Is dating normal in China?

As you may expect, dating is a little bit different in China than it is in most Western countries. The basics are the same—people are people everywhere—but there are still a few differences regarding culture and social cues to note.

How do the Chinese date?

The date format follows the Chinese hierarchical system, which has traditionally been big-endian. Consequently, it correlates with ISO 8601 — year first, month next, and day last (e.g. 2006-01-29). Chinese characters that mean year, month, and day are often used as separators (e.g. 2006年1月29日).