China's 'leftover women'

剩女不可怕,可怕父母为自己女儿到了婚嫁年纪还没结婚而觉得丢人；剩女不可怕,可怕的是要面对他人莫名其妙的白眼和讽刺.

Over 27? Unmarried? Female? In China, you could be labelled a "leftover woman" by the state - but some professional Chinese women these days are happy being single.

已经过了27岁？未婚？女性？如果这些你都符合,那在中国你就会被打上"剩女"的标签.不过如今很多中国女性白领表示：我单身我快乐.

Huang Yuanyuan is working late at her job in a Beijing radio newsroom. She's also stressing out about the fact that the next day, she'll turn 29.

黄媛媛(音译)在北京的一家广播的编辑室加班至深夜.还有一个事实让她倍感压力山大：明天她就要迎来29岁了.

"Scary. I'm one year older," she says. "I'm nervous." Why? "Because I'm still single. I have no boyfriend. I'm under big pressure to get married."

她说："我觉得非常恐惧,我又老了一岁了,我很焦虑." 为什么会恐惧焦虑？她这样回答道："因为我还单身,我没有男朋友,我顶着巨大的结婚压力."

Huang is a confident, personable young woman with a good salary, her own apartment, an MA from one of China's top universities, and a wealth of friends.

黄小姐是一位非常自信迷人的年轻女性,工资薪水高,住在自己的公寓里,拥有中国重点大学的硕士学位,身边还有一大群朋友.

Still, she knows that these days, single, urban, educated women like her in China are called "sheng nu" or "leftover women" - and it stings.

不过她也知道,在如今的中国,像她这样受过良好教育的单身都市女性,都被称为"剩女",这个称呼让她觉得有些刺耳.

She feels pressure from her friends and her family, and the message gets hammered in by China's state-run media too.

她受到来自朋友和家人的逼婚压力,而在很多中国官方媒体上,这种信息也总是会反复强调.

State-run media started using the term "sheng nu" in 2007. That same year the government warned that China's gender imbalance - caused by selective abortions because of the one-child policy - was a serious problem. National Bureau of Statistics data shows there are now about 20 million more men under 30 than women under 30.

官方媒体在2007年开始使用"剩女"一词,同年政府发布报告称中国的性别不平衡现象是非常严重的社会问题.因为中国实施独生子女政策,造成很多人会进行性别选择性堕胎.根据国家统计局的数据显示,30岁以下的中国人口,男性要比女性多2000万.

"Ever since 2007, the state media have aggressively disseminated this term in surveys, and news reports, and columns, and cartoons and pictures, basically stigmatising educated women over the age of 27 or 30 who are still single," says Leta Hong-Fincher, an American doing a sociology PhD at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

正在清华大学攻读社会学博士的美国学生丽塔·洪-芬奇表示："从2007年开始,中国媒体就开始在调查、新闻报道、专栏、动画和图片中大量使用'剩女' 这一术语,通常定义的是超过27岁或30岁的单身知识女性."

Census figures for China show that around one in five women aged 25-29 is unmarried.

普查数据显示,在中国25-29岁间的女性中,5人中就有1人未婚.

The proportion of unmarried men that age is higher - over a third. But that doesn't mean they will easily match up, since Chinese men tend to "marry down", both in terms of age and educational attainment.

这个年龄段的未婚男性比例更高,超过三分之一,但这并不意味着他们就能轻易相配.中国的男性更喜欢"低娶",所谓的"低"包括年龄和教育程度.

"There is an opinion that A-quality guys will find B-quality women, B-quality guys will find C-quality women, and C-quality men will find D-quality women," says Huang Yuanyuan. "The people left are A-quality women and D-quality men. So if you are a leftover woman, you are A-quality."

黄媛媛这样描述这种现状："一流男人找二流女人,二流男人找三流女人,三流男人找四流女人,剩下的就只有一流女人和四流男人.如果你是剩女,你就是一流女人."

But it's the "A-quality" of intelligent and educated women that the government most wants to procreate, according to Leta Hong-Fincher. She cites a statement on population put out by the State Council - China's cabinet - in 2007.

而根据丽塔·洪-芬奇的观点,这群"一流"的聪明知识女性,正是中国想要培养的对象.她援引了中国国务院在2007年发表的一份人口报告.

"It said China faced unprecedented population pressures, and that the overall quality of the population is too low, so the country has to upgrade the quality of the population."

"报告中称中国面临着空前的人口压力,而整体人口素质偏低,又促使国家迫切需要提升人口素质."

Some local governments in China have taken to organising matchmaking events, where educated young women can meet eligible bachelors.

中国的一些地方政府开始着手安排相亲活动,未婚女性在那里遇到一些符合条件的单身汉们.

But the tendency to look down on women of a certain age who aren't married isn't exclusively an attitude promoted by the government. Chen (not her real name), who works for an investment consulting company, knows this all too well.

不仅是政府方面,到某年龄段尚未婚的女性在中国社会也会遭受异样的眼光.在某投资咨询顾问公司工作的陈小姐(非真名)对此就深有感触.

She's single and enjoying life in Beijing, far away from parents in a conservative southern city who, she says, are ashamed that they have an unmarried 38-year-old daughter.

