What is love?
It is one of the oldest questions human beings have ever asked.
In China, the answer has never belonged to one era, one philosophy, or one definition.
For more than five thousand years, Chinese people have written about love in poems, painted it into landscapes, expressed it through music, and carried it quietly through family life.
Sometimes love was described as longing.
Sometimes as loyalty.
Sometimes as responsibility.
Sometimes as a quiet understanding between two people who needed no words.
And sometimes, love was simply the decision to remain beside someone through the changing seasons of life.
To understand love in Chinese culture is therefore to enter a long river of human thought—a river that flows from ancient poetry to modern relationships.
Love Began with the Heart
The Chinese character for love, 爱 (ài), carries a long cultural …