China stuck with the consequences of ‘Playing God’
After decades of state planning aka ‘Play God’ a la Commie, China is now stuck with the very basic Adam and Eve issue – Gender Imbalance, Greying Population … at astonishing rate!
Want A Chinese Girlfriend? Well, it’s Complicated
Unmarried at 27, meet Chinaâs growing group of âleftover womenâ
The “Leftover” …
The “Chosen One” …
MEET the women China would rather forget.
Mid-twenties, successful, smart and single â this growing demographic has become the nationâs âleftover women.â
The derogatory label âsheng nuâ has been on the rise for almost a decade. State-run media started using the term in the same year the government warned that Chinaâs gender imbalance â caused by selective abortions because of the one-child policy â was a serious problem.
The general consensus in China is that a woman should be married in her early 20s. Women who find themselves still single over 27, are usually placed under immense pressure from parents, and even grandparents, to lower their standards and tie the knot.
âTo many parents it is a hugely important task. Itâs a burden on their mind. If their kids canât find someone, they will be very worried,â Mr Yan, a marriage matchmaker said in Vice documentary, Unmarried at 27.
Portfolio of a “Chosen One” in China …
Measurements: US B35-W22-H33
âSome parents canât even sleep at night. They would call me and tell me âMr Yan, I have been sitting in my bed all night [worried].â
Producer and host Milene Larsson took viewers on a journey of the increasing number of women labelled as âleftover.â
âNo matter how excellent you are, how capable you are, in larger societyâs mind, youâre not as good as a man,â Wang Zheng, Professor of Womenâs Studies, University of Michigan said in the documentary.
Finding a match is not easy. The one child policy has created an extreme gender imbalance in China, with about 20 million more men under 30 than women under 30. Because sons were preferred, many âwould-beâ daughters were aborted.
âFor a long time women experienced terrible pain and personal pain because of the one child policy,â Professor Zheng said.
âA lot of forced abortions, that kind of situation. The government paid attention to the negative consequence of this one child policy only when our research shows thatâs thereâs a terrible sex ratio imbalance. Female infanticide was not a concern for the government, but man cannot find a wife is a concern of the government.âIn a bid to end the âhumiliationâ of not having a married son or daughter, a growing number of parents are venturing back in to the dating game, and finding a partner for their single son or daughter.
Known as âmarriage markets,â parents of single children gather in selected city parks, in the hope of matching their child with the offspring of another desperate parent.
âI donât know when it started but itâs been here for a few years now,â Mr Yen, a marital matchmaker said.
âI have a lot of girls here. I have their basic information and contacts, all given to me by their parents. I also have quite a few photos.â
Often the man or women who is being advertised doesnât even know their parents are at the markets. The parents stand with a piece of paper that contains a photo, name, height, weight, date-of-birth, and what kind of spouse they would like to see with their child.
For the parents, the biggest challenge of finding a partner for their child is their age.
â35 is very difficult for a woman to find a husband, it doesnât matter how gorgeous she looks,â Mr Yan said.
âFor girls in Beijing, the perfect height to find a boyfriend is 165cm tall. So girls in Beijing nowadays looking for boyfriends will have a lot of trouble.
âMen are preferred to be old and girls to be younger. Financial conditions are a very important part. He [the man] has to have a local property in Beijing. Height, age, property ownership and money are the main parts,â he said.
Perhaps one of the most alarming characteristics of the market is that men and women are being judged on their eligibility for being a husband or wife strictly on superficial qualities.
Nicole is a 26-year-old English teacher living in Beijing, who is heading towards the âleftover womenâ zone. But for her, and the group of women she meets with on a weekly basis, carrying the label doesnât phase her. Instead, âsheng nuâ gives her and her friends empowerment.
âNot everyone is lucky enough to get the partner they really want. I feel like leftover ladies, I donât feel pity for them, for us, because we really know what we want,â she said.
âSometimes we think it [label] is unfair, but we are quite OK about it. We live the way we like and we donât care too much about it and what other people think.
Nicole admitted that there is always pressure and hope from her family about finding a man to marry.
âAs a 26-year-old girl itâs a big issue for me [not to have a boyfriend]. The other day I called my grandpa and said something really cliche, like âhey youâre getting oldâ and I was like âseriously? Iâm only 26â and then he said âcome on go find a reliable boyfriend.â
âThey [family] say, you donât have to set the bar that high because youâre not that good.
âHe wants me to have a good life, but I feel what is different is that finding a boyfriend isnât the only issue in my life.â
But for other Chinese women, the fear of being tainted with the âleftover womenâ brush can be too much to bear. In an interview with Al Jazeera, 27-year-old Li Yuan, who grew up in a poor farming village, was so desperate to rid herself of the label, she stopped eating.
âI wanted to be normal, to get married and have a baby. I think even if you are very beautiful, and youâre not married youâre still pitiful because it means no man admires you,â she said.
âA colleague told me about her flat mate, whoâs 36 and not married, also from a poor farming family. When she first arrived [in Beijing] she just spent all her time studying, making money and sending money back home. By the time she turned 30 she still had no idea about relationships, or how to use make-up or make herself more beautiful. My colleague told me that recently she stopped going back home because her family, her community, everyone, would look at her as if she were a monster,â Li recalls. âThis story had a big impact on me.â
But itâs not just the women who feel the pressure to tie the knot before 30.
âYoung men are also victims of these highly sexist gender norms,â Professor Zheng said.
âHow to be a masculine man, what is the success of a masculine man? Itâs all related to the money and the house and the cars. If you donât have any of these possessions or any of these material goods you are not a real man and the you cannot marry any woman.â
âThe brainwash is so powerful because they have new media,â she said.
âThey have all the billboards to show what is a happy life for a wife. Donât try to aspire for a career because you will feel so empty in your heart if you cannot find a man in your life.
âSo tons of this kind of stuff circulating in Chinese media, publications, everywhere. To trap excellent young women, competitive young women, in marriage.
âRight now the generations of young women find themselves again, in a worse situation than generations before, so they have to fight a battle. Every generation has to fight the battle. To pursue a society of justice and equality, everybody has to fight,â Professor Zheng said.