Chinese “Leftoversâ€￾ More Than Enough For American Appetites

[1stworldview]

The authors of the original bilateral trade agreements between the Peoples Republic of China and the Unites States never saw this coming: A Chinese export so tantalizing, American men would spend thousands of dollars to acquire it. And yet it’s popularity is only now catching on. It’s known as “Sheng Nuâ€￾. Leftovers.

Specifically: Chinese “leftoverâ€￾ women.

Despite a surplus of over 20 million men in Chinese society, Chinese women in their late 20’s and above are finding it difficult to find a husband. This, despite being attractive, professionally employed, and eager to settle down. China’s women have abundant opportunities to find work and earn a good living. What is it, then, that prevents so many from finding their way to the alter? In fact, it’s the very culture they thrive in.

For years, the Chinese government sponsored Women’s Federation has been pushing fast-tracking females to let go of professional pursuits in exchange for life as a stay-at-home wife and mother. “If you’re still unwed by age 27,â€￾ the widely-read Federation website says, “You’ll be ‘leftover’ and unwanted.â€￾ The negative connotation of the “Sheng Nuâ€￾ label is so strong, many observers say, it renders a stigma that scares away potential suitors. And Chinese men, according to the South China Morning Post, are deeply obsessed with finding a less accomplished, more submissive women to marry.

Sociologist and author Leta Hong Fincher, writing for the New York Times Opinion pages, accuses China’s government of fomenting chauvinism by sponsoring tabloid articles like “Do Leftover Women Really Deserve Our Sympathy?â€￾ “Eight Moves to Escape the Leftover Women Trap.â€￾ And then there’s the article, published on – of all days – International Womens Day, which accuses single, independent women of having poor morals:

“Many highly educated ‘leftover womenâ€￾ are very progressive in their thinking and enjoy going to nightclubs to search for a one-night-stand, or they become the mistress of a high official or rich man. It is only when they have lost their youth and are kicked out by the man that they decide to search for a life partner.â€￾

Is a smear campaign, designed to demean China’s most independent-minded women into marriage, the government’s answer to China’s staggering sex-ratio imbalance? Leta Hong Fincher thinks so. “What better way to upgrade population quality than to frighten ‘high-quality’ women into marrying and having a child for the good of the nation?â€￾ The chauvinist campaigns don’t stop at marriage. Post-nuptial relationship advice is also given. “When you find out he is having an affair, you may be in a towering rage, but you must know that if you make a fuss, you are denying him ‘face’ … no man is capable of spending a lifetime being loyal to an outmoded wife who never changes… Try changing your hairstyle or your fashion.â€￾



A Foreign Affair, a.k.a. www.loveme.com, is planning to capitalize on the sudden availability of China’s best natural resource. The Phoenix, Arizona-based international marriage agency organizes group singles excursions, called ‘romance tours,â€￾ where love-hungry American men travel abroad to satisfy their appetites for exotic wives. AFA has established offices in Shenzhen and Chonqing, with possible expansion cities in development. “The whole concept of international romance tours has been around for almost twenty years,â€￾ says CEO John Adams. “What started in Russia, Ukraine and the Philippines in the mid 1990’s, has now expanded to China, Thailand and Latin America. Thousands of American men travel abroad to meet future wives every year.â€￾ Adams says the appeal of his China tours started out a bit slow but has started to catch on in the past year. “Our last tour to Shenzhen, for example, had 30 guys traveling with us.â€￾

Why are so many American men looking overseas for wives? And do the women rejected by their Chinese counterparts hold the qualities American men are willing to spend thousands of dollars and travel half way around the world to find? Although the success of international marriage agencies like A Foreign Affair have been 20 years in the making, more and more singles are using the technology available to them to find love. American men complain of a lack of available, attractive women over age 30 who are interested in marriage. “I’ve used several local dating sites,â€￾ says Michael, a retired college professor from Detroit, “but few of the ladies I found attractive were even remotely interested in marriage. A lot of desirable women over 40 are looking for casual relationships with younger men. I’m a little too old for clubs and bars and I’ve always been fascinated by Chinese culture, so I figured why not take a singles vacation and see what happens.â€￾

Cities like Shanghai, popular among expatriates and tourists, are seeing record numbers of women applying to agencies in hopes of finding a foreign husband. Unlike Latin or European women, Chinese women often pay fees to submit their profile. “It’s also fair to say,â€￾ says Adams, “that Chinese women are looking for men who are somewhat educated, professional and financially stable as they are. They believe such American men will be less insecure and more supportive of their values.â€￾ The stereotypical desperate loner who travels to Asia to meet simple, unsophisticated girls need not apply. Chinese ladies bring it all and have above average expectations.

