[Valhalla]

Reporter Marcel Theroux and director Frankie Fathers join some of China's many millions of male lonely hearts on their search for a wife, and meet some of the 'Love Hunters' working to find them an ideal bride.

Modern China is a place of extraordinary inequality, including in the love lives of its citizens. Marcel Theroux meets two people who represent the contrasting paths to love.

Li Dongmin is 39, and desperate to find a wife. He epitomises the plight of China's unwanted bachelors; the men who, thanks to the one-child policy, face a lifetime alone.

Dongmin is a migrant labourer from a tiny village 1000 miles from Beijing. He works as a cook in the capital, and sleeps in a dormitory to save money for a new house back home.

To the parents of potential brides he's too poor. And there's a deeper reason for his failure to find a wife: the huge surplus of unmarried men in China.

For 30 years, China has been conducting a vast, unintended experiment in sex selection. Ever since it became possible to determine gender in the womb, Chinese families have been illegally aborting girl foetuses.

By 2020, China is predicted to have 24 million marriageable men without partners: men whose future wives were never born.

Unreported World also films with 30-year-old Rong Na, an elegant and vivacious 'love hunter' employed by an agency called Diamond Love and Marriage to find wives for some of China's richest men.

Rong Na combs a shopping mall for attractive women. She's picking potential wives for a client she refers to as Mr X, who's very rich and can afford to be extremely choosy.

In the same mall, Li Dongmin's search also continues, at a free singles event. He plucks up the courage to chat to a few women; he even gets some phone numbers. His search for a wife continues, but with more hope than expectation. He knows the odds are stacked against him.

[la_mode]

They should do an episode on DC.

[Emancipator]

[Vacancier Permanent]

Very interesting. This is what the west is headed towards in a few years too, not due a lack of women but due to an increasing number of thirsty betas and ever older and ever demanding careerist women in their mid 39's after getting tired of being P & Ded by alphas. It won't be pretty for anyone still stuck here who hasn't gotten their shit together...

[bacon]

China may have worse birth ratios than the west leading to less women but at least the pool of eligible women are not full of fattys and single mothers.

[Therapsid]

The thing is, there should be a self-correcting mechanism here.

If girls are that much in demand, then they should become a hot commodity.

In other words, guys should begin to have to pay dowries to parents to marry their daughters.

Apparently, this is already happening:

http://qz.com/92267/in-a-reversal-of-the...ir-brides/

This will in turn incentivize folks to have and keep girls to begin with.

The problem is - even if this happens, it takes a long time. It's cold comfort for guys today.

[Ziltoid]

(10-23-2013 12:15 AM)Valhalla Wrote:  

...huge surplus of unmarried men in China.

This will not end well.
How long until the mass shootings start?

[Cattle Rustler]

(10-23-2013 01:06 AM)Ziltoid Wrote:  

(10-23-2013 12:15 AM)Valhalla Wrote:  

...huge surplus of unmarried men in China.

This will not end well.
How long until the mass shootings start?

There was a guy who bombed a government building not to long ago to express his dissatisfaction with real estate prices.

Not to mention there have been a lot of "knife attack" frenzies lately.

[MidWest]

Very interesting. I have a good friend here from Guanzhou, China in college. He tells me that in China, a man's looks do not matter as long as they are rich or are able to take care of a whole family economically. A chinese woman would rather have an ugly rich guy than a good looking poor guy, its just the way it is.

My friend is surprisingly very racist and always tells me that he prefers white skinned or pale skinned chinese girls and doesnt understand why Americans tan or what he calls "poisons" their skin. I remember this one time a white girl here from college got a tan, he told me in my ear, "she went from being an 8 to being a 2 just because of the tan"

Shit is real.

[Cattle Rustler]

(10-23-2013 01:32 AM)MidWest Wrote:  

Very interesting. I have a good friend here from Guanzhou, China in college. He tells me that in China, a man's looks do not matter as long as they are rich or are able to take care of a whole family economically. A chinese woman would rather have an ugly rich guy than a good looking poor guy, its just the way it is.

My friend is surprisingly very racist and always tells me that he prefers white skinned or pale skinned chinese girls and doesnt understand why Americans tan or what he calls "poisons" their skin. I remember this one time a white girl here from college got a tan, he told me in my ear, "she went from being an 8 to being a 2 just because of the tan"

Shit is real.

