For many Chinese bachelors, no deed means no dates

I found this news-piece while reading Indian Express(dated 17-04-2011). I want to share it with those who don't read IE but somehow follow my blog...


IN THE realm of eligible bachelors, Wang Lin has a lot to recommend him. A 28-year-old college educated insurance salesman, Wang has a flawless set of white teeth, a tolerable karaoke voice and a three-year-old Nissan with furry blue seat covers.
But by the exacting standards of single Chinese women, it seems, Wang lacks the bankable attribute of real property. Given that even a cramped, two-bedroom apartment on the dusty fringe of the capital sells for about $150,000, Wang's $900-a-month salary means he may forever be condemned to the ranks of the renting.

Last year, he said, this deficiency prompted a high-end dating agency to reject his application.
"Sometimes I wonder if I will ever find a wife," said Wang, who lives with his parents, who remind him of his single status with nagging regularity.

There have been many undesirable repercussions of China's unrelenting real estate boom, which has driven prices up by 140 per cent nationwide since 2007, and by as much as 800 per cent in Beijing over the past eight years.

Working-class buyers have been frozen out of the market while an estimated 65 million apartments across the country bought as speculative investments sit empty.

The collateral damage to urban young professionals, especially men, who increasingly find themselves lovelorn and despairing as a growing number of

women hold out for a mate with a deed, is largely overlooked.
More than 70 per cent of single women in a recent survey said they would tie the knot only with a prospective husband who owned a home. 50 per cent said financial considerations ranked above all else, with good morals and personality falling beneath the top three requirements. (Not surprisingly, 54 per cent of single men ranked beauty first, according to the report, which surveyed 32,000 people and was jointly issued by the Chinese Research Association of Marriage and Family and the All-China Women's Federation.) Given the nation's gender imbalance, an outgrowth of a cultural preference for boys and China's stringent family-planning policies, as many as 24 million men could be perpetual bachelors by 2020, according to the report.

Yang Xuning, 29, a sportswriter, said much of the pressure comes from parents who feel taunted by the wealth around them.

He recalls his first meeting with his girlfriend's parents, when he was asked about his salary and his nesting plans. "I tried to reason with her mother, explaining that it's not practical to buy something at this stage in our lives but she wouldn't hear it," he said.

He stood his ground, she stood hers, and a few months later, Yang's girlfriend called it quits.

"Many girls see marriage as a way of changing their status without hard work," he said bitterly.

Many women are unapologetic about their priorities, citing the age-old tradition in which men provided a home for their brides, even if that home came with a mother-in-law.

Gao Yanan, a 27-year-old accountant with a fondness for RayBans and Zara pantsuits, said the matter was not up for debate. "It's the guy's responsibility to tell a girl right away whether he owns an apartment," she said. "It gives her a chance not to fall in love."

With such women on the prowl, even men who do have their own homes have come up with techniques to weed out the inordinately materialistic.

Liu Binbin, 30, an editor at a publishing house in Beijing, said he often arrived at first dates by bus, even though he owned a car.
"If they ask me questions like `Do you live with your parents?' I know what they're after," he said.

Sindhustan: Lokpal: Anna Bashing

Sindhustan: Lokpal: Anna Bashing

Lokpal: Anna Bashing

I don't why some people are after Anna Hazare's life for mustering courage to stand up against corruption. He is not demanding something unusual. And, his demands are not traversing the sanctity of parliamentary democracy, a basic feature of our Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution is written that a bill can only be conceptualised and formulated by the members of parliament. The essence of our legislative procedure is that a law can not come into existence until and unless it passes the test of parliament. And, by demanding an audience and participation in formulation of a bill is no crime in our country and is not unconstitutional as per our democratic tenets. So, why a plethora of columnists has indulged in Anna bashing? Let the experiment complete its course. Only then, we may be able to judge. Till then, don't jump guns, please. This experiment may open many a mind in this youthful democracy.

Anna Declares War On Corruption

Can a law, howsoever comprehensive it may be, weed out corruption from any society? Answer can not be an affirmative one. Corruption is not an island in itself which can be attacked by the force of law. It has been a way of life, like religion. Don't frown. The comparison may look an erroneous one but it is not. Religion in our country has been an individual way of life governed by a set of social, moral and ethical rules. And, corruption is very much part of our daily conduct, which is regulated by religion, both institutionalised and free. So, comparison between corruption and religion is a valid one. Corruption is a way of life and has been a reality of human kind throughout the history. The civilisational history of human existence tells us that corrupt practices can not be put to an end, it can only be moderated, channelled and curbed to a manageable level.

Anna Hazare launching a brave movement by undertaking fast onto death notwithstanding, the fight against corruption can not end or begin with the fulfilment of his demands. His demands are rather simplistic given the magnitude of the problem. He wants government to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill as drafted by social activists closely working with him. This bill proposes to make ministers, officials and other public authority accountable for any corrupt practice, if and when they indulge in it. It also says that the Lokpal must not require approval from any authority to initiate legal proceeding against a public functionary, who has delved into corruption. These demands are not only simple, rather extremely simplistic and thus can only complicate the matter in the long run. This law even if it is passed... provided there is a change of heart at the highest level of government... it won't serve its purpose and can not either weed out corruption or act as a deterrent to the practice.

Corruption has its roots in our thought process-- a result of our values, education, sensitivity, tradition, poverty, lust, ideals or an absence of one or all of them. So, Anna Hazare declaring a war on corruption may not go a long way in fighting corruption itself, but it can do one thing for sure, that is, to educate the masses of the fallout of corruption. Many more Annas will be required to do a social reformation that might bring corruption at a manageable or minimal level in decades or centuries to come. Or, who knows the fight against corruption may turn out to be an eternal fight between the good and the evil. But, Anna Hazare deserves huge applaud for his conviction at the age of 72, for his relentless fight against social malaise and for the hope that he harbours that one day the nation will be free of corrupt practices!