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Chinese New Year festivities for many are synonymous with family, food and first and foremost marriage pressure. For many young single people from their mid-20s onwards, this is a time when their traditionally-minded parents will push them to get married as soon as possible. However, for those young people planning on getting married, the joy of having found the one can quickly turn into a different type of pressure entirely.
In April 2016, Daniel Yan and his girlfriend at the time Wei Tang were planning on getting married. They had been dating for a year and a half and felt it was time to tie the knot, partly because she was 25. In China, traditionally the cut-off line for what is considered marriageable age is 25 for men and 23 for women, and so in their eyes, it was high time. But while for China’s women it’s the prospect of aging and the patriarchal idea that this makes them less valuable that creates marriage pressure, for men like Daniel it’s mostly a financial headache.
“My girlfriend and her family are very traditional. They wish that the wedding could be huge, it’s about face, they just don’t want to lose face, so they are kind of wishing the wedding should be amazing,” he said.
Aside from placing expectations on Daniel about how extravagant the wedding should be, his future in-laws also see it as his responsibility to pay. While it is common in China for the groom’s family to fork out for the event, his dad announced he was not going to pitch in, which left Daniel under considerable financial stress. Even though the couple tried to minimize the cost, they were still looking at spending over 20,000 US dollars, but Daniel was earning less than 1000 US dollars per month. The reality that he was going to end up in large debt over this wedding destroyed pretty much all enthusiasm for the big day.
“I get so tired, thinking about the wedding. It is so messed up with all this other stuff, especially the material things. It has lost its true meaning. I have lost virtually all interest in marrying. It’s just so exhausting,” he told us.
Now, in 2018 Daniel finally is a married man. The couple held their ceremony in a courtyard owned by his father in October 2017, one and a half years after we first met him. His relationship with his father was strained over the fact that he initially did not want to help financially support his son. In the end, Daniel’s father paid around 23000 US dollars towards the wedding, while his son borrowed around 5000 RMB from the bank.
A photo of Daniel and his mother on his wedding day.
“Our wedding was unforgettable and beautiful. Even though I felt very stressed before and at the wedding, I am still quite happy that I have gone through that certain stage of my life. Seems like going through stages is very important to me,” says Daniel reflecting on whether the financial pressure was worth it. It was also an opportunity for him to impress his wife’s relatives.
“Everyone now knows how rich my dad is (we were having the wedding at my father’s 6000 square meters courtyard), so some people like my wife’s relatives might shut their mouths. I am really done with them talking about how fancy their son-in-law’s job is, and their daughter’s job of course.”
With the wedding wrapped up, is the pressure on Daniel now finally over? Not quite. It has just changed in nature.
“The pressure now comes from other wedding couples. As a new family, our economic situation is not very promising. Compared with others who are able to get financial support after getting married, we are actually feeling faceless and poor. However, I have now fully understood the difficulty of life. I have a strong will to buy some good stuff for my wife for us to feel like we are not losing face in front of other people. My job is getting better, so is my payment. I hope this year will make a huge difference and we won’t need to care about money this much.”
(CGTN)