There are loads of Asians who walk around with umbrellas during the summer. There was a guy who came over for the summer and he got tanned over a few months. Over dinner he said "if my girlfriend sees me, she will not like me" jokingly. Guess what happened when he returned?.....

[speakeasy]

And guess where else this is happening?

[Valhalla]

I felt sad for that guy. He just seemed so miserable in every way. He even had a girlfriend once but was dumped because he wasn't right enough.

Nothing was going right for that guy. The first question they would ask him was where he was from and weather he had residence in Beijing.

[shameus_o'reaaly]

I remember reading the original Boxer Rebellion had similar factors as a cause when the good land and available women were snatched up in a scarce region, leaving thousands of poor and single frustrated men.
Would Chinese men hit it off with Russian or Latvian women, I wonder? Their birth imbalance falls the other way, right?

[Generation21stCentury]

Fantastic video. Here’s some more indepth perspective on some of the issues touched on, but mostly skimmed over during the report, as of course they only have so many minutes and they also want to get in the cute 'story' aspect.

1. The 户口 (Hu kou)

While China appears to be a homogenous blob to the outside, one measure the Chinese have taken against massive rural -> urban influx is to legally enforce the separation of provinces to some degree.

Imagine it as like every American state having its own ‘passport’, which was determined by which state you were born in (born in NYC, get a NY State ‘Passport’), and restricted where you could live, work, attend government funded schools etc. Of course, not all states are equal, so not all of the 户口s are the same. For instance, Beijing and Shanghai 户口s are much much more valuable than from one of the poor provinces in the north west of China.

This leads to crazy stuff like pregnant women rushing into major cities just before they give birth expressly for the purpose of popping out the kid somewhere he might have a better shot in life later on, and if successful claiming that they need to also reside in said district to look after the kid. The fallout from stuff like this impacts a LOT of people, including the kid’s father, the family’s of both of the parents, the government and legal system that has to sort the whole mess out etc.

And when you’re looking to hook up, which 户口 your potential spouse has is a big deal. More on this in a bit.

2. Cultural bias against daughters

While everyone kind of superficially ‘gets’ the idea that the Chinese ‘like’ sons, the actual logic and ramifications behind it are kind of laughed off as ‘oh that’s just their culture’. It’s obviously a pretty potent force if it can compel parent’s to whack girls by the millions. I’m no expert, but here’s some things to consider:

First, the exaltation of boys > girls is ingrained at a level that is hard to imagine for a Westerner. For instance, the Chinese word for ‘son’ is 儿子 (er zi) and the word for daughter is 女儿 (nv er). Even if you can’t read those characters, just take a second to look at that. Notice anything? Well, the word for daughter could be literally translated as “female son”, or at least that’s the sentiment behind it.

To the Chinese, (traditionally speaking) a son will earn his own place in the world, find a wife, continue the lineage by having children and bring a lot of 面子(lit “face” best thought of as a combination of the English concepts of “prestige”, “honour” and “respectability”) to his parents. A daughter is just someone you’re kind of looking after for a bit until eventually she gets subsumed by marriage into someone else’s household / lineage. This is a generalization, and gradually starting to change, but it’s the overriding mentality built upon thousands of years of history.

Second, pregnancy is a huge deal in China. Not like ‘give up your seat on the subway’ big. No, like a HUGE deal. Mothers of newborns get a kind of privelige called 坐月子 (zuo yue zi, lit: “sitting month child”). After having a baby, a mother will basically not leave the house, not even her bedroom that much, for a month. She will not do anything other than rest and look after the baby, sleep, and go to the toilet. Everything (all her meals etc.) will be provided for her by her family. The reasoning is that post childbirth a mother is vulnerable to getting sick or whatever, and if anything bad happens in the first month of a child’s life to its mother that could have disastorous ramifications for the rest of the family’s lifetime, so every precaution should be taken. There is an industry of women called 月嫂 (yue sao, trans: “postnatal attendant”) that families hire just to facilitate this whole shebang.

Now consider this amount of pressure and cultural expectation when mixed with point number 1 above. Now we’re cooking with gasoline.

