspect regarding periods.

[大肚男]

I also noticed this with periods and diarrhea. It takes some getting used to.

[Demonic_Duck]

At the risk of derailing the thread, I've seen people on both sides of many different arguments claim theirs is the feminist viewpoint.

 

The different waves of feminism disagree with each other.

Maybe my knowledge of feminism in its multifarious forms is lacking, but I suspect all mainstream forms of feminism would agree on not making a taboo out of periods, regardless of whether or not they would advocate playing down differences between the genders. I'm also pretty sure that said taboo comes from patriarchy and not from feminism (cf. patriarchal religions which consider women to be unclean during their period).

[ChTTay]

A student in my class proudly told us he had diarrhea one day. The look on his face almost made me high five him.

Also, if I ever mention I am sick, people usually ask me directly if i've had diarrhea. Even people I meet in passing. Regardless of what illness I have, I make sure to assure them i'm drinking plenty of hot water.

[muirm]

I have also wondered about this. I had a Taiwanese friend that said something about her period to me out of the blue. I didn't really know to respond.

 

One reason studying languages is fun is you get to adopt cultural differences when speaking the language. When I was studying in Beijing and speaking Chinese with classmates all day, there was definitely a lot of direct questioning about 拉肚子 if someone wasn't feeling good. When speaking a foreign language, things that are awkward/inappropriate in your culture just don't trigger your brain's safeguards in the foreign language (or maybe your brain has a different set of safeguards for the other language).

[Guest realmayo]

Makes you wonder what kind of everyday things you say/do which astonish and appall Chinese people. I once had a delegation of students approach me to ask if I was sure it was sensible to put my backpack on the floor.

[gato]

What words did your female acquaintances use to refer to their periods?

大姨妈? 例事?

[Shelley]

I do think things like this are cultural, the french are always complaining about their liver and British people seem to always have "funny tummies" but don't really tell what specific things they have.

 

From what I remember from reading an article some time ago each nationality has its body part complaints and they seem to not feel embarrassed about it.

 

Also the cures seem to be cultural too, Chinese people apparently feel the need for injections, British people like tonics, french like suppositories and the Americans like pills.

 

I may have got some of wrong cos it was a while ago I read this article and things may have changed.

 

But I do think things like this are cultural and generational.

[anonymoose]

Hasn't this topic been discussed before?

 

The first time I encountered this, I was chatting in Chinese with my colleague. Suddenly she mentioned that she was on her period. I thought I had misunderstood - I mean she wouldn't really be telling me that, right? So I asked her to explain what she meant. Embarrassing.

[gato]

Was she embarrassed by your question?

[Lu]

As to mentioning PMS, as I understand it the problem is not so much that some women suffer from it and would or would not want to talk about that, but that some men (a minority, fortunately) seem to feel the need, when they encounter a woman who is angry, to not address the subject of her anger but instead dismiss her by saying she's PMS-ing. Which has turned the word 'PMS' from a medical issue that some women suffer from into an insult used against women who say things the insulter doesn't want to hear. It's that last part that feminists (although probably not all of them) don't like.

From what I remember from reading an article some time ago each nationality has its body part complaints and they seem to not feel embarrassed about it.

Also the cures seem to be cultural too, Chinese people apparently feel the need for injections, British people like tonics, french like suppositories and the Americans like pills.

And the Dutch like to tough it out, which baffles the Chinese :-) But this is interesting, and probably true, that different cultures have different go-to diseases.

[anonymoose]

Was she embarrassed by your question?

 

I don't really remember. I guess most of the embarrassment was on my part.