關注社會:中國式相親的無奈

BEIJING — Dating is hard at the best of times. In China the stakes are high from the outset: the expectation is that it should lead to marriage; never mind love for love's sake.

即使萬事俱備，相親也不是一件容易的事。在中國，相親從一開始就存在高風險：人們期望一段相親可以最終帶領他們走向婚姻，至於愛情，就顯得無關緊要了。

A friend recently went on a blind date in Beijing. Arriving at the coffee shop, he found not only the girl but her mother, too. Within minutes she bombarded him with questions: What does he earn? Where did he study? Does he own a house?

我的一位朋友最近參加了北京的一場相親會。當他到達那家咖啡店時，他發現和相親對象同時出現的還有她的母親。短短几分鐘內那位母親向他扔出了一連串的問題：你賺多少錢？你從哪裏畢業的？你有房子嗎？

Romance in China is often sacrificed to practicality; dating has largely become a commercial transaction. In Beijing parents gather in parks to introduce their children to one another. Singles' clubs set people up according to requirements — height, income, property. And tens of thousands descend on matchmaking events in cities like Shanghai looking for the perfect mate.

在中國，浪漫總是敗給現實；相親從很大程度上已經變成了一種交易。在北京，有許多父母聚集在公園裏，把自己的孩子介紹給多位異性。單身俱樂部把客戶按照他們的要求進行劃分——身高、收入、財產。在上海這樣的城市裏，成千上萬的人們涌向各種相親活動，期待找到那個完美伴侶。

For Chinese men today, being the perfect mate means having a car, an apartment, a good salary and, preferably, a tall stature. Women, meanwhile, must be married by 27; after that they are branded sheng nu or “leftover women.” (This derogatory term — whose prefix “sheng” is the same word used in “leftover food” — was listed as a new word in 2007 by the Chinese Ministry of Education).

對於當今中國的男人們來說，完美老公的定義是有車有房，高收入，如果身高也不錯就更完美了。而女人們一定要在27歲之前嫁出去，否則就會被貼上“剩女”的標籤。（“剩女”是一個貶義詞，其中“剩”和“剩飯”裏的“剩”是一個意思，而這個詞已經在2007年被中國教育部收錄爲新詞。）

“Marriage in many ways in China is a way of pulling resources,” says Roseann Lake, a Beijing-based journalist researching a book on sheng nu. In one direction, at least. “The idea that a woman, no matter how successful she is professionally, is absolutely nothing until she is married — it still comes down to that.”

“中國的婚姻在許多方面就是財力的比拼，”一名常駐北京的記者羅斯安-雷克說。她正在研究一本關於剩女的書。至少在某種程度上來說是這樣的。“有一種觀點認爲，一個女人無論在事業上多麼成功，如果沒有結婚她就依然一無所有。而這種觀念依然大行其道。”

Matchmaking — through work units and family — was, and still is, commonplace. The one-child policy has further reinforced these expectations. With no welfare system in China, the young are expected to provide for the old: whom you marry matters for your entire family.

不管是過去還是現在，牽線配對依然非常普遍，無論是在工作單位還是在家庭環境中。計劃生育政策又進一步助長了這種觀念。由於中國欠缺社會福利體系，人們普遍認爲年輕人應該供養老人。因此你和誰結婚事關整個家庭。

These concerns aren't evenly shared, and they expose something of a generation gap. Children of the 1980s and 1990s — who were born in better economic times and fed on pop music and movies — are in less of a hurry to get married than their parents were.

並不是所有人都認同這種觀念，這也從某種程度上反映出了代溝。生於80和90年代的孩子享受了更好的經濟環境，他們聽着流行音樂、看着電影長大——他們對於婚姻的渴望並不像他們的父輩那樣強烈。

The best-selling author Wang Hailing, who wrote “Divorce with Chinese Characteristics,” relays stories of pushy mothers on her micro-blog. One told her daughter to attend blind dates while she's still at a “valuable” age.

暢銷書作家、《中國式離婚》的作者王海鴒在她的微博上連載心急的媽媽們的故事。有一位母親讓自己的女兒去相親，雖然她的女兒還沒有到“剩女”的年紀。

Xie Yujie, a 26-year-old resident of Wenzhou, a city of more than nine million some 230 miles south of Shanghai, is unmarried. Despite a promising career as a nurse, her parents remind her daily of her filial duties to find a husband. Xie is looking for love, but her parents chastise her for not being more practical. “Money worship and materialism is the reality,” she explained last week.

26歲的謝玉潔（音）還是單身，她來自溫州，一個有900多萬人口、位於上海以南大約230英里的城市。她是一名護士，雖然這個職業不錯，她的父母依然每天提醒她要找老公以盡孝道。謝玉潔想要追尋真愛，可她的父母卻怪她太不現實。“拜金主義和物質主義纔是現實，” 她解釋說。

And so now some single women in Chengdu, in southwest China, pay more than $3,100 for a special training course in how to snag a millionaire husband.

而在中國西南部的城市成都，有些單身女性花了3100多美元參加特殊訓練課，培訓的主題是如何釣到富豪老公。

These are extremes, of course, but the pressures are real. Although China's skewed birth rate means there will be a surplus of about 24 million men in China by 2020, the majority of these bachelors will live in rural areas. In major cities — where the rate of housing costs to income can reach 12:1 — finding a good match is a constant worry for educated, ambitious women.

當然這些都是極端的例子，但這種壓力是真實存在的。雖然中國畸形的出生率意味着到2020年，中國會有2400萬男性可能會打光棍，但這些人大部分還是會生活在農村地區。而在一些房價和收入的比例高達12:1的大城市，對於那些受過良好教育、有雄心壯志的女性來說，找一個好老公依然是讓她們一直焦慮的問題。

They'll be looking not just for a fetching smile or that spark of chemistry, but also for the promise of money and connections.

對於那些參加相親會的人來說，他們不僅僅在尋找一個迷人的微笑或是愛情的火花，他們更期待的是金錢和關係上的保證。