Tongli Watertown & Marriage Markets

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Hey everyone,

I'm really really sorry about how late this is... I managed to write the actual post by the middle of the week, but then I had to wait for it to be approved and in the meantime got caught up in schoolwork and stuff. Sorry! As a result, (fingers crossed) the next post will be up here by the beginning of next week. Shooting for Monday. But here is the link for last week's post:

https://www.iesabroad.org/study-abroad/blogs/kmcgeepugetsoundedu/exploring-tongli-watertown

We had a nice day trip to Tongli last Friday, and then on Saturday I met up with my Chinese class (all three of us, plus our teacher) made our way over to 人民廣場 (Rénmín guǎngchǎng - People's Square) to check out the 相親角 (Xiāngqīn jiǎo - lit. blind date corner, although it is often called the marriage market). Our teacher wanted us to go and talk to some of the people there and find out what they thought about the marriage market in general, and to see what they hoped to get out of it. We actually got really lucky because a woman came up to talk to us and was very open and willing to share her thoughts and why she was there and all that. For those of you unfamiliar with this (and I can't remember if I have talked about this before, so I apologize if I have), China is facing a phenomenon that they call 剩女 (Shèngnǚ) which literally means "leftover women." What is happening is that nowadays women have more rights and opportunities than they have in the past, and as such many of them use those to pursue higher education, get jobs, and to compete with men in the workforce. Of course, all of these opportunities require major time commitments. On the other hand, men still want to get married and have kids, but the typical basic societal requirement of men for marriage is that they own a house, a car, and are able to afford a ring. Building up the funds for all of these things takes time, so men tend to get married when they are in their 30's. However, since they want to have kids, these men have started marrying women who are younger, usually still in their 20's, and are of a slightly lower socioeconomic class than the men. Of course, the women that these men are marrying are not the same as those who have decided to pursue education and careers. That the men are marrying down on the socioeconomic scale creates a problem, however, when you consider those highly educated, highly successful women who are now in their 30's and are left with no one to marry. These women are not left with many options, as they are unlikely to marry lower in the socioeconomic scale (which would be unlikely to happen on either side, as Chinese men are expected to make about the same, if not more, money than their wives). This also leaves those men who aren't as rich and successful without anyone to marry because their marriage matches have been taken by men of a higher class.

The marriage market is a space where the concerned parents of men and women in their 30's go to find potential marriage matches for their sons and daughters. At the marriage markets an observer will notice two roles, those parents who have set up umbrellas to advertise their children, and those parents who wander the marriage market browsing said umbrellas. On each umbrella is a single page that describes the marriage candidate's gender, name, age, education, job, salary, height, hometown, etc. In talking to some of the parents, we found out that their children had okayed their help to find potential marriage partners, but that many of them did not know that their parents find said partners at the marriage market. Rather than say where the potential partner was found, the parents will often just tell their kids that it's a friend of a friend's kid or something along those lines, as their children would be against their parents going to the marriage market if they knew. We also learned that oftentimes, when a match is made, it simply means that the parents will pass on a Wechat contact (Wechat is the Chinese version of Whatsapp or Line), and the two marriage hopefuls will chat a bit over Wechat and decide whether or not to meet. If they decide they don't get along, no harm done; the process just starts over again. It is actually a much more relaxed process than any of us had thought before going, and if you're ever in Shanghai over the weekend, it's definitely something worth checking out, as it is pretty specific to Shanghai.

On Sunday I met up with my language partner, 婷婷 (Tíng tíng) and one of my friends from the program and we ate 火鍋 (huǒguō - hot pot)! For the record, hot pot is one of my favorite foods, and I think we should make it an American dish, or at least eat it more frequently in the US. It's super easy, just a soup base over a camping stove/burner of some sort, and an assortment of fresh vegetables and thinly sliced meat. It's traditionally a communal dish, so everyone eats from the same pot, and it's a cook-as-you-go sort of thing. Super delicious!! And you can do hot pot spicy or not spicy, although I definitely tend towards the spicy version. My stomach hates me afterward, but it's so worth it! (For that lack of self control, I am so so so glad I'm neither lactose intolerant nor am I gluten free. I would be miserable and my body would hate me.)

Anyways, that's all for now, and like I said earlier, I'm hoping I will get better about posting on time! Until next time!

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Photos

Boats on the canal
Following after Dad's footsteps on the boat photos over here!

The water was not clean
Yet we saw a few people washing clothes in the water

Going under a bridge
Pictured: the back of David's head

Umbrellas at the marriage market
Note that this is only a small corner of it. The middle part was too crowded to get a good photo

Comments

[Mark Weatherley]

Intersting Sociological Insights
Katie - I really enjoyed your piece on the "marriage market." It gives a sense of how the rapidly changing nature of Chinese society is affecting every aspect of life. I had never thought of the implications of educated women wanting to wait till their 30s to get married and thus being less attractive to men who are eager to get married and have children. I am wondering how the gender gap plays into this? As there are millions fewer women than men does that change the equation at all? And do men find educated women less attractive for marriage if they are highly educated as they are going to be less likely to stay at home and raise children? You'll have to come back to BHS and teach a class on this :-). Oh, I loved the photos of the canal in Shanghai! Makes me want to see it in person! How about Shanhainese? Is it difficult to understand this dialect?

[katiekate]

Re: Interesting Sociological Insights
Hi Weatherly! I really enjoy learning about the social changes that have come to affect the daily life of the younger generations here in China. To answer your question about the gender gap, I don't think it plays into effect much in this scenario. For the most part, the gender gap isn't very prevalent in the major cities (where the educated women tend to be found), as people living in the big cities tend to be much more open minded and less traditional, so having just one daughter was accepted much more quickly. The gender gap is most obvious in villages and areas that are of a more traditional mindset, as those are the areas where babies were more often drowned or left for dead. Those are also the areas where Chinese women need to be more careful, as kidnappings, forced marriages, and polygamy are more common, as men find themselves without wives. I think the worry that more educated women would be less likely to stay at home and take care of the children is one of the factors in them being less attractive, but the practice of having an 阿姨 (ayi) who comes in to take care of the children during the week and to cook and clean is more and more popular in these large cities. I think the biggest factor is the intimidation, and the traditional mindset that has remained that men are supposed to be the ones to take care of the family, especially in terms of finances. They are supposed to have better jobs and act as the breadwinners, and when they find so many women who are just as if not more successful than they are, having a relationship is made difficult. Also, I think the women who become so successful also sometimes have the same mindset, and so they don't want to marry men who make less than they do for the same reasons. Shanghainese is impossible to understand. It's basically a whole different language, and even the Chinese from outside Shanghai are unable to understand it. Luckily, basically everyone from Shanghai (with the exception of some of the older people) can also speak Mandarin, so I am still able to communicate. The downside is that the southern and northern parts of China in general have very different pronunciations (for example, northerners put a hard "-er" sound at the end of lots of words, and southerners sometimes will change a soft "c" sound into a "ch," or an "sh" into an "si" sound). Oh Chinese...