3. Lack of retirement support, and reliance on family

China doesn’t really have social security, a pension, or anything like that in any way comparable to America or other Western countries (eg. superannuation in Australia). There are SOME systems, I don’t know the specifics in any great detail, but suffice to say in a country where there’s tons of poverty, a handful of corruption and only 5% flat tax it’s expected you look out for yourself.

This means that after you retire (60 for men, 55 for women IIRC), all you’ve got is any money you have managed to save, plus anything your working-age kids can kick upstairs for you. This used to be manageable, because you could have 4 or 5 of your kids take over your farm, and between them they’d make enough for themselves and to support you and your wife, but with the one child policy that is no longer the case.

Traditionally a Chinese family frequently cohabits, especially after the newlyweds have children and the grandparents retire. Thus, the grandparents can provide daycare for the kid while the parents are out at work. So potentially 2x grandmother, 2 x grandfather, mum, dad and newborn are all under one roof, on 1.5 salaries (see point 4). This can only spiral further out of control, as it’s unlikely the grandparents are all dead by the time the parent’s are getting close to retiring, leaving one kid to manage up to 4 grandparents on top of his 2 parents, plus HIS new wife and kid PLUS the wife’s parents/grandparents!

That’s a lot of mouths to feed.

4. Chinese women in the workplace

Chinese employers are aware that their female staff that get pregnant will be out for a full month after childbirth, and possibly longer (see point 2 above). Lower salaries for women.

Chinese women earn less degrees in STEM fields, as the Chinese legitimately have a meritocracy going on. One of the top universities (the Ivy league type equivalent) Qing Hua University is famed for being the pinnacle of science based degrees, and also for it’s incredibly disproportionate male / female student ratio (by some reports 3 guys per girl in most courses, although this is by word of mouth and not a real study). Lower salaries for women.

As some American places might hire a girl over a guy with equal qualifications as it makes their company look better, the opposite happens in China. Inbuilt cultural stigma for guys > girls. Lower salaries for women.

The Fallout

High priorities for women looking to get married:
•High salary, that can potentially support her direct family as well as his

•A good 户口, related to having a high salary, and also meaning HER kids can be legitimately born somewhere they’ll also have a (better) life. If you don’t live in a city, you’re a rural type guy, this is doubly true as all the local women exodus to the urban centres.

•Social circle / family connections. The Chinese meet their eventual spouses through family friends a ridiculously high percentage of the time, so if you’re parents can’t hook you up (for whatever reason) you’re mostly shit out of luck. The ‘marriage market’ in the vid is a bizarre example, but works on the same principle that operates at an informal level society wide.

Chances of getting a girlfriend at work / uni are very low, and the few brave (or stupid) enough to hit the clubs are facing ridiculous ratios and girls that are glued to their friends and all aware that any guy in a club is scraping the bottom of the barrel. I would not want to be a Chinese guy trying street approach, they would never ever take you seriously.

•Family approval. You might have picked up by now that family is seriously important in China, and so there’s not much “YOLO I’ll marry who I want, I don’t care if you hate my drug dealing boyfriend mom and dad” that goes on. Instead, prospective boyfriends have to be able to win over the girl, and then win over her parents so she’ll give the stamp of approval. They’re checking for the items she’s looking at, but without any fog of ‘who’s this dashing rogue’ over their eyes (Game can’t save you from her father), so you’d better be solid to the core. If they say you’re no good, she’ll listen, and you’re out in the cold again.

If you’re a guy, and you don’t have that checklist on lock, you’re going to get squeezed out by a guy that does, and you’re not even going to get dregs because you’re on the unfortunate side of a massive supply / demand imbalance.

Haha, just throws some light on all the complaints about American women. The grass is always greener on the other side.

[Mikev75]

A Chinese co-worker told me that Russian women are already heading there seeking Chinese husbands. Obviously that's not going to help bottom of the socioeconomic ladder guys like the one in the documentary, as they'll not be looking for poor migrant laborers.

[Yano]

The problem with having a girl in china is the possibility that she loses on the gene lottery. It is much more likely for a girl to be born average than it is she will have model looks.

That being said, there is a saying in china that goes like this:

"There is no such thing as ugly women; there are only lazy women."

