中国式罗曼蒂克 爱情和婚姻的斗争还要持续多久

Beijing - Dating is hard at the best of times. In China the stakes are high from the outset: the expectation is that it should lead to marriage; never mind love for love's sake.

北京——即使在最好的时代里，约会也绝非易事。在中国，相关赌注从一开始就很大：人们期望约会是婚姻的开始；谁还顾得上什么为爱而爱呢。

A friend recently went on a blind date in Beijing. Arriving at the coffee shop, he found not only the girl but her mother, too. Within minutes she bombarded him with questions: What does he earn? Where did he study? Does he own a house?

一个朋友近来在北京有过一次相亲经历。他到了咖啡店之后发现，除了那个女孩外，她妈妈也在。几分钟之内，她就狂轰滥炸般地抛出一连串问题：他收入多少？学什么专业？是否有房？

Romance in China is often sacrificed to practicality; dating has largely become a commercial transaction. In Beijing parents gather in parks to introduce their children to one another. Singles' clubs set people up according to requirements - height, income, property. And tens of thousands descend on matchmaking events in cities like Shanghai looking for the perfect mate.

在中国，浪漫通常都抵不过现实；约会在很大程度上已变成了一种商业交易。在北京，父母们聚在公园里，相互给对方介绍自己的子女。单身俱乐部会根据身高、收入、财产给人群分类。在像上海这样的城市里，成千上万人通过参加大型相亲活动来寻找理想中的伴侣。

For Chinese men today, being the perfect mate means having a car, an apartment, a good salary and, preferably, a tall stature. Women, meanwhile, must be married by 27; after that they are branded sheng nu or "leftover women." (This derogatory term - whose prefix "sheng" is the same word used in "leftover food" - was listed as a new word in 2007 by the Chinese Ministry of Education).

对于中国当下的男人来说，成为理想伴侣意味着要有一辆车、一套房、一份收入丰厚的工作、如果个子高，那就更好了。同时，对女人来说，必须在27岁以前结婚；不然就会被归于“剩女”一族。（这个带贬义的称呼已在2007年被中国教育部收为新词。其中前一个字“剩”是“剩饭”的“剩”。）

"Marriage in many ways in China is a way of pulling resources," says Roseann Lake, a Beijing-based journalist researching a book on sheng nu. In one direction, at least. "The idea that a woman, no matter how successful she is professionally, is absolutely nothing until she is married - it still comes down to that."

正在为撰写一本关于“剩女”的书而搜集相关资料的驻京记者罗丝安·莱克(Roseann Lake)称，“在很多方面，中国婚姻都是获取资源的一种方式,” 至少在单向方面是这样的。“最终的观点仍然是：一个女人无论在工作上多么成功，只要没结婚就是一事无成。”

Arranged marriages were banned in 1950. However, matchmaking - through work units and family - was, and still is, commonplace. Yes, China has experienced miraculous growth in the past three decades, but traditions are hard to shake. And Confucian ethics stress that marriage must satisfy societal duty over individual desire.

包办婚姻早在1950年就已被禁止。但相亲这件事仍然是司空见惯，无论是在工作单位还是通过家人。的确，在过去30年里，中国的经济增长举世瞩目，但传统却依然难以被撼动。而且儒家道德也强调，婚姻在满足社会责任方面的重要性必须高于个人意愿。

The one-child policy has further reinforced these expectations. With no welfare system in China, the young are expected to provide for the old: whom you marry matters for your entire family.

独生子女政策更是进一步加强了这些期望。中国没有福利系统，因而人们认为，年轻人要赡养老人，也就是说，和谁结婚是关系到整个大家庭的事情。

These concerns aren't evenly shared, and they expose something of a generation gap. Children of the 1980s and 1990s - who were born in better economic times and fed on pop music and movies - are in less of a hurry to get married than their parents were.

这些担心并不是所有人都认同，它们同时也暴露出了代沟问题。1980年代和1990年代出生的人，从小生活在经济较为繁荣时期，并在流行音乐和电影的包围中成长，与父母一代相比，他们并不急于结婚。

The best-selling author Wang Hailing, who wrote "Divorce with Chinese Characteristics," relays stories of pushy mothers on her micro-blog. One told her daughter to attend blind dates while she's still at a "valuable" age.

畅销书《中国式离婚》的作者王海鸰会在她的微博上转述一些催婚母亲的故事。一个母亲曾劝她的女儿应该趁着“宝贵”的年龄赶紧相亲。

Xie Yujie, a 26-year-old resident of Wenzhou, a city of more than nine million some 230 miles south of Shanghai, is unmarried. Despite a promising career as a nurse, her parents remind her daily of her filial duties to find a husband. Xie is looking for love, but her parents chastise her for not been more practical. "Money worship and materialism is the reality," she explained last week.2

6岁的单身女青年谢玉洁（音译）居住在上海南边约370公里外的温州。尽管她在这座有着900万人口的都市拥有一份前途还不错的护士工作，她的父母每天都提醒她要孝顺，要找个老公。谢玉洁渴望爱情，但却被父母责骂不够现实。“现实就是拜金和物质至上，”她在上周解释说。

And so now some single women in Chengdu, in southwest China, pay more than $3,100 for a special training course in how to snag a millionaire husband. In the reality TV dating program "If You Are The One," a 22-year-old model infamously claimed, "I'd rather cry in a BMW than laugh on the back seat of a bicycle."

所以眼下在中国西南的成都市，一些单身女子会花两万元人民币去参加如何嫁给百万富翁的婚恋培训班。在现实电视相亲节目《非诚勿扰》上，一名22岁的模特曾说过这样臭名昭著的话，“宁愿坐在宝马里哭，也绝不坐在自行车后座上笑。”

These are extremes, of course, but the pressures are real. Although China's skewed birth rate means there will be a surplus of about 24 million men in China by 2020, the majority of these bachelors will live in rural areas. In major cities -- where the rate of housing costs to income can reach 12:1 -- finding a good match is a constant worry for educated, ambitious women.

这些当然都是些极端例子，但压力却是实实在在的。虽然中国男女失调的出生率意味着，到2020年，中国将会有2400万男人落单，但这些单身男人绝大多数都将集中在乡村地区。大城市里，房价和收入的比例可能会达到12:1，因此，如何找到理想的伴侣一直都在困扰着那些受过教育、野心勃勃的女人。

As Chinese Valentine's Day -- this Thursday, Aug. 23 -- nears, preparations for dozens of matchmaking events, most aimed at marriage, are picking up. At the Huanleyuan Culture Club, a singles' club in Beijing -- basic requirement: a college degree; annual membership fee: about $560 -- hundreds will be attending a gala matchmaking event. Ten thousand people are expected at a mass blind date in Guangyuan city, in Sichuan Province.

随着中国七夕情人节将在8月23日的那个周四到来，数十场大型相亲活动的准备工作已经变得愈发紧锣密鼓。这些相亲活动都是以结婚为目的。北京欢乐园单身俱乐部对会员的基本要求是：大学学历、缴纳约560美元的年费，该俱乐部将举行一次数百人参加的相亲大会。而在四川广源市，一场万人相亲大会即将登场。

They'll be looking not just for a fetching smile or that spark of chemistry, but also for the promise of money and connections.

相亲者寻找的不仅仅是迷人的微笑或者激情的火花，还有未来的金钱和人脉。