Hard to Get Married in China

choi

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Mei Fong, It's Cold Cash, Not Cold Feet, Motivating Runaway Brides in China;
Surplus of Bachelors Spurs New Scam; Mr. Zhou, Briefly Betrothed, Now Pines
. Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124415971813687173.html

Note:
(a) The report is from "Xin'an Village, Hanzhou." Hanzhou is 陕西省汉中市,
which is different from Hangzhou 杭州市, capital of Zhejiang Province 浙江省
. Xin'an 新安.
(b) to pine (intransitive verb): "to yearn intensely and persistently
especially for something unattainable"
(c) Professor Shang-jin Wei 魏尚进 of Columbia University and National
Bureau of Economic Research (NBER; located in Cambridge, Massachusetts with
branches in Palo Alto, California and New York City) has a home page:
http://www.nber.org/~wei/

The WSJ report cites one of Prof. Wei's article:
S-J Wei and X Zhang, Sex Ratios and Savings Rates: Evidence from “Excess
Men” in China.
http://www.econ.ubc.ca/seminars/wei.pdf

* In the URL, UBC is short for University of British Columbia while "ca"
stands for Canada.

(d) connubial (n): "of or relating to marriage"
(e) cai li 彩礼
(f) To scrimp (intransitive verb): "to be frugal or niggardly in economizing"
** English definitions from (b) is from www.m-w.com while those of (d) and (
f), from Webster's (3rd ed, 1961).

Quote:

"In the 1990s, cai li prices rose to several thousand yuan (about $200 to $
400 at today's conversion rates), mirroring the country's growing prosperity
. But it was only starting in 2002-03 that villagers noticed a sharp spike
in cai li prices, which shot up to between 6,000 to 10,000 yuan -- several
years' worth of farming income.

"Not coincidentally, this was also the period when the first generation of
children since the family-planning policy was launched in 1979 started
reaching marriageable age.

"He proposed marriage. She agreed, with one proviso: cai li of 38,000 yuan,
or roughly five years' worth of farm income.

* In the first quote, note the past tense in "shot up"--implying now is even
more.

My comment: Yesterday, (before I had not read this report) a Chinese man (
from PRC) in this bbs whistled past grave yard by crying out loud, "剩女."
I said nothing, but thought, "Are ou kidding me? Where can one find 剩女 in
China, when men routinely kidnap women for brides."

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