Sister Feng, the self-promoting literary genius, was recently spotted outside of Columbia University on Manhattan's Upper West Side (she previously demanded husbands who were Tsinghua or Peking university graduates), handing out fliers with her requirements for a husband written in English. And though we can't confirm if Sister Feng will definitely be starring in that Japanese porno, we can confirm that she is no longer interested in Asian men!
Sister Feng now looking for non-Asian husbands in New York!
Expensive schools teach Chinese women how to be good wives
Since Dr. Phil or Oprah don't really have much traction in China, mainland women instead have to turn to institutions like the Good Wife Happy School and the Beijing Moral Education Center for Women to prevent or fix a broken marriage.
Top 11 occupations most likely to stay single in China
O, has it come to this? After apparently distributing 111,111 questionnaires in 111 cities across China in honor of the bestest Singles Day ever (11/11/2011), the specious-sounding Chinese Single People's Association determined the 11 Careers that Prospective Partners Shun the Most.
206 foreign mail order brides rescued in Hebei
Here's a problem we'll hear increasingly about in the future. Xinhua reports that 206 foreign women "illegally purchased by desperate bachelors" were rescued in Hebei province:
Gay man tries to divorce lesbian wife after she fails to birth twins
Giving "gay marriage" a whole new meaning, a gay Beijing man was denied a divorce from his lesbian wife by a district court after their child planning scheme went awry.
Watch: White guy and Chinese girl have old-fashioned wedding
Behold, new frontiers are being crossed in the grand tradition of going native! A wedding took place yesterday between a 'high-nosed deep-eyed' Californian and a Kaifeng native in Kaifeng, Henan. The couple, who live and work in Shanghai, pulled out all the stops with a traditional Chinese wedding in the girl's hometown.
Li Yang of Crazy English accused of domestic violence by laowai wife
Li Yang, the self-styled evangelist of the English language who's known around China for his high energy, high intensity Crazy English lessons, is in trouble. A woman, believed to be his American wife Kim Lee, has gone on Sina Weibo to accuse him of domestic violence, and she has the pictures to prove it.
Single ladies, put your hands up! Shanghai's unmarried women shouldn't be ashamed
We were aware that Shanghai's ladies know how to enjoy themselves better than most, but a report from Women of China that analyzes 2010 census results confirms it: Shanghainese are putting off marriage at higher than expected ages, with the average age for marriage registrations standing at 29.77 years-old for women, and 32.45 years-old for men (though this state of affairs might be different if more costumed proposals took place).
Traditional marriage: It's not really working in China either
"Marriage in China has entered a phase of uncertainty," declares Chen Yijun, a marriage and family researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in yesterday's People's Daily. "The traditional Chinese marriage model has broken down amid the rapid transformation of Chinese society."
Marrying a billionaire -- yes, it can be taught!
Ladies, why live such a tough life working so hard, running the rat race to improve your own social mobility when you can just find a billionaire and marry him? And that's exactly what one school in Beijing is offering to teach you -- for as low as US$46 an hour, you can learn how to win the heart of a rich man!
Professor's views on condoms, rape and gay marriage kick up maelstrom of debate
The views expressed by Professor Peng Xiaohui (彭晓辉) of the Central China Normal University at a lecture last Tuesday entitled “Sex and Interpersonal Relationships" has fired up a maelstrom of debate, among students present at the lecture and online.
Watch: Same-sex wedding on the streets of Wuhan, China
It sure looks like guerilla tactics are becoming the favoured weapon of choice for gay activists around China (see here and here). Inspired by the Qianmen wedding that took place in Beijing in 2009, a gay couple and a lesbian couple recently hit the streets of Wuhan and got "married" for the world to see.
Couple in court to avoid gaining custody of son
"A couple who filed for divorce in Shunyi District People's Court in Beijing is trying to outbid each other to avoid getting custody of their 4-year-old son, Beijing Times reported on Wednesday. The couple were married in November 2000, and had a son seven years later. However, neither one, both ending their second marriage, wants custody. The wife said their relationship was not good, as her alcoholic husband often beat her. She said she can't take care of her son because she has no job or place to live. The husband said the boy was too young to be separated from his mother, and offered him a 300-yuan ($46) monthly allowance. The couple couldn't agree on who would take the child, and decided to bid over giving up custody rights. The one who outbids the other will be free from taking custody. The court will hold a hearing over the bidding." [China Daily]
The other side says: Shanghainese Tiger Wife is delusional & abusive
As is the way with unsubstantiated rumors, people are now coming out to (also anonymously) come to the defense of the maligned party. The Shanghainese Tiger Wife who hired thugs to beat up her cheating husband may not have had a cheating husband at all, according to something that popped into our tips box:
Don't mess with the Shanghainese Tiger Wife!
The Western head of this (for now unnamed) international school’s Hongqiao branch was caught cheating on his Shanghainese wife with, surprise surprise, his (also Chinese) secretary. This school head and his wife have been married for a number of years, and have young children. The wife, who is well-connected, responded to her foreign husband’s infidelity by hiring a group of thugs to put him in the hospital (a “beat him up, but don’t kill him” type of thing). So now he’s indeed in the hospital, with a swollen, unrecognizable head.more ›
Quote of the Day: Liang Bei on marrying up (and marrying down)
"If post-80s guys can't afford houses, then post-80s girls could perhaps marry 40-year-old men instead. Once the post-80s guys can afford houses, then marrying 20-year-old girls when they hit 40 is not a bad idea at all."
