Word of the Day: Lying Flat

White collar workers to university students are "lying flat"

A new phenomenon has emerged among young people in China. It's called "lying flat" or 躺平 (tang ping). 

From white collar workers to university students, they are tired of the rat race of having to work long hours for little pay that will not get them any closer to owning a home, let alone a car or start a family. Hence they are "lying flat".

There are even T-shirts that read: "Do nothing lie flat youth" that are selling online.

Young Chinese people are tired of the rat race

 Elaine Tang works at a Guangzhou-based tech firm and says the term resonated with young Chinese who saw the odds stacked against them.

"In recent years, property prices have skyrocketed, and the gap between social classes has become wider and wider," said the 35-year-old, who has been married for seven years but has yet to have children.

"The rich and the authorities monopolize most of the resources, and more and more working class like us have to work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week, but still can't afford a down payment [on a flat] or even the cost of having a child."

Comments like this are making the Chinese authorities nervous because they don't want young people to stop being productive members of society. How else are they going to pay for pensions and taxes? And what about encouraging families to have three children per family now?

But the domestic economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic and trade tensions with the United States have made people more receptive to the "lying flat" idea.

Young people feel income inequality is too great

"Local officials and scholars are concerned about the phenomenon of lying flat [because] it reflects young people's resistance to the current social and economic model, as well as their confusion about the political order," said Peng Peng, executive chairman of the Guangdong Society of Reform, a think tank connected to the provincial government.

There's also another word called "involution" making the rounds. It was originally used in anthropology to describe agrarian societies that stagnate because, while their workload increases, a person's output does not or cannot.

This is what is happening now because of the pandemic and the trade war, where everyone has to work harder than before, but they are faced with stagnating incomes, unemployment concerns and soaring costs for housing and child care.

Tech workers were among the first to comment on the involution in their lives, because those at big firms often work at "996" culture, working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. Others have joked about the new work ethic as "007" -- where one works from 00am to 00pm, seven days a week.

While the Chinese government is trying to suppress this movement online and using celebrities to denounce it, too many young people relate to this relentless work schedule for little pay and they will definitely find other ways to show they are "lying flat".

Will Chinese Families Have Three Kids?

China now allows families to have three kids, but will they?

 

China is now encouraging families to have not just two children but three in an announcement made today due to a significant drop in the birth rate in the world's most populous country.

Xinhua reported the change was approved by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a politburo meeting. 

"To further optimize the birth policy, [China] will implement a one-married-couple-can-have-three-children policy," Xinhua said.

The cost of raising children is very expensive

Five years ago China finally scrapped its one-child policy that dates back to 1978, and allowed couples to have two children, but that didn't lead to a significant baby boom thanks to the rising costs of having children, as well as housing and education.

The announcement today was short on specifics in how it would give support and incentives to families to have more children.

Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank (China), said the government would have to offer subsidies, and maybe even set up a new tax system for companies to have the incentive to hire women of childbearing age.

"The high costs of housing and education, as well as a lack of job protection for women, are strong economic constraints on having children," she said, adding the cost of having a third child would be too high for most middle-class families.

This decision comes soon after the release of a summary of census data that pointed to a decline in births in China, and Yi Fuxian, a specialist in China's demographics, said the timing of the announcement so soon after the census summary suggested the detailed data to come would be extremely worrying.

Women's job prospects are low after childbirth

"Maybe it's because the real population data is too scary. Even if they have not published it, it probably frightened the decision makers," Yi said.

The once-in-a-decade census showed the population grew at its slowest rate during the last decade since the 1950s to 1.41 billion.

But the reality of the situation is that young, educated and ambitious women do not want to be baby-making machines. Many are happy to be single let alone married, and prefer having a successful career than the thankless task of looking after a husband and children.

While the government has tried to scorn these women online, that is not going to help the situation, as the ratio of women to men is much smaller, so the pool of women willing to have children is even smaller.

Company policies and attitudes are sexist and need to change -- during job interviews young men are usually chosen over young women because it is assumed the latter will get married soon and have children and then may quit the job. 

Maybe Peng can tell Xi what women go through?

If the government wants to boost the population, it must force employers to find ways to accommodate women before, during and after having children, to keep a job for them or at least give them the opportunity to come back from maternity leave, otherwise how are they going to afford their mortgage, childcare, and pay for education? 