But are Chinese women marrying American men merely exchanging one harsh stigma for another? For years, tabloid media reports have accused opportunistic “mail-order-bridesâ€￾ of making their way to America on the backs of American men, only to then dodge their husbands for the precarious life of an illegal immigrant on the lam. There’s virtually no evidence any such trend, in fact, AFA claims most international couples go on to be very happy. How, then, will the cultural misperceptions of international marriage impact Chinese ladies who follow their husbands to a new home? John Adams points out “There are millions of Chinese-Americans and a well developed Chinese subculture in America. There will be plenty of opportunities to make friends, find work and adjust to life in America over time.â€￾ Traveling back and forth from the USA to China has never been easier, so family ties needn’t be affected either. And besides, for the fine women of China, this experience is all about the end result: a loving husband and family.â€￾

[Luc Furr]

[quote="1stworldview"]The authors of the original bilateral trade agreements between the Peoples Republic of China and the Unites States never saw this coming: A Chinese export so tantalizing, American men would spend thousands of dollars to acquire it. And yet it’s popularity is only now catching on. It’s known as “Sheng Nuâ€￾. Leftovers.

Specifically: Chinese “leftoverâ€￾ women.

[/quote]

Chinese whores (women) and dirty cheap labor was all China had to trade. So women to America was discussed in 1973.

Mao offered Kissinger tens of thousands of Chinese whores (women) when they were re-establishing trade ties between the US and Communist China (later he "improved" the offer to 10 million).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7243500.stm

Mao's comment regarding Chinese women, "If they were sent to the US he said, they would flood the country with disaster."

Parasites have a habit of destroying countries. Gods have a habit of destroying entire planets when humans p*ss them off.





At that time the only things that the socialist Chinese had to trade were dirt cheap mass labor and women. No tech, no factories, hardly any power generation. Now that the West's old inventions and factories have been placed in China the communists are turning capitalist. LOL

[Ghost]

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[Tezcatlipoca]

This is hilarious, but where did you get the article from?

[pandabear]

Having looked through the offerings at A Foreign Affair--yes, these are the leftovers. Mostly over 30, divorced, and with a child. Their only hope is a foreign husband.

[zboy1]

I find women over 27 in China to be more 'marriage-material' than younger, more nubial Chinese women. Too many of the younger Chinese girls aren't serious about relationships, very materialistic and too interested in their IPhones these days. ...

[publicduende]

If the OP article is correct, China is going through the same social phenomenon Japan was going through 20/30 years ago, when a generation of women could experiment the pros and cons of being professionally established, financially independent and free to socialise and explore themes of relationships and sex outside the frame of the traditional marriage.

Those were the times when middle class, single women, usually too young to be considered "cougars", yet past their "sell by date" by Japanese standards, would travel to the US, Europe and other parts of Asia to basically look for NSA fun, perhaps something a little more meaningful, but without much of an expectation. When I was living in Milan I started an offline exchange with a Japanese woman I had met on a developers forum (she was a software developer). She told me she loved Italy and Italians and she used all of her holidays to travel to Rome or Florence and try and have romance with the local men.

Something that really made me giggle a lot, yet she would find perfectly reasonable, was that, due to the limited time she had (3 or 4 days max), she found it quite practical to just seduce one of the hotel staff members, usually a young man the ame age or younger than her (she was about 32 anyway). She nonchalantly said 3 or her last Italian "boyfriends" were receptionists or chefs at the places where she would stay. One of the raunchiest stereotypes about the perks of being a hotel employee suddenly came to life before my eyes :LOL:

Before I went to Bali in November 2011, I had briefly read about the island being a favourite destination for single/independent/middle class Japanese women looking for sexual fun. Apparently, Indonesians young men, and the Balinese in particular, have a reputation for being well endowed and with a massive sex drive. I was alone and bored, so I accepted a girls' invitation to hang around with her, and soon enough she introduced me to some of her friends. Aptly enough, one of them was a Japanese woman in her late thirties who had been living in Bali since the 90s - you can imagine for what purpose - and now just lazying around and working part-time as a Japanese/English language teacher. Needless to say, her hand was already hovering over my leg as soon as she knew I was Italy, and politely left it the moment I told her I am married!

Perhaps Chinese society has still more cultural inertia than Japan to allow for young women to become "free range" and adventurous like the Japanese, yet the seeds are sown and, as Xiongmao stated in some of his posts, many of them seem to enjoy the freedom of their single, independent and financially comfortable life without being in a rush for a LTR, let alone a hastily-combined marriage.

I guess it's definitely time we boys found better and more thrilling arguments to win a quality woman - from anywhere in the world - than "I am a traditional man, have a decent job, will love my wife and kids"...

