臺灣女性不懼當"剩女"圖)
In a sleek uptown nightclub, the queen is holding court. At her dinner table, men hang on her every word, and women echo her pearly laugh as she raises a wine glass in a toast.
在臺灣一個時髦光鮮的夜店裏，“女王”正在主持晚宴。餐桌旁，男人們搶着應和她說的每一句話；女人們則在她舉起葡萄酒杯祝酒時，隨她一起放聲歡笑。
Tonight's dinner is limited to 50 paying guests, most of them female, attractive and single. This is the demographic that can't get enough of the queen -- born Chen Yi-li, though she refashioned herself as 'Illy' after the Italian coffee brand. Her sassy tales of righteous freedom, which have been spun into three books and inspired a TV soap opera, make her an icon of sorts for Taiwan's young female 'singletons,' who see marriage and motherhood as a straitjacket.
今天的晚宴只有50名付費客人可以參加，大多數是魅力十足的單身女性，她們都是“女王”的擁躉。“女王”本名陳儀麗(音)，但她給自己起了個與意大利咖啡品牌相同的諧音英文名“Illy”。她推崇女性要享受單身的自由，這一思想已促成三本書和一部電視劇的誕生，讓她成爲臺灣信奉獨身主義的單身女性的代表人物，這些女性把婚姻和生兒育女視爲一種枷鎖。
With one of the world's lowest birth rates, Taiwan faces the prospect of a rapidly aging population without a young workforce to support it. The government is scrambling for solutions, with experts pushing measures such as workplace day care, tax breaks for parents and generous maternity leave. But for a generation of Taiwanese women who embraced higher education (more women than men have college degrees) and demanding careers, the age-old stigma of being unmarried has given way to a celebration of single life that government incentives won't easily overturn.
臺灣的人口出生率居全世界最低行列，正面臨人口的快速老齡化，缺乏年輕的勞動力來支撐社會發展。政府想方設法尋求解決方案，專家紛紛出招，如在工作場所設立託兒所、給有小孩的家庭減稅，以及延長產假等。然而，對學歷更高（現在大學學歷的臺灣女性比男性多）、更注重事業發展的新一代臺灣女性來說，長期以來對大齡“剩女”的指指點點已經被坦然接受單身生活的潮流所取代，政府的鼓勵措施無法輕易扭轉這一趨勢。
Government officials also are playing the patriotism card, proposing that children should be seen as a 'public asset.' Peter Hu, director of the National Immigration Agency, says parents create children not just for themselves, but for Taiwan. Such rhetoric seems unlikely to sway Taiwanese weighing the pros and cons of parenting. What's more, those college-educated women who do marry now don't do so until they're 32 on average, meaning their biological window to reproduce is relatively short. (By comparison, the average marrying age in Japan for women of all educational levels was 28.5 as of 2008.)
政府官員還在打愛國主義牌，提倡把孩子視爲“公共財產”。臺灣內政部入出國及移民署(National Immigration Agency)代理副署長鬍景富說，父母生孩子不光是爲自己，還是爲臺灣；但這種花言巧語似乎很難在臺灣人權衡是否生孩子的問題時成爲一種砝碼。此外，有大學學歷的臺灣女性的平均結婚年齡爲32歲，也就是說她們的生育適齡期相對縮短。（相比之下，截止到2008年，有大學學歷的日本女性的平均結婚年齡爲28.5歲。）
Some unattached female 30-somethings refer to themselves, half-joking, as 'loser dogs,' after a 2004 Japanese book on the same phenomenon in that country. In Taiwan, their spending power hasn't gone unnoticed: A real-estate company recently advertised a small, ritzy apartment as ideal for 'loser dogs.' This economic muscle is part of what gives women the freedom to embrace the single life.
30歲以上的未婚女性半開玩笑地稱自己是“敗犬”，這個名字來源於2004年日本出版的一本講述同一現象的書。在臺灣，該羣體的消費能力並沒有被忽視。一家房地產公司最近在給一種小戶型豪華公寓打廣告，稱其專門爲“敗犬族”量身定做。這種經濟能力也是女性可以自由選擇單身生活的原因之一。
'Women now have choices,' says Violeta Zhang, a 33-year-old accountant who says she plans to stay single. 'I can hang out with you, but I'm not bound to you. That's a choice.'
“女性現在有多種選擇。”33歲打算獨身的會計張小姐說，“我可以跟你約會，但不會受你束縛，這就是多種選擇中的一種。”
Family and friends often see the lifestyle as a phase and expect the singletons to settle down, and many singletons do insist they're not opposed to marriage, just determined not to commit until they find the right partner -- one who respects their independence and shares their life goals. Presumably that means not expecting a wife to stay home and put up with a meddling mother-in-law.
