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Love and money reshape family in China
By Robert Marquand (The Christian Science Monitor)
Updated: 2006-01-19 11:10 A new concept: dating
China has 3,000-plus years of feudal order, guaranteed partly by a stable
family. That family is now undeniably changing. Consider these structural
shifts: Dating is a new concept, maybe four years old. Before, one never talked
about a "boy- friend" or "girlfriend." A special friend was a "partner," and it
implied an impending marriage. No longer. In the city, females will ask males
out. Young Chinese want to get to know one another. The American "eight-minute
date" has just hit Beijing.
In China's shift to a market economy, one key marriage player has been phased
out: the work-unit boss. For 50 years, the boss was a de facto sergeant inside
state-run enterprises. He or she policed behavior among the sexes, assisted with
family problems, often helped set up single women approaching the unofficial
"spinster" age of 30, and approved all matches.
"If you turned 28 and were still single, the danwei manager [or boss] would
step in and help," says Yu Jiang, a single 27-year-old who recently quit a
US-China joint venture. Now the work-unit boss no longer approves marriages; the
position is disappearing along with state-run businesses.
Weddings in pre-1980 China were simple, short, and cheap. Today, 70 percent
of the weddings done by Purple House, a Beijing agency, are Western-style -
vows, white dresses, churches, receptions, says Shi Yu. Mr. Yu is Purple House's
"master of ceremonies," a combination minister-DJ for the ceremony. Weddings
used to cost $40. Now they easily run $4,000 and are a status symbol.
Once married, Chinese couples are no longer choosing to live with parents at
at home, a huge change. Some 60 to 70 percent of couples no longer live with
parents, and in the reporting for this series, virtually no young Chinese said
they would live at home if they could afford not to. "No way," says Jun Yaolin,
who was married two years ago. "We will fight." One counter-trend is to live a
"bowl of soup" distance away - move to within a few blocks. This neatly
supplements another new trend: full-time care of children by grandparents.
Divorce, once seen as antisocial, is now high by Chinese standards and
increases yearly. In Shanghai in 2001, 1 in 3 marriages failed, according to
Xinhua news agency.
The maturing of the one-child policy, combined with the ability of couples to
buy their own apartments, is creating its own "empty nest" condition. This means
that older people are starting to experience an often terrible new loneliness.
China is still a country with respect for elders. Yet a public-service ad on
Chinese TV shows an elderly lady cooking all day. As she sets the table for
dinner, the phone calls come one by one: "I can't make it. Can I come tomorrow?"
The ad ends with a solitary figure sitting at a table of food - and the words,
"Don't forget your parents."
"The traditional family has changed, become diluted, atomized," says Dong
Zhiying, a scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing.
"It used to be assumed that kids would take care of parents. Now it no longer
is. In the past, older people in the family were dominant. Young people had no
choice but to respect them. Parents' authority was based on money and power; if
you don't respect them, you lose favor.
"Today, the intellectual and market development in China has come quickly,
and transformed the family. Young people aren't worshipping elders. They can
rely on their own ability - go to university, be independent, make their own
choices."
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