{"id":1264,"date":"2023-10-24T03:59:15","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T19:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/2023\/10\/24\/subway-smooching-pda-in-china\/"},"modified":"2024-07-01T13:01:58","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T05:01:58","slug":"subway-smooching-pda-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/subway-smooching-pda-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Subway Smooching: PDA in China"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Public display of affection, or PDA, sparked heated discussion after controversial posts of canoodling couples on buses and metro coaches went online.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chinese couples often confine display of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/jobs?type=marketing\">affection to their homeso<\/a> &#8212; but <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/social-media\/\" title=\"View all posts in social media\" >social media<\/a> is slowly bringing such private moments in the public gaze. And not everyone is approving.<\/p>\n<p>Public display of affection, or PDA, sparked heated discussion after controversial posts of canoodling couples on buses and metro coaches went online.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FpEY3UtzaW1o0VXEPCXhbr2dkgys?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" alt=\"PDA1 The Nanfang.jpg\" width=\"677\" height=\"512\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Image: The Nanfang<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Understanding the PDA in China<\/h2>\n<p>In one case, a senior citizen attempted to stop a couple who were cuddling and kissing on a bus in Qingdao. However, his intervention annoyed the couple, and almost ended in physical conflict.<\/p>\n<p>A local TV channel carried the <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"inside_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/tag\/news\/\" title=\"View all posts in news\" >news<\/a>, and websites later picked it up.<\/p>\n<p>Later, two photos (which are not shown here, but can be Googled) surfaced showing another couple fondling and kissing each other on a metro coach in Shenyang. The photos went viral soon after they were posted.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FgqJ1wf2_oHDYesek1NIfMruBHLa?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" alt=\"PDA2 WomenofChina.jpg\" width=\"667\" height=\"500\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Image: Women of China<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Many netizens commented that the Shenyang couple&#8217;s behaviour was &#8220;embarrassing&#8221; and even &#8220;disgusting&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Li Xiaotong, who studies mass communications at Peking University, however, disagreed.<\/p>\n<p>She said: &#8220;There is nothing to hide for young people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In another PDA scandal, a woman was caught feeding her boyfriend in their office by the company&#8217;s monitoring video. Both were fired for their show of intimacy.<\/p>\n<p>Before they left, the couple took a kissing selfie in the office and posted it on the woman&#8217;s social media account.<\/p>\n<p>Liu Neng, a sociologist at Peking University, said people&#8217;s ideas about PDA have changed with the times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is no doubt that Chinese are more open than before,&#8221; Liu said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People now tend to express their affection rather than <a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/dictionary\/english\/suppressing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suppressing<\/a> it. That&#8217;s not bad for mental health.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Liu argued that people&#8217;s attitudes toward PDA reflect how tolerant and liberal a society is.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FlfQNkexAJDiT8H5bQNqpJr8lnyR?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" alt=\"PDA3 Flickr.jpg\" width=\"681\" height=\"511\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Image: Flickr<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&#8220;Media plays a great role in exposing extreme PDA cases to stir a sensation, which creates the illusion that young couples are crossing the line,&#8221; Liu added.<\/p>\n<p>Li, the Peking University student, supports the relaxed attitude towards public intimacy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A more open culture creates an atmosphere for us to display our affection. When something interesting happens between my boyfriend and me, I like to show our affection on my Weibo and WeChat,&#8221; Li said.<\/p>\n<p>By displaying their affection on social media, Li said, she wanted to share their happiness.<\/p>\n<p>PDA is a way to announce the establishment of a relationship, have it witnessed by friends, and to keep a record, Professor Liu said.<\/p>\n<p>Source: Business Standard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Public display of affection, or PDA, sparked heated discussion after controversial posts of canoodling couples on buses and metro coaches went online. Chinese couples often confine display of affection to &#8230;","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[60,306,29,559,27,826],"class_list":["post-1264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny","tag-china","tag-hiredchina","tag-jobs","tag-marketing","tag-news","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11717,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions\/11717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}