她单身,独自一人在北京生活得还不错,父母则远在家乡,一个传统保守的南方城市.她说父母为有一个38岁的未婚女儿而觉得丢人.

"They don't want to take me with them to gatherings, because they don't want others to know they have a daughter so old but still not married," she says.

她说："他们不愿意带我去参加聚会活动,因为他们不想让别人知道自己有个这么大年纪却没嫁出去的女儿."

"They're afraid their friends and neighbours will regard me as abnormal. And my parents would also feel they were totally losing face, when their friends all have grandkids already."

"他们害怕朋友和邻居觉得我不正常,他们也会觉得丢脸,因为他们的朋友现在都抱孙子了."

Chen's parents have tried setting her up on blind dates. At one point her father threatened to disown her if she wasn't married before the end of the year.

陈小姐的父母也曾经帮她安排过相亲,她的父亲还曾威胁过她必须在那年年底嫁出去,否则就跟她脱离父女关系.

Now they say if she's not going to find a man, she should come back home and live with them. Chen knows what she wants - someone who is "honest and responsible", and good company, or no-one at all.

现在他们的说法是,如果她不打算找个男人结婚,那就应该回老家跟他们一起住.陈小姐说她很清楚自己想找的是什么样的人：诚实、有责任心,一位志趣相投的好伙伴.如果找不到这样的,她宁愿一个人单着.

Meanwhile, the state-run media keep up a barrage of messages aimed at just this sort of "picky" educated woman.

而同时,各大媒体也开始通过各种信息方式,朝这些挑剔的知识女性"发起攻击".

"Pretty girls do not need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family. But girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult," reads an excerpt from an article titled, Leftover Women Do Not Deserve Our Sympathy, posted on the website of the All-China Federation of Women in March 2011.

2011年3月,中国妇联的官方网站上发表了一篇题为《有多少剩女值得我们同情？》的文章,文章中这样写到："长相靓丽的女孩子不需要太高的学历,照样可以嫁入豪门,但长相普通和丑的女孩子则很难".

It continues: "These girls hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is, they don't realise that as women age, they are worth less and less. So by the time they get their MA or PhD, they are already old - like yellowed pearls."

文章还指出："所以,这样的女孩子就希望能够通过提高学历来增强自己的竞争力.悲哀的是,她们不知道女人是越老越不值钱,等到自己拿到硕士、博士毕业证的时候,不料自己已经人老珠黄."

Ouch.

这话太伤人.

The All-China Federation of Women used to have more than 15 articles on its website on the subject of "leftover women" - offering tips on how to stand out from a crowd, matchmaking advice, and even a psychological analysis of why a woman would want to marry late.

中国妇联的网站上曾有过多达15篇文章讨论"剩女"的话题,为剩女们出谋划策如何脱颖而出,提供相亲建议,甚至就"为什么女性想要晚婚"进行心理分析.

If it sounds odd to call women "leftover" at 27 or 30, China has a long tradition of women marrying young. But the age of marriage has been rising, as it often does in places where women become more educated.

27岁或30岁没结婚就被称为"剩下的",也许听起来有些怪异,但中国女性一向有早婚的传统.不过婚姻年龄一直在推迟,就像在很多地方女性受教育程度越来越高的情况一样.

In 1950, the average age for urban Chinese women to marry for the first time was just under 20. By the 1980s it was 25, and now it's... about 27.

1950年,中国城市女性初婚平均年龄不到20岁.到了20世纪80年代这一年龄是25岁,而现在这一年龄也许是27岁左右.

A 29-year-old marketing executive, who uses the English name Elissa, says being single at her age isn't half bad.

现年29岁的销售主管艾丽莎(英文名)表示,在她这个年纪还单身其实还挺不错.

"Living alone, I can do whatever I like. I can hang out with my good friends whenever I like," she says. "I love my job, and I can do a lot of stuff all by myself - like reading, like going to theatres. I have many single friends around me, so we can spend a lot of time together."

"我一个人过,想做什么做什么,只要我喜欢,想什么时候跟好朋友出去玩都行.我喜欢我的工作,我一个人可以做很多事儿,看看书,看看电影.我身边有很多单身的朋友,大家经常一起玩."

Sure, she says, during a hurried lunch break, her parents would like her to find someone, and she has gone on a few blind dates, for their sake. But, she says, they've been a "disaster".

艾丽莎是在匆忙的午饭时间接受我们的采访.她说当然父母还是希望她能找到一个合适的对象,为了父母她要去参加过几次相亲,不过她表示相亲就是"灾难".

"I didn't do these things because I wanted to, but because my parents wanted it, and I wanted them to stop worrying. But I don't believe in the blind dates. How can you get to know a person in this way?"

"我不是因为我想相亲才去的,我完全是为了我父母,我不想让他们担心,不过我不相信相亲,怎么可能通过这种方式就了解一个人？"

Elissa says she'd love to meet the right man, but it will happen when it happens. Meanwhile, life is good - and she has to get back to work.

艾丽莎说她也想遇到对的人,不过这一切都要看缘分.在这个过程中,生活也还是很美好的——她也要回去工作了.

 

(Source: hjenglish.com/CRIENGLISH.com)