[Mikev75]

Was bored, so I searched Chinese men/Russian women. One of the things which popped up was some crazy, paranoid shit on Stormfront about "Chinamen stealing Russian Women." Hmmm. There were a few other articles in Pravda, China Daily etc.

Apparently it's not just Russian women coming to China, but they are also seeking out Chinese men who do business in the FSU. Still, it won't help all the young, angry, dirt poor guys who have no hope of getting laid. The situation doesn't bode well for China's stability.

[Cattle Rustler]

(10-23-2013 07:58 AM)Mikev75 Wrote:  

A Chinese co-worker told me that Russian women are already heading there seeking Chinese husbands. Obviously that's not going to help bottom of the socioeconomic ladder guys like the one in the documentary, as they'll not be looking for poor migrant laborers.

It's good to hear that FSU ladies are still doing FSU lady things, I thought they would stay in FSU and snag the oligarchs living there.

[Sargon of Akkad]

(10-23-2013 01:32 AM)MidWest Wrote:  

My friend is surprisingly very racist and always tells me that he prefers white skinned or pale skinned chinese girls and doesnt understand why Americans tan or what he calls "poisons" their skin. I remember this one time a white girl here from college got a tan, he told me in my ear, "she went from being an 8 to being a 2 just because of the tan"

Shit is real.

It's not really accurate to call this 'racism'. It's more an example of historical classism combined with lookism. The preference for white skin goes back to before Imperial times when having a deep tan was associated with the peasantry, as those who spent all day working in the fields would naturally get a much deeper tan than women who could afford to stay indoors. A good example of this would be historical paintings depicting the female ideals of beauty. Notice how in the last picture, the women are portrayed as kinda fat. This was also an ideal in pre-modern times, as it goes back to classism, in which being somewhat overweight was a sign that you were wealthy enough to be well fed; this is one things that has definitely changed, as you can see whenever you look at more modern Chinese depictions of Tang Dynasty noblewomen -- all are incredibly thin. Even today, the migrant workers you see toiling in the sun in Chinese cities typically have this bronze, leathery skin.

I'm sure no one ever consciously thinks of this when when they say "white skin is beautiful; dark skin is ugly". In their minds they have a similar reaction to deeply tanned women that we do to fatties.

(10-23-2013 09:07 AM)Mikev75 Wrote:  

Was bored, so I searched Chinese men/Russian women. One of the things which popped up was some crazy, paranoid shit on Stormfront about "Chinamen stealing Russian Women." Hmmm. There were a few other articles in Pravda, China Daily etc.

Apparently it's not just Russian women coming to China, but they are also seeking out Chinese men who do business in the FSU. Still, it won't help all the young, angry, dirt poor guys who have no hope of getting laid. The situation doesn't bode well for China's stability.

As far as I know, it's more common for Chinese guys to look for mail order wives from poorer neighbouring Asian countries. In Northeastern Chinese villages, this is most often the case with female North Korean refugees, where North Korean women often end up being sold - sometimes willingly, sometimes against their will - to Han Chinese husbands. It's also the case with Chinese men in regard to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.

Ceterum censeo Osakam esse delendam!

[WestIndianArchie]

Great find

These love hunter women, I need to be taking some notes. They're harsh. I wish they could explain a little bit more about how they judge personality.

And it's a frank discussion over what women outside of the West are really looking for.

We have the same sort of imbalance with marriageable women and marriageable men in this country.

Many of American women have aborted themselves for the process by
- focusing on education and career during their best years
- impossibly tall # of requirements (Dong min was like, no divorcees...and or divorcees are cool as long as they don't have children)
- a die hard belief in romantic love
- eaten themselves out of eligibility
- taken the very jobs that their would-be husbands might have gotten (did I go there?)

WIA

[CJ_W]

(10-23-2013 12:41 AM)Emancipator Wrote:  

WOW, a fellow YES fan!

Rock On!

[la_mode]

There are 105 boys born per 100 girls (in some countries 107/108 boys per 100 girls). So, from day one, no matter where you - the ratios as a male are not in your favor, at least in terms of raw data. I'll address this.

Of course, men goto war more often, prison, get caught up in crime more, overdose, etc. Another thing, there's also more gay men than lesbian women. A lot of women like to kiss and occasionally get with other women, but don't identify as lesbian. This is a double-standard (one I won't defend), but it meets the definition of a double-standard.