It would be beneficial for companies to retain these workers too; many mothers just want a steady pay cheque, though it is less than what a man would earn in the same position.

So it's all very well and good for the government to tell families to have more children to increase the country's population, but there needs to be specific incentives, services and tax breaks to give couples the financial confidence to have children. 

Grandpa Xi really needs to step up on this issue and look at it from the women's perspective before deciding what carrots he will dangle in front of them.

Perhaps his wife Peng Liyuan, or his daughter Xi Mingze can give him suggestions...

Chinese Women Buying Security

Successful women own property for security and also status in the family

The obsession to buy a home in China continues, but we're happy to discover that more Chinese women are realizing this dream.

Despite having to deal with the gender pay gap of earning on average 16 percent less than men, Chinese women have found ways to buy homes under their own name. Last year 46.7 percent of all homeowners were women in 2018, which compares to only 5 percent just two years earlier.

Over 47 percent of women over 30 bought their own homes

These numbers came from a report by real-estate broker platform Beike Zhaofang 贝壳找房, which surveyed thousands of women aged 18-50 in 12 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan. 

For single women over 30 years of age, 47.1 percent of them bought their own homes. More than one-third managed to buy their property without a loan, and 23.4 percent own more than two properties.

Either these women got a lot of help from their parents, relatives and friends, or they have high-powered jobs, or even really generous sugar daddies giving them lots of cash...

Media outlet Southern Weekly tried to find out why this phenomenon was happening and most women they interviewed cited "a sense of security" as the main reason for buying their home(s).

Wives usually do not have their names on the deeds

For successful women in high-paying jobs, home ownership is a statement of independence. Southern Weekly interviewed a female senior manager at a finance firm who owns three properties, which resulted in her having an elevated status in the family, making her even more confident as a woman.

Also as most families only have one child, the parents are more supportive in helping out their daughters in buying a home, or will even outright buy real estate for them. In addition, parents from older generations see buying a home as a safe investment that will give the daughters security when they retire.

Many women have parents helping them buy homes

The jump in female home ownership is also a result of high divorce rates. Typically when women get married, the husband has already bought a home and the woman's side is expected to contribute caili or betrothal gifts in the form of cash or gifts, such as furniture or cars.

And so in the event of a divorce, the wife is left with nothing, because her name is not on the deed.

But with 46.7 percent of home buyers now being women, they are actively protecting themselves (and their parents) from financial ruin. It's another big step in forcing Chinese men to confront the reality that yes, women do hold up half the sky -- for themselves.

Reality Check on "Ethnic Cleansing"

Fewer mainlanders are immigrating to Hong Kong each day

The same day Hong Kong National Party convenor Andy Chan Ho-tin spoke at the Foreign Correspondents Club yesterday, decrying China was performing "ethnic cleansing" in the city by having 150 mainlanders move here everyday, the statistics show otherwise.

According to figures released by the Census and Statistics Department on Tuesday, some 41,000 mainlanders moved to Hong Kong in the past 12 months ending on June 30, which is a drop of 14,700 compared to a year ago. It is the biggest drop in a decade.

The last steep decline was from 2005-06 and 2006-07 when the number fell by 14,900 to 44,700.

The one-way permit scheme allows spouses and children born across the border to be reunited with their families in Hong Kong.

Andy Chan claimed China was doing "ethnic cleansing"

Paul Yip Siu-fai, chair professor of population health at the University of Hong Kong, says it could be due to several factors, but one possibility could be the city becoming less desirable from before.

"For married couples that want their kids to come to Hong Kong, it must mean that the city has something better to offer to them," Yip said.

"But it's become more expensive to live here, especially housing, so it is worth looking into whether people are less willing to come because Hong Kong is less attractive to them," he said.

Anti-mainland sentiment is another possible factor deterring mainlanders from settling here, with the lowest number of people using the one-way permit scheme totaling 34,000 from mid-2013 and mid-2014, just before the Occupy protests.

Sze Lai-shan, a veteran social worker from the Society for Community Organization who helps new immigrant families settle in Hong Kong, said some mainlanders might not be as eager to move to the city, in part because of the improved living standards across the border. 

"It is especially the case for Hong Kong women getting married to mainland men. The husband won't want to come to Hong Kong. Usually the Hong Kong wife will go settle in the mainland," Sze said.

