Li Yinhe: For Chinese Valentine’s, Let’s Talk About Love and Marriage

Li Yinhe is a sociologist whose main academic interests are sexual norms in contemporary China. This article, edited for length, was originally published in Chinese on Caixin Blog.

Today is the Qixi Festival in China so let me talk about how love is perceived in the country.

To begin with, people in ancient China did experience romantic love, which was not the norm but was perceived as abnormal.