Are You the One?- A discussion of Chinese marriage and how people date

Dating and marriage is a big issue in China. Marriage in China is an industry that it has its own market. People in the market are products and are waiting to sell or buy. The reason of Chinese marriage market is blooming is because of the culture. In a lot of places in China, if a girl or guy has not get married and find a girlfriend or boyfriend when they hit a certain age, they will be seen as abnormal. In traditional Chinese marriage opinion, people should and need to get marry with people who are looks best for them instead of who they love the most. Therefore, in Chinese marriage market, the most important features that list out was the person’s occupation, income and property.

In Shanghai marriage market, as Ruth, a blogger who also writes about China said:” Parents or grandparents stop by to flip through books full of profiles of potential partners for their kids or grandkids.  It is interesting that people who go to marriage market not the one who needs to find a boyfriend or girl friend, instead, it is their parents or grandparents help them digging the perfect”product” for their children or grandchildren.

In addition, the marriage convention in China is crucial too. For example, guys need to prepare for house and cars and give girl money for the girl to marry him. Conventionally, a lot of people get married only because that guy looks rich enough. When ask about marriage convention in China. Dan Yanoff who has been living in China for 5 years said:” that’s lame.  You marry for love and devotion, not for money.  That’s why there are so many unhappy married couples.”

 

However, it is really hard for people find the matched one in marriage market. Some form of dating show is very popular in China. The most popular one is called “You are the One”. It is a dating show that there are 24 girls standing on the stage and interview a guy for about 20 minutes. Girls watch the video of the guy about his personal experience, love experience and interview from others to determine if they want to start a relationship with him. Dating show in China is a product that will definitely on the market because of the need from people who do’t have a platform to find friends or know more people.

 

There are a lot of ways to find “the one” in a person’s life. There are reasons behind the marriage conventions in China. Historically, it is a tradition that guys provide houses and a lot of material goods because Chinese people believe that once a girl get married, then she belongs to her husband’s family. Another reason is that the reality of the price to buy a house in China is dramatically expensive. A girl need to find a guy who can provide financial foundation for them to feel safe. Therefore, when people start to date, the question that usually discussed would be “are you be able to pay off the houses” or will you get promotion in the few years”.

 

Hopefully people in China can find a way to solve those material problems to love the one that they want to love.

 

What do you think of Chinese teching methods?

I’ve recently hear of native American talk about how they think it’s odd that some other countries let students memories the knowledge on the blackboard. “In America we figure things out instead of memorizing it”, She said.

The debate between American educational methods and other countries has been there for a long time. In China, I personally did educated in a way of no thinking process and memorize everything. China is working on the change of educational method now.Have you seen any teaching methods that you think is odd or

What do you think of Chinese teaching methods? What do you think the different teaching and learning methods between China and other countries?

Labor’s Day

May 1st is the Labor’s Day in China. People officially have three days off for the Labor’s Day. They are May 1st (Thursday), May 2nd (Friday), and May 3rd (Saturday). On May 4th, Sunday, people have to work for a make up day. The vacation system  is very interesting in China. It is not like America where you can have a long weekend if you have a vacation on Monday or Friday. In China people technically only have two days off a week. If you take off because of a holiday, then they would have to make you work on a weekend to make up those hours.

In China, a hot topic that has been mentioned every year was how crazy the traffic and people were during those holidays. According to the new data from Chinese media, there were 10,653,000 people take the train on May 1st in which the number was increased by 19.9% compare to last year. The reason of that is because people have never had a chance to take a long vacation to go out or visit their family members. For a country like China that has has a huge population, the number of people who take the train in one day is not a bizarre thing.

A documentary of Chinese food-A bite of China

One Child Policy

When people around me talk about how they fight with their siblings when they were young, I was jealous. Only because I don’t have a sibling. I am the only child in my family. My parents did not chose to only have one child, it the policy that is not allowed my parents to have second children in my family in the late 1980 in China.

The policy was introduced in 1979 to control the growth population in China. In general, families are only allowed to have one child. Exceptions are rural families can have a second child if the first child is a girl or is disabled, and ethnic minorities. The population did get controlled. According to Xinhua, one child policy have prevented some 400 million births.