Accumulated there are over 800K mainlanders in Hong Kong

This is the trend Marion Chan Shui-yu, deputy commissioner for census and statistics is seeing. Such partnerships rose from 19 percent of all cross-border marriages in 1996 to 33 percent in 2016. In an interesting twist, the number of mainland women marrying Hong Kong men in cross-border marriages dropped from 81 percent to 66.7 percent in the same period.

It used to be that mainland women would marry much older Hong Kong men in the hopes of hitting the jackpot, but now it seems they have wised up after hearing many stories that not every Hong Kong man is rich. There are also many financial problems once the women and children move to the city -- the women cannot work right away and even then they are typically not well educated and can only find low-paying jobs.

So while there may be fewer mainlanders moving to Hong Kong each year, they are accumulating. There are over 800,000 since 2004, it's not a small number -- and growing.

Fact of the Day: 70% Divorces Filed by Chinese Women

More than 70 percent of divorces in China are filed by women

In the age of #MeToo or #mitu in China, it's hard to see how attitudes towards women will change much in this patriarchal society when men believe they have or are entitled to more power than women.

Although Chairman Mao Zedong claimed that "women hold up half the sky", in reality it's not true at all.

In 1986, 460,000 couples registered for divorce, while 20 years later the number jumped to 4.15 million.

A new report that uses divorce statistics from 2016 and 2017 by the Supreme People's Court shows two things. The first is that women filed more than 70 percent of the divorce cases in the past two years, with most couples splitting up after three years of marriage.

The second is that domestic violence was the second most common problem, cited as the major factor in 15 percent of divorces. "Incompatibility" was cited for 75 percent of divorce cases.

Tencent News did a survey in 2016 about the high divorce rates. Some 70,000 internet users gave their responses which found the following: About 60 percent of male respondents had cheated on their partners in a relationship, while it was around 30 percent for women respondents.

Another interesting result was that one-third of male respondents didn't think sex with prostitutes was cheating. What is it then? Having an intimate playmate? A way to work off stress? It's paid so it doesn't count?

Ah, men. Always finding an excuse to have it their way...

HK Housing Prices Continue to Soar

Can you live in a 209 sq ft home that costs US$1 million?

Just when you think property prices can't get any worse, they do.

A flat slightly bigger than a shipping container has been sold for HK$7.86 million (US$1 million), which is HK$37,651 per square foot. A shipping container is 165 sq ft.

The 209-square foot flat is located on Pokfulam Road in Sai Ying Pun, which is part of an 11-unit development built by Kowloon Development. So far the company has sold 60 percent of the flats at Emerald House that range from 209 sq ft to 310 sq ft and cost as much as HK$11.29 million.

The microflats are being built in Sai Ying Pun

And just as you are shaking your head in disbelief, the latest survey shows that 27 percent of Hong Kong people don't ever expect to own a flat. The survey by REA Group, a digital advertising firm that specializes in property, says of 1,003 respondents carried out by Nielsen, 16 percent have no plan to buy property at all because the prices are beyond their reach.

Home prices rose for the 22nd consecutive month in January. If the average Hong Kong person makes about HK$17,200 per month, it will take them 30 years of monthly income to afford a HK$6 million flat. That means not buying anything, let alone eating anything.

REA Group says this inability to afford housing leads to social issues like couples delaying marriage. And as young people can only afford tiny flats that minimizes the amount of stuff they can have in them, and living in tight quarters can also cause more friction between people. Also having to live in a small place long term is hardly good for one's mental health.

How much stuff can you squeeze into a microflat?

But that's the reality in Hong Kong -- the government isn't doing enough to step in to build social housing, or help young people get their foot in the door to help them towards owning a flat.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po isn't doing much to help this segment of people, only homeowners with a small break of not having to pay government rates for a whole year. Whoohoo.

If he helped more young people move a giant step forward closer to owning a flat, perhaps there would be more optimism in the city -- that there is hope, that they can feel proud of being in the city and feel more welcome as residents.

However it seems the government doesn't have that kind of long-term thinking. It only wants to build an even bigger war chest... for what?

Hong Kong Landmark Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage

There is a strong gay community in Hong Kong, along with its supporters

Breaking News -- A married gay civil servant is now entitled to the same spousal benefits as a heterosexual couple in Hong Kong.

