Leftover in China Read online

  Though this singular economic opportunity for Chinese women ended when the Great Depression bottomed out in ’32, prompting a sharp decline in the demand for silk, the marriage-resisting renegade ladies of the Canton River Delta appeared to be onto something.

  Much like the silk reelers who preceded her, Christy’s financial independence allows her to keep marriage at bay and, if she chooses, to skip it altogether. Alhough fortunate in that she doesn’t have to run away, buy off her in-laws, or marry a dead man, there are some departments in which Christy’s spinning sisters of yore were arguably better off. For instance, despite being pressured into marriage, the women of the Canton River Delta were praised for their economic fortitude. Parents who compensated or contracted ghost marriages were proud to have a silk-reeling daughter who continued to work, as it meant a great financial contribution to the family. In Daughters of the Canton Delta, Stockard suggests that in an otherwise very patriarchal China, “This was the only place where the birth of a girl was an occasion for joy.”

  Likewise, the nineteenth-century spinsters of New England were described as “highly moral and fully womanly creatures.” It was commonly acknowledged that their spinsterhood was “the outcome of intricate choices,” and they were even praised for “having the courage to remain single because the right man never came.” Spinsters were, in fact, a social phenomenon. “Why Is Single Life Becoming More General?” ran the headline from a March 1868 article in The Nation. The article references Frances B. Cogan, who in her book, All-American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth Century America, describes how an increase in spinsterhood goes hand in hand with the “process of civilization.” She writes, “Men and women can less easily find any one whom they are willing to take as a partner for life; their requirements are more exacting; their standards of excellence higher; they are less able to find one person who can satisfy their own ideal and less able to satisfy anybody else’s ideal.”

  While it’s fair to say that in its five thousand years of dynasty-studded, paper-, compass-, and gunpowder-inventing history, China has been a great enabler of the “process of civilization,” it has been remiss in the particular aspect of civilization that Cogan is referring to. How might one otherwise explain that single Chinese silk-reeling women of the 1890s Canton River Delta were celebrated for their work and financial fortitude, while modern-day career women like Christy—no matter how impressive their educational and professional accomplishments—are still antagonized and devalued if they haven’t married by a certain age?

  Before beginning to answer the various components of that rather loaded question, it’s essential to keep in mind that leftovers are a dramatic deviation from what until thirty years ago was the overwhelming norm in China: married women. As wives and mothers, Chinese women were destined to be the building blocks of families, which in turn, were the building blocks of the nation. Pursuant to a post–Qing Dynasty pearl of wisdom that continues to drive the governance of the Communist Party: the home is a miniature model of the state. A harmonious home is the foundation of a harmonious nation, and for this, women are key. A home comprised of a single woman—and especially a self-reliant one—is different, destabilizing, and by some accounts, dangerous.

  Ideally, as embodied by the often cited adage, , , “a man’s place is on the outside; a woman’s place is on the inside,” a Chinese woman will raise happy, healthy children while tending to the home so that her husband will be unfettered to work, socialize, and focus on more important, external matters of strengthening the nation. Though this definition has modernized over time, a woman’s propensity for the inner realm traditionally made her a prized wife, and is still often the criteria by which many Chinese men refine their search for a partner.

  “Two years ago, I organized a New Year’s Eve party at a high-end club—the replica of a French château,” explains Christy. “I invited this man I had been seeing, and he came.” She recounts how he danced, drank, and appeared very merry, but mysteriously stopped calling her after the event. When she finally asked him why, he explained that when he saw her in a cherry red silk dress, surrounded by so many people and so vigorously fluttering around to make sure that everything was running smoothly, he felt she was “bu anchuan,” or “unsafe.”

  “That party was a major career milestone for me,” says Christy, fully aware that from a personal perspective, it was less of a success. “Of course, there could have been other things, but it was probably poor judgment to let him see me in that kind of environment so early in the relationship. He’s not an exception—many Chinese men would react this way.” She readily cites another instance: a PhD candidate her mom was especially anxious for her to meet because he had studied in the United States and was likely to be more accepting of Christy’s “modern” tendencies. Freshly divorced with a one-year old child, he told Christy—on their first date—that his relationship with his previous wife (also Chinese) did not work out because she (also a PhD candidate) was neglecting her duties to the home.

  Christy knows that her profession, and the fact that she is very much a citizen of the wai (outer) instead of the culturally prescribed nei (inner), can work against her in the dating world. She keeps this in mind, but isn’t willing to stifle her career just to improve her chances at marriage. Ideally, she would like to find a partner who supports her professional pursuits, or at least isn’t deterred by them. Mathematically, this should be possible, as more than 60 percent of urban Chinese women work. The demands of China’s economy make it so that living on the inside isn’t an option for many wives, who contribute to the financial stability of their families, and in many cases even out-earn their husbands. True to the culturally dictated “outer/inner” dichotomy, it is likely that in addition to the time they put in at work, Chinese wives must also shoulder the brunt of the housework.However, it seems that from a professional standpoint they may have a few advantages over their unmarried compeers.

