8 Ways Your Chinese Girlfriend Shows That She Cares (In My Experience)

1- She peels your shrimp for you. Being a “Southern Boy” I love shrimp. It’s delicious. But I don’t have the patience to peel them. And, gross as it might sound to some people, I used to just eat them with the shell on. But now I don’t have to worry about any of that! Jen can peel a bowl full of shrimp in 10 seconds flat. With her eyes closed. And only using her toes. While hanging upside down. I remember that’s when I was like “Yep. This girl’s a keeper.”

2- She rubs ointment on your mosquito bites. Whenever I’m in China it seems like the gnats and mosquitoes are really into light meat. In the mornings I would wake up to see fresh bug bites on whatever part of me that was sticking out from under the blanket. I’m used to that so I didn’t even notice until my hosts pointed it out to me. Despite my protests Jen insisted on patching me up.

3- She wants you to be comfortable. The very first day on my very first trip to China, I had passed out from exhaustion on my hotel bed after an afternoon in the city. I woke up when she pulled some blankets over me. Classic sweetheart.

4- She looks after you when you’re sick. It was 3am of the morning I was leaving and the turtle shell soup I had the day before was destroying my insides. It was messy. I won’t go into it any further. But she woke up towards the end of it and stayed up with me until 5am when we had to leave for the airport, bringing me water and all kinds of nice stuff.

5- She constantly puts food in your bowl. It means she doesn’t want you to go hungry. But we turned it into a game. Tit for tat. She gives me a piece of pork so I would give her a bigger piece of pork. Or we would try to find the grossest thing on the table to give to each other. She gives me a chicken foot. I give her the chicken head. The people we ate with thought it was hilarious.

6- She gives you neck rubs/massages. And not necessarily the dirty kind. ;-) Not exactly sure what to add to this one.

7- She studies hard to learn your language. Jen had stacks of English workbooks that she had used and her spoken English has improved so much it's ridiculous. You're pretty much guaranteed to be left in the dust in your own language learning endeavor.

8- She pops you on the butt when no one’s looking. This might just be my bad influence but this is a fun game. You go back and forth, back and forth. There’s nothing like a quick booty smack before dinner while the parents are looking the other way.

I can only speak from my experience but when you have a thoughtful girlfriend who does things like this for you, excluding the butt smacking, it’s a good idea to make an earnest attempt to be just as thoughtful. I surprise Jen with flowers or send an unexpected text message while she’s at work or write a poem for her. Just romantic things. It’s easy. I’m good at many things but I think I excel at this. Just try to put yourself in her shoes. If you're having a terrible, boring day, what would you want to spice it up? Know what I mean? Did I leave anything out? Let me know what. Stay cool and always aim high!