Howdy, and thanks for coming back for more meaningful dialogue here at the YRC. This week features a special bonus: TWO columns. The first column will feature the usual snappy dialogue and piercing commentary that you are surprised to find here at the YRC. The bonus column is an update on the now famous "Scams" column, with news from the American Consulate in Shanghai and a special "Find the Fake Scam" puzzle. So be sure to check it out.
Before we go on, you may be pleased to know that there will be no column on Friday, September 9. Yes, we are slacking off, but for good reason. On that particular Friday, the staff of the YRC will be on the Trans-Siberian train number 4 from Moscow to Beijing. Expect a full report in a future YRC. Last week's column received good press for its gritty analysis on Counterfeit China. Thanks for your comments and good luck spotting the Fake scam.
This week, we continue our sanguine analysis of Chinese culture as we head to a key stop on the "Getting Lost in Shanghai" tour, the Marriage Market.
I've attached a great article on the MM from CNNgo at the end of the blog. The articles has some real reporting and coherent information, not really the hallmarks of the YRC peppery style.
Back to the 'Hai! To get to the market, we slithered our way through the vast beehive called the People's Square metro station, the busiest in all of China with 400,000 people rolling through it's 20 entrances/exits daily. The huge underground complex contains shopping malls, shops, restaurants, a replica of a Shanghai street in the 1930's, three subway lines, and lots of thumb drive vendors.
For some reason, every exit has a street vendors who try to sell (what kind?? Anyone?? FAKE!!) USB flash drives. So, dodging them, too, you will scurry through the underground Wedding Gown market to arrive at exit 9, which leads to People's Park entrance number 5 and there you are.
Truth be told, the staff here at YRC spent several weekend afternoons searching for the Marriage Market. For some reason it eluded us. We simply could not find the place. We would read the information, head out at the proper time of 12-5 on Saturdays and Sundays, and...no Marriage Market.
We might find a large groups of Chinese package tour nomads piling off the bus and idly blocking the sidewalks. We would find the mysterious kite vendors who haunt People's Park, or we would find groups of parents playing in the fountains with their kids right next to the "Stay Out of the Fountains With Your Kids" signs. But the market eluded us. It was as if they would pack up and hustle away like empty cabs in a rainstorm when they saw us coming,. It may actually be some sort of an omen....
However, through a combination of dumb luck and better map reading, we pounced on it recently. The market has are shelters built for all-weather marriage marketing. There are places to hang resumes and places to distribute resumes. Every candidate has a resume and every resume has the same information.
The resumes are arranged by age, so no trolling around the 20s section there, Comrade. You belong over there in the "Former Friends of Mao" section! Name, height, age, salary, car/apartment ownership are prominently displayed.
No pictures, usually. None of this "likes walks in the park and cuddling by the fire" crap you get in the West. Nope. The children are usually not involved in the process. Ma and Pa meet Ma and Pa in the park, a match is found, a deal is struck and you, the child, receive a call to meet Mister or Miss Perfectshorts at the Starbucks on Nanjing Lu this Thursday, 8:00 p.m. Sharp. This is economics, people. This is China, right? And it seems to work if you use divorces per 1000 as a measure of success.
We would like to point out that this an area where the Chinese need to improve dramatically if they view themselves as future leaders of the world. Frankly, they suck! They are only number 17! Even Finland is beating them. Sad, really. Poor little Finland kicking the crap out of mighty China. Even Tunisia has them beat.
But there is hope! Western culture is blossoming in the next Chinese generation. They are eating McDonalds and getting pudgy. They are driving Buicks and washing them on weekends. They wear Gap clothes and listen to Usher and Justin Whosispunkwhatever. Happily, they are resisting the old ways and they are falling in love. Young Chinese are asserting themselves and starting to choose their own partners! And, slowly, the divorce rate in China is rising.
This trend is the key to assist the People's Republic to the requisite levels of ex-matrimony. Maybe we should quit building aircraft carriers and instead send them...Barry White CDs. And, Tequila! You never know....it could work. I just wonder though...maybe I'll start brokering a few dates for my kids...
The Article from CNNgo
“My daughter studied in an Australian program for university,” says Chen Liande, holding out a photo for the small crowd to view. Someone compliments him. “She’s been to London, too. Now I’m helping her find a husband,” he adds.
This nuptial gathering is the famous Shanghai marriage market. It is match.com meets farmers’ market, and it is the last resort for many of Shanghai's young people, and their parents.
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| Train 4, Moscow-Beijing. Photo from The Man in Seat 61. |
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| Shanghai Tunnel of Love |
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| Romantic Resumes |
I've attached a great article on the MM from CNNgo at the end of the blog. The articles has some real reporting and coherent information, not really the hallmarks of the YRC peppery style.
Back to the 'Hai! To get to the market, we slithered our way through the vast beehive called the People's Square metro station, the busiest in all of China with 400,000 people rolling through it's 20 entrances/exits daily. The huge underground complex contains shopping malls, shops, restaurants, a replica of a Shanghai street in the 1930's, three subway lines, and lots of thumb drive vendors.
