China Cultural Notes:
Girls vs. Women
Before I get myself in trouble with some phrasing in my other posts, I wanted to get this very important Chinese cultural detail on the record.
I was emailing a very dear friend back in the states about two of my best friends here. From what I wrote, it was obvious that both were somewhere in their mid-late 20’s. I referred to both as girls.
I got a rather short query politely asking the equivalent of “When did you become a male chauvinist pig?” 
Yet again, I had to trot out one of my favorite Dr. Frank-N-Furter quotes. “But wait! I can explain!” (If you haven’t done the expat thing somewhere far from home, you have no idea how many times you’ll be needing that phrase.)
So, here’s the explanation of using Girls vs. Women in China:
When I first arrived in China, I met some lovely women girls females in their 20’s. Being a properly raised (my mother will vouch for this) American who didn’t want to scare off my new local friends, I respectfully referred to one of them as a woman. She indignantly explained that she was NOT a woman. She was a GIRL.
After a small amount of translation and clarification, I found that local custom is that those of the female gender (at least down here in Southern China – those of you up in the icy northlands of the Middle Kingdom may encounter other customs) are girls until they are married. Once married, they are women.
I also noticed that if I accidentally called a girl a woman, the reaction was as if I’d referred to her as looking prematurely aged. On the other hand, if I accidentally called a woman a girl, it was the same as complementing her by saying “You don’t look a day over (insert current age minus 10-ish years).”
Technically, the same differentiation applies to boys and men, but Chinese guys seem a little less concerned about being mis-categorized.
I’m still a little fuzzy on what title to use if a girl marries at 25 (therefore becoming a woman) and divorces at 26. Also, there’s some poorly defined point of age where a single girl automatically gets “promoted” to being a woman, but no one has fully defined this for me yet. I think it varies widely from place to place. Plus, I’d hate to guess wrong.
As for those of pre-adult ages, “little girl” and “little boy” is used to differentiate them from unmarried adult boys and girls.
So, although I mean absolutely no offense to the women in the US and elsewhere, when I’m referring to an adult Chinese female and I don’t know for certain if she’s married, I’m doing the culturally correct thing by respectfully referring to her as a girl. 