獨身女性的親友往往將其單身生活視爲一個階段，希望她們最終安定下來，結婚生子。此外，不少獨身主義者堅持說，她們並不反對結婚，只是下決心在找到理想的另一半前堅守陣地。理想的另一半必須尊重她們的獨立性，擁有共同的生活目標；也就是說，不能指望妻子呆在家裏相夫教子，忍受婆婆的指手劃腳。
'Men have to change,' says Lan Pei-chia, a sociologist at National Taiwan University.
“男人必須改變自己的想法，”臺灣大學的社會學者藍佩嘉說道。
'I'm selfish. Most single women are selfish,' says Jiang Chun-mei, a 43-year-old English teacher.
“我很自私，大多數獨身女性都很自私。”43歲的英語教師江春梅(音)說道。
In her 20s, Ms. Jiang had a steady Taiwanese boyfriend, but was put off marriage by the prospect of moving in with his family and becoming 'one more chopstick' at the table. After seven years she broke it off. (Her former boyfriend married another woman within a year; the couple now has two children.)
20多歲時，江春梅有一個穩定的臺灣男朋友，但她由於不願接受住進他的大家庭，成爲“多添一雙筷子”的那個，因此推遲婚期。七年後，她提出分手。（她前男友一年後娶了另一個女孩，已有兩個孩子。）
Today Ms. Jiang dates only foreign men who don't want to tie her down. Her circle of friends includes both single and married women. She jokes with her single friends that their future will be a Taiwanese version of the 'Golden Girls,' an American TV show about four female retirees living together in Florida. 'It's just my lifestyle,' she says. 'It's natural, quite comfortable.'
現在，江春梅只跟不想把她拴在身邊的外國男人約會。她的朋友圈既有單身女性，也有已婚女性。她和自己的單身朋友開玩笑說，她們的未來將是臺灣版的《黃金女郎》(Golden Girls)，這是一部講述四個女性退休後一起住在佛羅里達的美劇。“這就是我想要的生活方式，”她說，“這很自然，也很舒服。”
Last year, Ms. Jiang took a month off to visit France, staying with friends. Ms. Zhang, the accountant, can't get enough of Spain and is fluent in the language. For Ms. Chen, the singleton guru, the hot destination is Bangkok. She recently wrote a Bangkok guidebook, spliced with photos of her shopping for clothes and eating her way around town.
去年，江春梅去法國度了一個月的假，跟朋友住在一起。會計張小姐特別喜歡西班牙，說一口流利的西班牙語。獨身名人陳儀麗最喜歡的地方是曼谷，最近寫了一本曼谷的旅行指南，裏頭有不少她買衣服和品嚐美食的照片。
Ms. Chen's career as a professional singleton began in 2004; a cosmetics-company employee living at home with her family, she launched a blog, (Her royal title was inspired by friends' remarks that she had a regal air.) In 2007 her first book, 'I Am Queen' sold 100,000 copies, and now she's a full-time writer and celebrity, dispensing advice on modern relationships via her blog and at paid lectures.
陳麗儀宣揚女性獨身主義的事業始於2004年，當時她在一個化妝品公司上班，跟家人住在一起，她開了一個博客（）（朋友說她頗具皇室氣質，她靈機一動就把自己取名爲“女王”。）2007年，她出了第一本書《我是女王》，賣出10萬本，現在成爲全職名人作家，通過博客和收費演講傳播自己對現代兩性關係的建議。
At the nightclub dinner, sponsored by a make-up brand, Ms. Chen, wearing a stretched black-and-white striped sweater over a pair of purple stockings, hands out prizes, gives effusive speeches and poses for pictures with guests, mostly avid readers of her blog.
夜店的晚宴由一個化妝品品牌贊助，陳儀麗身穿一件加長的黑白條紋羊毛衫，腿着紫色褲襪，不時分發獎品，做煽情的演講，與來賓合影留念，後者大多數是她博客的粉絲。
Strictly speaking, Ms. Chen, 30, is no longer a singleton. She's in a relationship that's lasted two years, and is even thinking of marrying her boyfriend -- though she's not sure she wants children, particularly if they might get in the way of her career.
嚴格說來，30歲的陳儀麗不再是獨身女性，她已經跟男朋友交往兩年，甚至到了談婚論嫁的地步。不過，她還不確定是否要生孩子，尤其是如果孩子會阻礙她事業發展的話。