For some reason, every exit has a street vendors who try to sell (what kind?? Anyone?? FAKE!!) USB flash drives. So, dodging them, too, you will scurry through the underground Wedding Gown market to arrive at exit 9, which leads to People's Park entrance number 5 and there you are.
Truth be told, the staff here at YRC spent several weekend afternoons searching for the Marriage Market. For some reason it eluded us. We simply could not find the place. We would read the information, head out at the proper time of 12-5 on Saturdays and Sundays, and...no Marriage Market.We might find a large groups of Chinese package tour nomads piling off the bus and idly blocking the sidewalks. We would find the mysterious kite vendors who haunt People's Park, or we would find groups of parents playing in the fountains with their kids right next to the "Stay Out of the Fountains With Your Kids" signs. But the market eluded us. It was as if they would pack up and hustle away like empty cabs in a rainstorm when they saw us coming,. It may actually be some sort of an omen....
 |
| A marriage broker works a lead |
 |
| Please Use Red Ink! |
The resumes are arranged by age, so no trolling around the 20s section there, Comrade. You belong over there in the "Former Friends of Mao" section! Name, height, age, salary, car/apartment ownership are prominently displayed.
No pictures, usually. None of this "likes walks in the park and cuddling by the fire" crap you get in the West. Nope. The children are usually not involved in the process. Ma and Pa meet Ma and Pa in the park, a match is found, a deal is struck and you, the child, receive a call to meet Mister or Miss Perfectshorts at the Starbucks on Nanjing Lu this Thursday, 8:00 p.m. Sharp. This is economics, people. This is China, right? And it seems to work if you use divorces per 1000 as a measure of success.
We would like to point out that this an area where the Chinese need to improve dramatically if they view themselves as future leaders of the world. Frankly, they suck! They are only number 17! Even Finland is beating them. Sad, really. Poor little Finland kicking the crap out of mighty China. Even Tunisia has them beat.
But there is hope! Western culture is blossoming in the next Chinese generation. They are eating McDonalds and getting pudgy. They are driving Buicks and washing them on weekends. They wear Gap clothes and listen to Usher and Justin Whosispunkwhatever. Happily, they are resisting the old ways and they are falling in love. Young Chinese are asserting themselves and starting to choose their own partners! And, slowly, the divorce rate in China is rising.
This trend is the key to assist the People's Republic to the requisite levels of ex-matrimony. Maybe we should quit building aircraft carriers and instead send them...Barry White CDs. And, Tequila! You never know....it could work. I just wonder though...maybe I'll start brokering a few dates for my kids...
The Article from CNNgo
“My daughter studied in an Australian program for university,” says Chen Liande, holding out a photo for the small crowd to view. Someone compliments him. “She’s been to London, too. Now I’m helping her find a husband,” he adds.
With a large park, walking paths, greenery and two museums, People’s Square is the beating heart of a modern city. And on weekend afternoons that heart flutters and palpitates as doting parents hope to marry off their kids. Next to the modern art museum in People's Square Park, crowds of them jostle and chatter, the bushes around filled with papers advertising height and weight, salary and education. “28. Good job. Local resident. Have house have car. Contact for a meeting,” says one.
Matchmaker Mr Fu site with his clients' profiles at the weekend People's Square marriage market.
The parent trap
At the marriage market, parents, with or without their children’s consent, arrange meetings, dates and potential matches for their kids. Some children, often too busy working to devote time to meeting a soul mate, accept their parents' help. But its not easy even for a parent, and many also employ matchmakers.
Matchmakers broker meetings for numerous clients usually charging RMB 10-20 per pairing. “I’ve been a matchmaker for three years,” says Mr Zheng “There’s no large payment up front. If you get married, I expect a nice gift and maybe an invitation to attend the wedding. I already represent two American men. Interested?”
Even then, matching people long term, especially with the (in)famously strong-willed Shanghainese women, can be difficult.
“I’ve been here a long time,” muses Mr Fu, a local matchmaker. “Girls in Shanghai are strong these days. Although they don’t have as much trouble finding a man, there are still lots of unmarried girls’ names on my lists.”
But that could soon flip the other way, if a recent report is to be believed.
24 million unmarried men
28. Good job. Local resident. Have house have car. Contact for a meeting.
— Sign at the People's Square marriage market
According to a study from the University of Kent, in ten years China will have approximately 24 million unmarried Chinese men who cannot find wives. That's more than the current female populations of Taiwan and South Korea combined, to give it some context.
“Sustained abnormal sex ratio at birth in China for nearly three decades, following China's launch of its one-child policy, clearly has a major impact on the Chinese marriage market,” explains Professor Wang Feng, Chair of the sociology department at University of California, Irvine and an expert in Chinese population demographics.
But while that sounds like China's men will be running over themselves to find a wife come 2020, the news is not so bad for those in Shanghai. “Involuntary bachelorhood so far is largely confined to the poor," explains Professor Wang. "For men, especially those in Shanghai, finding a wife is still possible and marriage is still one of the primary markers of success in life.”
Hence the continued existence of the seemingly anachronistic Shanghai marriage market.
Read more: Shanghai's marriage market: Bridal bliss or marital mayhem? | CNNGo.com http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/play/sausage-fest-2020-future-shanghai-marriage-market-086672#ixzz1Wl8QY2sq B
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