Even with all these things that men do, there are still more men in dating ages (think 18-40). It's not until after 40 that the ratio is more even.

Back to the raw data stat. It's true, and it might even be under reported. I was talking with a co-worker once about how men generally seem to outnumber in terms of bars/clubs anywhere I've been. So he tells me a story about his kindergarten class was all boys. I assumed he went to an all-boy school. He then tells me he didn't, I tell him I don't believe it. It's just statistically impossible that an entire classroom at a co-ed public school is all boys.

It was forgotten for awhile, a few months later he needed help moving to a new place. He brings it up again and says he found the class in an old box. I reiterate I still don't think it's possible. A minute later, he shows me the class pic from the mid-80s. It was true. He said after that there were generally only 3 or 4 girls in the class.

I remember in 6th grade my school had this strange split where they grouped you by A. Not in band, not in choir B. In choir, not in band C. In band, not in choir. D. In band & choir

I had wanted to try saxophone that year, so I ended up in group C. There were 2 girls in the class, about 25 boys. I hated it. Thankfully they didn't stick with that program.

[Brosemite]

(10-23-2013 01:35 AM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  

(10-23-2013 01:32 AM)MidWest Wrote:  

Very interesting. I have a good friend here from Guanzhou, China in college. He tells me that in China, a man's looks do not matter as long as they are rich or are able to take care of a whole family economically. A chinese woman would rather have an ugly rich guy than a good looking poor guy, its just the way it is.

My friend is surprisingly very racist and always tells me that he prefers white skinned or pale skinned chinese girls and doesnt understand why Americans tan or what he calls "poisons" their skin. I remember this one time a white girl here from college got a tan, he told me in my ear, "she went from being an 8 to being a 2 just because of the tan"

Shit is real.

There are loads of Asians who walk around with umbrellas during the summer. There was a guy who came over for the summer and he got tanned over a few months. Over dinner he said "if my girlfriend sees me, she will not like me" jokingly. Guess what happened when he returned?.....

@Midwest, the dark skinned look is something that is looked down upon in Chinese cultures. Though political allies to an extent, there has always been a rivalry between China and Vietnam where the Chinese look down upon certain Southeast Asians for having darker complexions while their counterparts will make fun of the slanty eyes of their neighbors. I myself have been made fun of by kids with eye gestures & in one case rock throwing when in Vietnam though I'm actually a mix of both.

@Cattle, there was a time when Vietnamese family friends came over for a swim at my parents house. The kids were spanked (not too harsly though) afterwards by their parents for getting too dark at the pool, lol. I'm sure this thing doesn't happen anymore as times have evolved since the mid-90's.

[Brosemite]

(10-23-2013 09:41 AM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  

(10-23-2013 07:58 AM)Mikev75 Wrote:  

A Chinese co-worker told me that Russian women are already heading there seeking Chinese husbands. Obviously that's not going to help bottom of the socioeconomic ladder guys like the one in the documentary, as they'll not be looking for poor migrant laborers.

It's good to hear that FSU ladies are still doing FSU lady things, I thought they would stay in FSU and snag the oligarchs living there.

From what people are saying on the forum, it appears as if Russian women are more realistic about not being able to snag Mr. hot shot crime boss and in turn are open towards foreign grooms opposed to Eastern Ukrainians that hold out for oligarchs there. Whether the marriages with foreign grooms will last is another issue, haha.

[Kingsley Davis]

The Spearhead had a great write up about Africa been the solution for China's surplus men.

"The rise of China is on everyone’s mind, but the implications of the ascension of this superpower seem vague at this point. There are a number of questions about what China will do, what path it will take, and whether it will act with increasing aggression in the Pacific and begin to throw its weight around in direct confrontations with the West. Many fear that with an excess of males who cannot find wives, China will grow increasingly warlike and unstable. Although the fundamental premise behind this is typically androphobic, many young Chinese men would surely agree that there is a problem, which is only being compounded by the increasingly feminist behavior of urban Chinese women.

There’s plenty of debate about the implications of a rising China and the associated demographic problems, but one thing we do know for certain is that China is making increasingly bold moves into Africa."

http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/10/29/...ess-males/