July 7, 2016 
Few aspects of society have transformed over time like the art of courtship. There are many who believe courtship is all but extinct. Vestiges of the old-fashioned methods, like politely asking a lady out for sodas then wooing her up to make-out point, are as foreign to modern singles as pay-phones.
It was once hard to imagine something as personal as courtship could be digitized, but alas, here we are—swiping left and right, e-haromonizing, facebook stalking, sliding into DM’s—in our quests for romance.
“Chivalry? No, never heard of ’em, what do they sing?”
So it’s refreshing to know there are pockets of this great big world where courtship still entails “the chase”.
Let’s go to Kazakhstan, where “the chase” is personified in a popular game called Kyz Kuu. What’s Kyz Kuu, you ask? The literal translation is “girl chasing”, and well, that’s exactly what it entails, as Wikipedia explains:
A game is usually conducted as follows. A young man on horseback waits at a given place (the starting line). A young woman, also mounted, starts her horse galloping from a given distance behind the young man. When the young woman passes the young man, he may start his horse galloping. The two race towards a finish line some distance ahead. If the young man is able to catch up to the young woman before they reach the finish line, he may reach out to her and steal a kiss, which constitutes his victory.
Steal a kiss! Depending on your age, that phrase either elicits thoughts of old-fashioned romance or borders on harassment. But wait, there’s more:
However, if the young man has not caught up to the young woman by the time they reach the finish line, the young woman turns around and chases the young man back to the starting line. If she is in range of the young man, she may use her whip to beat him, which signifies a victory for her.
A little early in the relationship to bust out the whip, no? It’s funny to think about how much our dating culture centers around money and looks, when all the Kazakh singles are looking for is a fast horse.
Watch how it all unfolds:
Romantic, isn’t it?
If the fear of rejection isn’t enough to keep a man at bay, being rejected and whipped is a whole new level of laying it on the line. As the BBC reports, Kyz Kuu is a featured event in the annual World Nomad Games, which began this week in Kyrgyzstan and sounds like a blast.
So what do ya think, ladies? This your kind of dating game?