[Ghost]

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[publicduende]

I guess it's definitely time we boys found better and more thrilling arguments to win a quality woman - from anywhere in the world - than "I am a traditional man, have a decent job, will love my wife and kids"...

You view this as a good thing? That's the relationship version of moving the goalposts. Women quickly get desensitized to new and "exciting" things they get offered by men.

"Moving goalposts" is a good metaphor for society developing, albeit perhaps not in ways that will please everybody. If you want society to change the way you desire, then be prepared to be an agent of change and fight for it...although nowadays the potential for a social revolution not masterminded by TPTB is virtually zero.

[Ghost]

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[fightforlove]

I find women over 27 in China to be more 'marriage-material' than younger, more nubial Chinese women. Too many of the younger Chinese girls aren't serious about relationships, very materialistic and too interested in their IPhones these days. ...

Huh, that sounds like most American women under the age of 28 these days.

[publicduende]

Modern society is hopeless. It won't change voluntarily. Rather, it is full-steam ahead into the abyss of "development," whatever that means. Certainly, liberalism is an ancient idea and has brought many an empire to its death knell. That'd be a funny thing to call development. There will be a revolution...of sorts. Once mass societal breakdown sets in. And that revolution is called chaos.

LOL don't count in a revolution any time soon. "Revolution" is something that is (at least ideally) initiated by an agent for the benefit or the same agent, the people for example. Chaos is just what we would call TPTB's agenda when we can't fully understand it (although we do feel its nefarious effects on a daily basis). Exactly how 500 years ago we used to call scientific phenomena we couldn't understand "the work of the Devil".

The only recipe to live well is to focus on what matters to you and try to achieve it, even at the cost of a few compromises: your family and loved ones, your hobbies and interests, etc. Thinking too big can just be scary, as nothing can be done about anything anymore. One can only lose their minds, as our old buddy Peter Andrew Nolan is doing, when he tries to bring his own personal follies into the public arena.

[MrMan]

I don't know the clientele the AFA folks cater too. If this works, then it won't be with men who are 'men's movement' in their thinking. If they go to these AFA events to find submissive women, why would they go to China to find a woman who is too independent and unsubmissive for Chinese men to want them?

But of course, if a woman is a professional, there is a chance she could be a decent, submissive wife. But it's not the most likely place to find a woman like this. Marrying an American with feminist ethics is pretty bad. Would marrying a communist with a totally different culture be much better? Radical feminist thought is derived from Marxism.

It could work on a case by case basis, but it doesn't sound like the best pool from which to recruit women.

It sounds like China is importing poor, submissive, obedient village girls from Vietnam and exporting independent professional women.

[publicduende]

I don't know the clientele the AFA folks cater too. If this works, then it won't be with men who are 'men's movement' in their thinking. If they go to these AFA events to find submissive women, why would they go to China to find a woman who is too independent and unsubmissive for Chinese men to want them?

But of course, if a woman is a professional, there is a chance she could be a decent, submissive wife. But it's not the most likely place to find a woman like this. Marrying an American with feminist ethics is pretty bad. Would marrying a communist with a totally different culture be much better? Radical feminist thought is derived from Marxism.

It could work on a case by case basis, but it doesn't sound like the best pool from which to recruit women.

It sounds like China is importing poor, submissive, obedient village girls from Vietnam and exporting independent professional women.

Yeah, I never really understood this fetish with "submissive girls". If a woman respect you, they can agree with you and follow your ideas or instructions out of mutual respect and understanding, not necessarily because her personality is passive and docile, or because her family domesticated her before marriage.

I would personally, and I do, feel better knowing that my partner and I share views and action plans and we can get to an agreement on something with minimal friction, than because I am a control freak and have more leverage than her due to my status of man, or sole breadwinner.

The relative "fear" of losing ground to an independent woman who knows what she wants from life is more than offset by the benefit of having an person whose loyalty and interest won't fade so easily, as it's based on respect and shared objectives.

[Jester]

She told me she loved Italy and Italians and she used all of her holidays to travel to Rome or Florence and try and have romance with the local men.

Something that really made me giggle a lot, yet she would find perfectly reasonable, was that, due to the limited time she had (3 or 4 days max), she found it quite practical to just seduce one of the hotel staff members, usually a young man the ame age or younger than her (she was about 32 anyway). She nonchalantly said 3 or her last Italian "boyfriends" were receptionists or chefs at the places where she would stay. One of the raunchiest stereotypes about the perks of being a hotel employee suddenly came to life before my eyes :LOL:

I'm pretty sure I saw this movie on late night cable.


BTW, for our young HA studs who are looking for NSA, how would one go about finding/identifying these girls IN JAPAN? Seems like a fellow could save a young lady the expense of a plane ticket.