The landmark ruling came down today which could have a massive ripple effect in all sectors, as for a long time the government refused to acknowledge benefits in same-sex marriages.

The High Court refused the Civil Service Bureau's argument that it was denying benefits for same-sex spouses to protect "the integrity of the institution of marriage".

In 2014, senior immigration officer Leung Chun-kwong married his partner Scott Adams in New Zealand. But when Leung tried to change his marital status to be eligible for spousal benefits back in Hong Kong, he was refused, and so he launched a lawsuit against the secretary for the civil service and the commissioner of the Inland Revenue Department.

The High Court ruled a gay couple is entitled to benefits

While the court ruled in favour with Leung with regards to the CSB, he lost his case with the Revenue Department.

In his 44-page judgment, Mr Justice Anderson Chow Ka-ming called the bureau's policy "indirect discrimination" and rejected its assertion that the secretary had a justifiable aim "to act in line with the prevailing marriage law of Hong Kong" and not to "undermine the integrity of the institution of marriage... hence safeguarding public order".

Chow wrote: "I am unable to see how denial of 'spousal' benefits to homosexual couples... legally married under foreign laws could or would serve the purpose of not undermining the integrity of the institution of marriage in Hong Kong, or protecting the institution of the traditional family."

Leung said the court's decision had wide-ranging implications. "The government is the biggest employer. The whole of Hong Kong will follow [this decision]."

He urged the government to review its policies and update them instead of wait for legal challenges, a process, he said was stressful, expensive and time consuming.

Rainbow-coloured lions have conservatives very worried!

"We were not asking for special treatment. We simply wanted to be treated fairly and with dignity," he said, adding that the court had "recognized and rectified a fundamental unfairness".

The bureau says it is reviewing the decision with the Justice Department, while the Equal Opportunities Commission urges the government to review its policies and extend equal rights to sexual minorities.

However, when it came to the Inland Revenue Department, Leung was unable to change his marital status to same-sex marriage because a provision in the Inland Revenue Ordinance states clearly that a marriage is between a man and a woman.

Nevertheless, we finally a decision that drags Hong Kong into the 21st century. The city is a fiscally liberal one, and so should its society. Christian conservatives are going to be terrified by this ruling -- they can't even stand having rainbow-coloured replica lions at HSBC in Central.

But this is the reality -- there are same-sex couples in Hong Kong and they deserve to be treated equally under the law. And now they do legally.

Case closed? We hope so.

Rocky Cross-Border Marriages

In cross-border marriages, the reality soon sets in, and arguments flare up

In the past week Hong Kong has seen two cases of domestic disputes involving a Hong Kong husband and mainland wife, both ending in death.

A 60 year-old man was suspected of strangling his wife, 41, after an argument they had as they were in the midst of divorce proceedings.

Their 18-year-old daughter found her mother alone and unconscious in the Tokwawan flat and called police, but the woman was declared dead in the hospital.

He meanwhile jumped into Victoria Harbour and was picked up by police, with minor injuries.

This incident follows another last Saturday when a 52-year-old woman attacked her 87-year-old husband with a knife, and then jumped from the window of the Tsuen Wan flat to her death.

It is believed they were having marital problems after the mainland wife moved to Hong Kong a few years ago. They were separated but still living together in the flat.

Hong Kong has seen many older men marrying younger mainland women, hoping she will look after him in old age, while she looks to him as a way to get residency in the city.

Perhaps when reality sets in, it's not what both parties had expected and the quarrels begin...

This is only the basic storyline... it's probably even more complicated with money (or the lack thereof) that makes it even more stressful. And Hong Kong is left dealing with the mess afterwards.

When the disputes involve children, particularly young ones, it's even more complicated, especially when the mother takes the children back to the mainland and are near impossible to find again.

It's a sad state of affairs, and social workers here have a hard time trying to build relationships with the mainland authorities in the hopes of tracking down disgruntled spouses and children who miss their other parent.

Perhaps the good thing is that the marriages between locals and mainlanders has dropped in recent years. It peaked in 2006 at 28,145 and was 16,154 last year. The last thing we need is more conflict in the city that leads to heartache and in extreme cases, death.

China Fight to Legalize Gay Marriage

With growing acceptance of the LGBT community in China, is marriage next?

The right for homosexuals to marry will be challenged legally after a court in Changsha, Hunan province agreed to hear the case.