Problems also arisen as a lot of people ignore the policy and give birth to the children without identification in which is a problem for the children to get into school or hospital. Another problem that happened in one child family is, and I am one of them, we don’t have a noisy childhood. No one fight for a toy with us and no one shares a meal with us either. A lot of children are spoiled by their parents or grandparents as the only youngest in the family. They are called “little empirical” in China.

Another problem resulting from one child policy is aging and unbalanced percentage on male and female. More and more elderly people in cities and urban areas in China. More and more single male have a hard time to look for a girlfriend or a wife.

One child policy has changed recently. Many families in China now can have the second child as long as one of them is the only child in his or her family. However, a lot of them don;t want to have two children because they can not “afford” it.

 

 

10 minutes and you know about China

Weibo Debuts on Nasdaq on April 17

 

Weibo, Chinese Twitter public on Nasdaq on Thursday, April 17  at $3.46 billion. I have talked about  the comparision between Chinese online social platform and American online social media platform.

Weibo is the biggest online social media platform in China. The debuts of Weibo has a significant meaning for China and Chinese businesses on international market. Yahoo News published an article about Weibo. They said:” launched in August 2009, is China’s largest social media service with 144 million active monthly users. It is most often compared to Twitter.” The whole world is surprised at how Weibo becomes successful in such as short time.

Rett Wallace, the co-founder and CEO of Triton Research said his opinion on the success of Weibo when interviewed by CNBC. Rett said: “But the truth is that this is a company that didn’t exist four years ago, that nobody in the U.S. had heard about [until] two months ago and is in the process of a capital raising in the U.S. markets”.

Na matter how much concerns and worries people have on Chinese entrepreneurs, I fell proud as a normal Chinese girl seeing  Chinese company led board up on Time Square in New York.

What does Newborn Mom Do in China?

Does any mom with newborn do the same thing in the world?

Obviously no.

Chinese women would take a short vacation after they give birth to their child. In Chinese we called it Zuo Yue Zi. It literally means sitting the month.

Zuo yue zi actually means confinement in childbirth. Zuo yue zi is an old tradition that can dating back to 2000 years ago. In china, taking confinement in childbirth is legal and all institution have to permit their female employee take that vacation with salaries. Zuo yue zi is very important for Chinese women because they think that is the best time period for them to recovery from childbirth. There are a lot of old traditions when women have their confinement in childbirth.

1. They can not drink cold water, eat cold food or go out. They have to use everything warm. The cold food here is not actual food temperature, it is about the property of the food. (Please check out my previous blog about “hot” and “cold” food.)

2. They can not shower right after the baby born.

3. They eat light food. But with a lot of nutrition such as eggs fish and red meat. They are also encouraged to eat  soup or food with brown sugar.

Western scholars don not agree with this Asian tradition. They think those traditions are not based on scientific studies. Some rules are obey with modern science because situation now is different with 2000 years ago. However, if it is a tradition that has been lasting more than 2000 years. As a Chinese, I would rather believe and follow it.

 

 

Diversity of China-Chinese Minorities

Not all Chinese are the same and not all of them speak the same language and cultural either. There are 56 ethical groups in China and majorities of them is call Han which take up more than 90 percent of the whole Chinese population. While the rest 55 minorities are only take less than 10 percent of Chinese population.

Every ethical group has their own language and culture. For example, they have their own festivals and historical stories. They also have their own way to celebrate when young people get married. I could not understand them at all if they speak their own language even though we are all Chinese. Han can be found in any part of China but the minorities usually only live in a certain area.

Now Chinese minorities begin to learn Mandarin(the official Chinese) and merging into Han People’s life,but they still keep living on their original cultural and habitat.

Chinese ethical groups has gone through a very complex process in history. There were a lot of fights and conflicts in ancient China with all ethical groups. Some of these groups were controlled China in a period of time such as Yuan dynasty which was leaded by  Mongolian. But they all authorized by Han eventually. Chinese government has policies for ethical groups to make the relationship between them all goes smoothly and well.

 

 

Interview with Dr. Mary Ann Stadtler-Chester