The effects of the one child policy over the relationships and love in China are interesting. A few are detailed in "Cure for Chinese love fever" :

His explanation was that, in a country in which there are 120 men for every 100 women, it was not easy to find a girlfriend, let alone keep her.

In a nation where women are spoilt for choice, two months away from your girlfriend is a long time.

He said that each call that his girlfriend answered, each e-mail that she responded to and each postcard she acknowledged was an indication that no one was trying to take advantage of his absence by hitting on his girl.

The one-child policy has not only skewed China's male-female ratio, it has also created a generation of men restlessly in love, such as Chuan.

While I feel sorry for the guys, you gotta admit it's not too bad for the gals. It's good that the guys feel they need to work harder…

It's highly entertaining to observe though.

It's like watching a kid who's doused himself with gasoline and now someone has given him a lighter to play with.

Each time he clicks the lighter, trying to make it work, but without success – click click click – but you know that eventually something freaky is going to happen.

People talk about housing bubbles, financial bubbles, etc etc, but there is also a society 'bubble' – weird things that have changed in Chinese modern day society where you know it's likely to end badly.

I know this sounds cruel but I find it absolutely fascinating to watch.

I don't really see how bad it is. I mean… In the West women became men with -beep- and vaginas, at least in China women are women.

I guess the princessish behavior is just a shield for young women, to be sure their bf is tough enough. I'm not really sure it's emasculating, in fact. I mean the guy may act like a pet but I don't think he'll do that for months if there's nothing coming back…

There are plenty of women outside China, still they keep their princessish Chinese gf. Must be a reason for that and a good one.

Pudding, I don't know if that's true re: one specific aspect, which is the purse-holding.  I know lots of men around China lambaste Shanghai men for being pussies because they're famous for carrying the gf's purse.  As for all the other stuff like getting her stuff from the salad bar, I don't really see the big deal most of the time.  If she's willing to do stuff for me, then I'll do stuff for her too.  I just happen to draw the line at purse holding

Soldano said:

It's Ironic how we bash chinese guys for holding purses and umbrellas, when occidental guys can be seen shopping for vegetables in a bio market on a sunday morning carrying a baby and wearing sandals while their woman is abusing her iphone credit talking to her sister and doing nothing to help.

Wow, I actually had to look up that word, occidental, to double check it meant what I thought it meant. Anyway, yeah, I see your point.