Sun Wenlin, 26, filed a suit against the civil affairs bureau to allow him to marry his 36-year-old partner so that they could have a family.

"I think from a legal point of view, we should be successful," Sun said. "Our marriage law says there is freedom to marry and gender equality. These words can be applied to same-sex marriage."

He said he tried to marry his partner back in June at Furong district civil affairs bureau but they were rejected, as the official said marriage had to be between a man and a woman.

Activists say that because the court accepted the case, this is a positive sign that China is willing to address inequality in the LGBT community.

Up until 2001, China regarded homosexuality as a mental disorder, but even today many gay men are quiet about their sexual orientation.

Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what happens in this case. Either way it's definitely a step forward for gays in China to be heard in the courts.

Quote of the Day: Fanny Law

Fanny Law's metaphor to encourage young people to love China was ridiculed

Politicians are such quirky characters. They love the limelight so they think of interesting soundbites to say to be captured by the media thus ensuring their spot in the history books.

Executive councillor Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun has probably made her mark with her latest comments on how young Hong Kong people should view their relationship with the mainland.

In an interview published in pro-Beijing Wen Wei Pao and Ta Kung Pao, Law encouraged young people to love and identify with China from the start.

"It's like dating and getting married. Before falling in love, there should be preliminary and in-depth understanding and then a search for common ground," she said.

Basically the close aide to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying is assuming Hong Kong people would like to love China, which is a fundamentally wrong assumption to make.

Needless to say social media had a field day with Law's comments, with TV Most creating a satirical dialogue between a country vowing its love 'would not change for 50 years' despite the fact its lover, presumably Hong Kong, had 'lost its shape' in the years after the handover.

Other have commented that one would not want to even date China in the first place -- that Hong Kong was coerced into the relationship, or that while a relationship with China is fine, that with the Communist Party of China is a deal breaker.

Perhaps Law wants to go back to the drawing board and think of another, better metaphor...

True Love Conquers All

Victor and his now fiancee posing for pre-wedding pictures in Iceland

People are still talking about Victor and Stephanie BB's wedding proposal from last weekend, gobsmacked that he spent HK$400,000 ($51,590) on a 1.5-carat diamond ring, a hotel suite with a view and a helicopter flying by with a banner that had the proposal written on it.

Many are wondering if it's a publicity stunt and if the media who reported it were paid to cover the story.

But we'd like to contrast this with two other couples.

A couple in Turkey got married near the Syrian border and celebrated the nuptials by inviting 4,000 Syrian refugees to eat with them. The bride and groom even spooned out food for the less fortunate.

A Turkish newlywed couple dishes out food for refugees

It was the idea of the groom's father, who was glad the couple began their married life "with such a selfless action".

The bride admitted being shocked at the idea at first, but then she was so happy she was able to help others in need.

The groom added, "Seeing the happiness in the eyes of the Syrian refugee children is just priceless. We started our journey with making others happy and that's a great feeling," he said.

And in Anhui province, a 30-year-old man paid for a 12,000 yuan ($1,932) diamond ring in coins to give to his former childhood sweetheart.

Liang Liang wheeled a tricycle loaded with 150kg of coins into bags to a jewellery shop in Fuyang. The highest denomination coin was 1 yuan.

Staff counting the coins Liang used to buy a ring

It took four employees half a day to count all the coins, that were neatly wrapped in newspaper.

Liang said he was fulfilling a promise he made to his fiancee made 20 years earlier when they were children.

"Do you remember 20 years ago I said I would earn money and marry you?" Liang was quoted as saying. "Now I've earned enough to buy you a ring, please marry me!"

His fiancee accepted and was reportedly so moved by his proposal that she burst into tears.

Liang had said that several jewellery stores turned him away when he asked if he could pay for the ring in coins. But the manager of the shop that sold him the ring said staff were touched by his story and would put the coins on display as "the best evidence of true love".

We hope this brings everyone back to reality, that there are some people out there who are celebrating their love with true hearts.

Getting Hitched to Reality of Marriage

The documentary looks at what happens to couples after they get married...

When people get married, do they really know what they are getting themselves into? Do they know what challenges they will face and how they will deal with them? With 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce, why do people still tie the knot?

Those are the kinds of questions New York-based documentary filmmaker Doug Block asks in his film 112 Weddings.