  “Female Astronauts: Single Women Need Not Apply,” ran a headline in the Chinese state-run newspaper, the Global Times, during the period leading up to the much-buzzed-about decision of who would be China’s first female astronaut. The article went on to explain how according to some aerospace experts, “single women will be deemed unfit for the job,” further specifying that female astronauts should be “psychologically and physically as strong as their male counterparts.”

  In what many foreign media outlets had a field day reporting, the article also mentions that, according to Pang Zhihao of the Beijing-based China Academy of Space Technology, astronauts cannot have bad mouth odor, scars, or foot diseases. “A bad mouth odor may annoy other astronauts (who, being male, are presumably odorless?), and scars may bleed in outer space,” he told Xinhua, China’s national news agency.

  The article continues, “Aspiring female astronauts should also be married with children,” as the space flight might have an impact on their fertility. “There’s no evidence that shows space life impacts women physiologically, but after all this is the first time for China [to send a woman into space]. We must do it more carefully,” said Xu Xianrong, a professor with the General Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, on Chinese National Radio.

  It should be recognized that nine years after sending its first man into space (2003), China sent a woman there. While this generally bodes well, to imply that an unmarried woman is unfit for space travel because she is “psychologically and physically inferior” to her married counterparts is also a giant leap backward for Chinese womankind.

  “A woman’s ability to manage her family is a reflection on how she can manage her employees,” confides Christy’s friend Xu Li, who is the manager of the global expansion department at a major telecommunications firm. She wants to get divorced, but fears it will jeopardize her job. “I supervise 140 people and am the breadwinner in my family, so I can’t take that kind of risk.” Instead, Xu lives three hundred miles from her husband, who is not employed full-time but takes car
e of their daughter in another city. Alone in Beijing, Xu purchased an apartment and took on a lover to keep her company. Her boss doesn’t know about the lover, but she’s less worried about him somehow finding out. “From a professional standpoint, I’m better off as an adulteress than as a divorcée,” she says.

  At least for now, being single in Christy’s field works to her advantage because it keeps her evenings open for all of the events she must attend to keep growing her network. “Marriage is something I definitely aspire to,” she says. “I’m proactive about finding a partner, but not to the extent that it gets in the way of other ambitions.”

  If only her family would agree.

  As she sets out for a Sunday-morning Champagne brunch with friends, Christy’s grandfather has returned from Beijing’s Temple of Heaven Park. Week after week, he congregates with fleets of other septuagenarians all in search of spouses for their grandchildren. They gather on a large tree-studded square lined with Xeroxed tomes featuring collections of marriage résumés that include the name, age, height, occupation, salary, astrological sign, and sometimes even the blood type of singles approaching their expiration dates. Other ads are more personalized, composed by their elderly authors in wobbly ink and brush on a piece of cardboard. The one Christy’s grandfather has made for her is of this kind, and describes her as “fair-skinned, fair-tempered, and youthful.”

  “Have a look at these,” he says, showing Christy a small stack of résumés he’s brought home with him. She indulges him sweetly, but privately concedes that she’s horrified to be peddled in the park.

  “At your age, you can’t afford to be fussy,” he reminds her sternly. Bracing for another barrage, Christy takes the papers from her grandfather, and then just shy of his earshot asks with a playful smile, “I wonder if I’ll meet any dead bachelors?”

  * Following an amendment to the one-child policy in 2013, married couples were allowed to have a second baby if one of the parents was an only child. Certain ethnic minority groups whose first child was a girl or disabled were also allowed to have a second child. As of January 1, 2016, all couples in China are now permitted to have two children, but more on that later.

  2

  “GOLDEN TURTLES”

  Marriage is like putting a winter coat on your freedom. It makes it harder to move around, but keeps you warm.

  —CHINESE PROVERB

  Zhang Mei is from a small town outside of Harbin, the capital city of the icy Heilongjiang province located in Northeastern China, not two hours from the border with Siberia. It’s famous for an annual ice festival that draws in millions of tourists, as well as a legendary Siberian tiger park, where visitors can choose to become live spectators of the park’s renowned tiger-feeding sessions. Selecting from a savory menu that includes ducks, chickens, goats, and cows, visitors may purchase a treat for the ever-hungry felines, and then watch as it is thoroughly and rapaciously devoured.

  Though proud of her glacial origins and chock-full of innovative tricks for combatting subzero temperatures, Zhang Mei left Harbin at the age of twenty-three after completing her master’s degree in history. It was time to put all she had studied to use and see what sort of job offers she could rustle up in the big city. Getting her parents on board with her move to Beijing was no easy task. At her age, they thought it was nearing a good time for her to return to her small hometown, accept a steady, rubber-stamp job at the bank where her father had been working for over three decades, and start thinking about settling down. After all, her older sister, Chen—Zhang Mei’s parents were allowed to have a second child because their first was a daughter—had gotten married at age twenty-one. Chen hadn’t gone to college because she was much more interested in running her own clothing stall—a dream she had since achieved, to relative success. Zhang Mei struggled to see herself doing the same. She bargained with her parents for three years of “freedom” in the capital—just time enough for her to gain some solid professional experience—and then promised to be back in Harbin well before the twilight of her twenties.

