It’s summer, and love is everywhere -- literally. From parks to subways to street corners, smooching couples can be spotted anywhere, anytime.

In fact, most young couples are extremely affectionate in public, and some even appear downright shameless in their public declarations of love.

Life just isn’t the way it used to be.

The pendulum certainly has swung the other way in this society where romantic relationships were a taboo subject for decades. Chinese adolescents have ironically become more comfortable with the realities of dating than perhaps even their counterparts in the West.

“It’s because of the dramatic social changes that have occurred,” said Zhang, a 23-year old college graduate. “It includes everything: the economy, society, and certainly the influence of Western culture.”

For one thing, teenagers are feeling the strike of Cupid’s arrow at a younger age: aside from the giddy crushes of grade school, love interests generally develop around the age of 16, at the beginning of senior middle school.

“Girls tend to start earlier than boys, but it all definitely begins around that age,” said 19-year-old Sun.

The changes in attitude are perhaps most evident in the general acceptance of public displays of affection. PDAs include such behaviors as handholding, kissing, and for the more fearless, slightly more passionate embraces. Young adults in Shanghai don’t seem at all disturbed by such scenes; in fact, as they point out, it’s all natural.

“Why shouldn’t couples be affectionate towards each other? It’s very common, and there’s nothing wrong with it,” said Zhang.

Interestingly enough, such behavior is often viewed quite differently in the US.

“I think the general consensus about PDA is that it’s accepted in small doses,” commented Lauren Kim, a high school sophomore from California. “Nobody likes a couple who is always smooching in public, since it makes people insecure about themselves, not to mention awkward in the couple’s presence.”

The current perspective on relationships among young adults is a far cry from China’s traditional views on romance and marriage. Following the principles of the Three Letters and Six Etiquettes, China’s young unmarrieds were long at the mercy of a structured process, monitored by the family and a matchmaker. Marriage was an institution for continuing the ancestral line and creating alliances between families, a duty much too important a duty to be left in the rash hands of the young.

Today, however, it seems that few are even thinking of marriage when they engage in romantic relations with significant others.

“Marriage? Gosh, I haven’t even thought about it yet,” said Sun. “I feel like it’s too early to think about that sort of thing; we’re too young.”

Parents also seem to have loosened their grip on the traditional ideals of marriage and relationships. Zhang said that her parents only objected to her being romantically involved when she was in school.

“My studies were very important to them, and they wanted me to concentrate,” she said. “But now that I’m out of college, they encourage me to find a steady boyfriend.”

Although conceptions about the subject have indeed evolved, there still remains a relatively close bond between young adults and their traditional morals of settling down and devoting themselves to family life.

“When you reach a certain age, I think it’s appropriate to marry,” said Zhang. “At 27 or 28, I’d say; it’s good to settle down and stabilize your life then. But if not, it wouldn’t be too big a deal. No one really cares whether you marry or not.”

And what about the differences between actual dating practices, and the nature of relationships?

Chinese couples seem to possess much of the same diversity in relationships as Western pairs: while Zhang reported that 70 percent or so of her close friends do not have significant others, Sun stated that most of hers in fact do. Length of relationships varies much in degree as well, as Zhang said that both long and short-term dating are common among her friends.

But the West’s interracial and same-sex dating are still quite foreign to the city of Shanghai. Although many Caucasian-Asian couples can be seen strolling hand in hand, their numbers are dwarfed by the racial diversity of America.

Similarly, homosexuality, although emerging slowly in China, is still very much an underground culture compared to the liberal atmosphere that gays experience in the US and elsewhere in the Western world.

Nonetheless, the number of openly affectionate couples that can be seen in the city today is astonishing. Shanghai is in love -- a fact that should allow Cupid relax and take it easy for a while.

(Shanghai Star July 21, 2004)