In the early 1980’s, I worked in what was known as a meat market – I was the maître d’ in a nightclub called the Red Onion in Southern California. The kind of meat I’m talking about is the two-legged kind where men are looking for women.
On that note, Danwei has an interesting post about a similar meat market in China without the dating scene created by a nightclub.
In China, marriage is often based on how much a man earns. China Has Too Many Bachelors reports that 41 million bachelors will not have women to marry. If nothing is done to change this trend, by 2020 there will be 55-million extra boys/men in China.
Since there is a growing shortage of women in China, men have to compete. The winner is usually the one who earns the most. Danwei posted a letter from a university student in China, who is attracted to a beautiful girl in one of his classes, but he has nothing to offer and is ready to give up before asking her out for a first date.
This Video emphasizes that challenge for men who don’t earn much money. A Chinese laborer who doesn’t earn much and doesn’t own a home wants a wife, but he can’t find one because men who earn more than him are getting all the available women.
Even if a girl likes a guy, the parents are going to get involved at some point to make sure the man earns enough to provide for their daughter. If the parents are against the marriage, the odds are it will not take place.
Don’t forget, the biggest reason for divorce in the US is due to money problems—something Chinese women might want to avoid.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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[…] In China, the men with the money say “I do!” […]
They call they meat markets here, too, except the excess is usually women. Eventually people in China will begin to realize there is an actual shortage of women and start to regard girl babies as valuable because of their relative rarity. It will take time, but it will happen. It’s a very big population and spread out over a vast amount of territory. China has always been slow to change. It’s part of the culture to NOT do anything in a hurry. Usually, this has been to their advantage. I’m sure they will get there … in due time. Meanwhile though, there will be a lot of lonely guys. I’m sure the women don’t mind nearly as much!
I think that awareness has already started in urban China among the more educated Chiense, but there are still 800-million rural Chiense and they are much slower to wake up to the possibles of change—the more remote their location, the slower the awakening. The education systems in the cities (urban China) are in much better shape than rural schools. Most rural Chinese don’t get past sixth grade.