  It is important to keep in mind that over the past twenty years, China has seen 300 million people migrate from rural to urban areas in search of better education, jobs, and lifestyles. In addition to being the reason for China’s prodigious economic boom, this activity represents what Jamil Anderlini of the Financial Times has referred to as the largest yearly mammalian migration on Earth, with bats—at 90 million—following at a distant second.

  Of China’s migrants, women have represented the majority, as rural men were more likely to stay behind and inherit the family farm or business. This is worth underscoring because leftovers are often clumped into the category of “well-educated urban women with ambition and promising careers,” but that’s only one facet of a much larger story still developing in the wings. More than a label, being a leftover woman means living outside conventional norms—it’s a mind-set that exists independently of degrees, salaries, nationalities, and even the rural/urban divide.

  Chinese Lessons

  I met Zhang Mei shortly after moving to Beijing because she was my Chinese teacher. She was twenty-five at the time. Upon arriving at the language school for my first class, I was told by the headmistress that I would be given a short lesson by three different teachers and that I could choose the one I liked best. After the sample lessons were over, Zhang Mei emerged as the clear favorite. I spoke zero Chinese and she nearly no English, so we weren’t able to communicate much, but I remember being charmed by her expressive nature and the large furry pompoms on her kitten heels.

  One evening before class, another foreign student at the school came bursting into the lobby, eyes blown up like a pufferfish. She had just split with her boyfriend of several years, and had been crying all the way to the study center. As I fumbled for some words of consolation, Zhang Mei strolled over, smiled, gave the girl a playful slap on the shoulder and said, “Mei shi.” I had heard this expression before and knew it was like the Chinese equivalent of “Hakuna matata.” It’s the same thing Zhang Mei had said to me after a scooter accident left me with a hideous gash down the front of my left leg and mortified by the prospect of going to a local Chinese hospital for stitches. Though I mustered the courage to seek medical attention before things got ugly, the student in the lobby didn’t look so convinced. “Ni xian zai hui hen zi you,” Zhang Mei said to the still grieving woman: “You’ll have a lot more freedom now.” By this point, the student’s pupils appeared to be on the verge of herniating, and she was clearly not comforted by the prospect of becoming Lady Liberty.

  When Zhang Mei and I got into our little classroom and shut the door behind us, I expressed sympathy for the student in the lobby, only to receive a slap on the shoulder myself. “Ai-yah,” she said (in this context, Chinese for “Don’t be ridiculous”), before teaching me the phrase that would later become my north for mapping romantic relationships in China: “Love is for teenagers, but when it comes to marriage, one must be practical.” As soon as we worked out the kinks of the translation and I was sure I understood her intended meaning, I was miffed. Wet wipes and cargo shorts are both marvelously practical, but on what planet should their kind be a basis for marriage?

  I asked her to elaborate—more than anything to see if there was any nuance I might have missed. To my surprise, she defended her statement with the tenacity of the tigers in her hometown. “There is a time for romance, and a time to be responsible,” she said. And almost by definition, she insisted, those lines could not cross.

  By age twenty-six, Zhang Mei’s parents were starting to get jittery about getting her home and wed. According to their calculations, after three years of life in the capital, their daughter had long overstayed her term away, and needed to start thinking about her future. Most of her classmates were already married, and the neighbors were starting to talk. Slowly, her mother began to plant the marriage bug in her ear. Whenever she would call to make the usual round of inquiries (What did you have for dinner? How is the weath
er in Beijing? Have you gotten a raise? Are you eating less chocolate?), she started to slip in small updates about all of the engaged or pregnant girls in town. “When are you going to bring someone home to us?” her mom would then coo. “Work is too busy these days for such things,” was Zhang Mei’s stock answer.

  “If young women didn’t have to leave their hometowns in search of better education and job opportunities, there would be no leftover women in China,” Zhang Mei explained to me with great conviction and a hint of distress, one day during our class. “This only happens to us because we leave home. At home, everything is simple. If you don’t meet someone on your own, your parents, relatives, or acquaintances present you with a few options, and you just end up marrying one of them. But in a big city like Beijing where you’re all on your own? The playbook is completely different.”

  Now twenty-eight, Zhang Mei lives in a small single dormitory-style room about a one-and-a-half-hour commute west from her work. She shares a bathroom with eight other women and is on call six, often seven, days a week as a private language tutor, depending on how charitable her boss is feeling. While she delights in the “freedom” she has bought herself by migrating to a larger city, she realizes that it has also made her somewhat of an anomaly.

  Zhang Mei’s biggest challenge is that when she returns home to visit her family, she is reminded that everyone she went to high school with who didn’t pursue higher education is already married and with a child. “I see my former classmates—the girls—and they are like spinning tops. Their lives are spent in perpetual service to their husbands, their mothers-in-law, and their child. I don’t want that life.”