Nationwide marriage database to make things difficult for evil adulterers
Shanghai, Beijing and Shaanxi are among the first municipalities and provinces to share marriage registration records with each other in a bid to "prevent bigamy and cheating in marriage", reports Shanghai Daily. Other provinces will gradually hook up to this system, and the goal is to have a nationwide system up and running by 2015.
Shanghai college girls scared of ending up unmarried
Betty Friedan would be ashamed! Shanghai women may be rumored to be independent and strong willed, but it looks like the thing they're still most afraid of is not getting married by the time they're 30. These women, allegedly past prime child birthing years, are called "3s ladies" or "sheng nu" (leftover women). It seems that rather than looking up to these 70s-born career women, more than 70% of female graduates in 17 Chinese universities think they're to be pitied. Well, if even top grads feel that way, then no wonder there's such a huge university student "mistress" problem.
A look behind and around the China housing bubble
Over the last week or so, the Global Post has been looking into the China real estate bubble in an interesting four-part multimedia series. Besides worrying about unsustainably rising house prices - especially in Shanghai - it also checks out hte underlying causes of the bubble and examines some of the unique social customs driving prices even higher. Highlights below:
Gay marriage ceremony in Chengdu
One of the first recorded gay marriage ceremonies in China happened last week. 47-year-old Zeng Ge and 27-year-old Xiao Pan tied the knot in a small bar in Chengdu on January 3rd. China currently doesn't recognize homosexual unions.
Get rich quick: divorce your spouse!
Marriage is forever, unless you get divorced, or so the saying goes. Well, the Shanghai version also includes "or want to make some money really quick:" couples who divorce receive double the state's compensation for relocation, so the new trick is to get divorced, get paid, and then get remarried.
Studies project 24 million Chinese single men in 2020, but is that really bad news?
Trying to figure out how China will deal with its millions of single men and how it will finally convince its rural populations that girls aren't that bad a choice will always be very interesting to us. But a recent resurgence in the gender gap discussion has got us scratching our heads. Why exactly is the figure of 24 million single men only a bad thing?
Foreignness in Shanghai: Tales from an outsider
As foreigners in Shanghai, we understand the difficulties with assimilation: if you're not from Shanghai you are different, no matter where you're from. In all honesty, though, it may be easier to be a foreigner in Shanghai than it is to be an waidiren, an outsider from another part of China.
No divorces during the holiday
You know what's a damper on any big day? A Divorce. And so at least one municipality has decided it's not going to let couples unwed during the 60th anniversary. Seven out of ten Chongqing districts have said that they will not process divorces during the eight-day holiday, even as they're getting extra staff to help with the weddings. Supposedly, they can't cope with the "high demand" for weddings and also issue divorces at the same time. Luckily for them, nobody's tried to process a divorce yet anyhow, though we wonder what kind of urgent circumstances would make couples want to split during a specific week and whether it then might be a good idea for Chongqing to ban knives as well, just in case.
Jilin bride breaks world record with 2km long wedding dress
So we've sat on this piece of news over the weekend and we're still not sure what to think about it. Is it super awesome that a Chinese wedding couple decided to attach a 2.16km long train to the back of a wedding gown, complete with 9,999 silk roses, in an attempt to challenge the current world record holding wedding dress (1.58km)... or is it just super tacky? Zhao Peng and Lin Rong got married in eastern Jilin province, and it took their 200 wedding guests three hours to unroll the fabric of Lin Rong's dress. After the ceremony, he cut the dress down to 1,984.1022m to represent his bride's date of birth and then added 608 crystals to represent each day they dated. The whole dress cost about 40,000RMB - probably equivalent to the annual salary of his schoolteacher bride. Source: BBC
Li Yinhe on homowives
Renowned sexologist and sociologist Li Yinhe (李银河) in a recent blogpost on the lives of tongqi (同妻), heterosexual women who find themselves married to gay Chinese men (translation adapted from Yawning Bread):
Around Shanghai: Shanghainese men, staring at the stars, and hotels hope for the best
Despite stereotypes, it seems like Shanghainese men are less henpecked than you would think: they're less likely to wash their wives' panties than other Chinese. Wait, what?...
Foreign dudes out of luck with Chinese girls thanks to recession, survey says
Bet you never thought this would be a victim of the recession: foreign men with yellow fever. According to a Shanghai Daily article, they've been losing their attraction as potential husbands for unmarried Chinese women since the financial crisis began.
2,662 Shanghai couples chose Valentine's Day to get married
A record 2,662 couples got married in Shanghai on Saturday, according to figures from the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau. That's three times the daily average of roughly 800 marriage applications and about 30% more than last year's Valentine's Day. A representative of the bureau said that younger couples are more likely to pick fashionable Western festivals, especially V-Day, to get married. We say these Shanghainese ladies will probably regret it in the future when they end up getting combined Valentines-slash-Anniversary gifts from their husbands. Source: Shanghai Daily

