For Better and For Worse: How Love Lost Its Hold on China
The search for love is as old as humanity itself. For most of that history, romance was something to be idealized — a question of passion, devotion, and destiny. Today, however, many of those traditional fantasies seem to have lost their hold. After all, what is love when the next date is just a swipe away?
This transformation has taken place remarkably quickly in China, which has compressed much of the last century and a half of development into 40 years. Where love was once a matter of chaste affection — then bourgeois affectation — now it is treated mostly as a hassle. Young Chinese are turning inward, and the pursuit of love has become a pursuit of personal desire, individual lifestyles, and private aspirations. And the once-prevailing belief in everlasting love and perfect compatibility is being replaced by a more pragmatic, sometimes even skeptical, approach to human relationships.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the digital realm. From relationship advice to dating simulators promising love on demand, new technologies are reshaping the landscape of intimacy in China. In this series, Sixth Tone explores how young Chinese are redefining love and relationships, for better and for worse.
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