Posts Tagged ‘marriage’
While men in Taiwan have been enamored of Vietnamese women for a long time, men on the mainland have only recently become aware of their suitability as wives and girlfriends. “It’s Vietnamese women’s mild dispositions and traditional respect for husbands that makes the prospect desirable,” [Deng Weizhi, a cross-border marriage expert at Shanghai University] says. Vietnamese women want to marry Chinese men “because the two cultures share similar customs and festivals.” Chinese men are “sick of Chinese women’s snobbery.”
“Vietnamese women have a totally different set of requirements (from Chinese women)…All they want is a considerate, honest and filial husband, and a loving, happy family.”
China Daily assures readers that the process is on the up-and-up:
Hopeful husbands-to-be pay 35,000 yuan ($5,128) to take the marriage tour. Some spend 5,000 yuan for an introductory trip to experience the country. [Marriage-tour organizer Dai Wensheng] selects at most 10 men from among 100 applications per month.
Because about 50 percent of the potential grooms are divorced, Dai interviews them to flush out any undesirable motives.
He says he chooses men with an above average income because the women are dependant on their husbands. This is because of the language barrier, making it difficult for them to find a job. Also they are not eligible for social welfare in the first five years, after which they can become naturalized.
It’s all worked out for Dai, who claims “[his Vietnamese wife’s] pleasant demeanor has helped him cultivate business relationships, because potential partners are more likely to trust a man with a good wife.”
The comments on the discussion board allude to the existence of a kind of pecking order: Many Chinese women who are enjoying a “rising social and economic status” want to marry wealthier Chinese men or foreigners (from the West and Korea and Japan), Chinese men who can afford it – and can’t afford Chinese women for whom “filled credit cards, big cars and luxury properties seem to be more important than love” – marry Southeast Asian women. Chinese women are in something of a buyer’s market with men outnumbering women 114 to 100 in some areas. The interesting twist is that Western men are often (but not always) mentioning Chinese women’s perceived kindness and gentleness as the reasons they are attractive, but Chinese men are turning to Vietnamese women because “they are less demanding, [more] docile, [more] caring” then Chinese women.
There’s always the danger of being perceived as a racist when you start to break down people’s motivations for marriage into cultural and economic goals, but it’s so obvious to us Western women that marriage is such a huge decision that we want to date and check out our options for the first 30 years of our life. (You’ll have to excuse my chuckle when I read that Dai gave up his search for a Chinese bride after 100 unsuccessful dates in two years.) We’re still convinced that in the end we marry for love, but we don’t always cop to the very practical considerations that filter our dating pool before we even agree to go to dinner with someone. Instead, we should realize that we’re lucky to have so many “options” and that even as single ladies, a lot of us can still thrive economically.
I’ve always been rather fond of arranged marriages, in theory. Theoretically, letting those who know and love you have a greater hand in choosing the person you’re going to spend your life with could make for a very successful match. Theoretically, laying all your cards face up on the table at the beginning – say you’re willing to marry a man who will provide for you, bear and raise his children and count on him to respect and cherish you – could be the beginning of something beautiful. But when the rubber hits the asphalt, these situations often play out very badly, especially for women isolated in foreign countries, surrounded by a foreign language and a foreign culture, at the mercy of a more powerful male partner.
The Shanghai Daily has a write-up on Chinese TWITs, or “teenage women in their 30s.” The article initially describes the phenomenon: women in their thirties who would rather focus on “their careers and leisure” than follow the conventional path of getting married and having children.
The analysis is revealing. There are those who saw too many of their friends “falling in love, getting married and breaking up.”
The fairytale ending of ‘the prince and princess living happily forever’ seems to be unrealistic,” [says lawyer Lu Yan].
“I no longer have a set timetable for marriage like I did five years ago. I just let things take their course.
That’s the reality that most of us have come to accept in the West already. The difference here seems to be that at least some of these women are attributing their reluctance to “grow up” and take on what would be considered adult responsibilities such as getting married and having children to being the products of single-child families. Furthermore:
[29 year-old office worker Xi Ji’er] says that the post-80s generation has been raised in a society in transition, where people have less mutual trust than in the past. “We rarely trust people other than our parents.”
Qi Shujuan, a marriage counselor on Baihe.com, sees the Twits syndrome as a continuation of puberty. She says it is quite common to see young women, who enjoy high incomes and living the good life, having a close relationship with their parents.
She suggests Twits should be brave enough to make the transition from innocent girl to mature woman.
“Also, parents should keep some distance from their children and have them shoulder certain family duties. But they shouldn’t pressure their children to marry.”
We aren’t talking about the cast of Sex and the City anymore (although it’s refreshing to hear Xi call a spade a spade: “The fact is we grew up always being taken care of by our families and society. We are accustomed to being single and self-centered.”). Instead, these TWITs are 30 year-old women-girls who are enjoying professional success while Mom is still packing their lunches.
Clash and learn 