I had read about the documentary in a newspaper article almost a year ago and was curious to actually see it. And on the flight back to Hong Kong I had that opportunity.

Documentary filmmaker Doug Block

Block is an award-winning documentary filmmaker (The Kids Grow Up, 51 Birch Street, The Heck with Hollywood!), who funds his passion by being a wedding videographer.

He started doing it over 20 years ago and in that period has shot 112 weddings. He narrates the documentary by saying, "I found it unexpectedly thrilling to be a wedding videographer. We're always struggling to gain access to our subjects, and here I was being granted a front-row position as an ordinary couple experience perhaps the most extraordinary day in their lives (and being paid well for it, no less!).

When his 25th wedding anniversary came around, it prompted Block to go and find the same couples again to see how marriage had affected them, if it was what they thought it would be, and how they fared.

He tried to track down some of his favourite couples; a few may have moved away and he lost contact with him, while others had divorced and didn't want to talk on camera.

In the film each interview starts with footage from the wedding, and then the couple is interviewed. Even though they are trying to present the best side of themselves, their body language and the words they choose are more telling.

Wedding #71, Block says, Jenn and Augie's was one of the most joyful he had ever witnessed. After eight years, they were still in love with each other with one child, but financially things were tight and admitted they were fighting more than when they had gotten married.

Augie said that after a fight one would want space, but in reality they are in this together because of the child and so they have to work hard to make things work. "My wife and I agree 95 percent of the time. But that 5 percent, we're just at each other's throats."

Olivia and Dennis were Wedding #49, with Olivia wearing a kind of pearl-encrusted crown that made her look like a medieval princess walking down the aisle. After they got married, the couple moved to Tulum, Mexico for her to be a massage therapist, and him a scuba diving instructor.

When their daughter Lily was born, they moved back to New York, but when she turned three, Lily was diagnosed with a brain tumour which threw their lives into turmoil.

The two parents completely focused on their child, with the constant fear of losing her at anytime, which put their lives into perspective as well. They needed each other to help Lily get better, and as they are interviewed, Block pans up above the casual white shirted-couple on the couch to reveal an elaborate gold-framed portrait of their daughter, who looks sad.

Dennis says, "There is no real book on how to take care of a child who maybe taken from you at any moment, and dealing with that fear. You're thrown into a living nightmare that never ends."

However, Block reports on his website that Lily is now 10 and her parents say is "kicking ass".

Tom and Yoonhee looking back on their wedding day

There was one mixed-race couple in the documentary, Yoonhee and Tom, Wedding #43. They met on a plane and Tom wouldn't give up pursuing her, even though she was supposed to finish her masters degree in music, and her father back in Korea had already arranged a teaching job for her there.

But she fell in love with Tom and decided to give up her career for him, much to the chagrin of her father, who at first refused to come to the wedding, but did come in the end. Yoonhee and Tom now have two children.

Block asks them if he thinks it was fate for them to meet on the plane. While Tom immediately dismisses the possibility, Yeehoon, who seems very bubbly and optimistic, looks out into space and says, "Life can be funny. Life can be very funny because, I mean, why did it happen, you know?"

Alexander and Janice just after finishing their own vows

Another loving couple was Janice and Alexander, Wedding #111. Both their parents were very displeased to find out the couple did not want to have a "wedding", as it involved ownership, right of lineage, and possession, values they did not believe in; instead they had a three-day "partnership ceremony", and Block shows a scene of them right afterwards, so excited, and Alexander saying, "We did it! We did it!"

Thirteen years later they still seem happily together, with two daughters, and the older one keenly aware that though they are her parents, they are not legally married.

When Block contacted them, though, Janice and Alexander decided it was time to really get married, and was lucky enough to record their very small ceremony in their living room, which was just as emotional, if not more, with their children as witnesses.

The documentary managed to dissect a few marriages that had gone sour. Janet and David, (Wedding #83) had beautiful wedding, but seemed strange for the groom to reveal how many meds he was taking -- was this to calm his nerves or was he always like this?

After seven years and a child later, the marriage was over, and David, with disheveled hair, sitting in a small apartment is honest about what happened. He was a struggling screenwriter and didn't get too far, while it seemed Janet wanted her husband to grow up and take responsibility of looking after the family.

Block wasn't able to get Janet's side of the story, but David is not malicious at all, taking complete blame for the end of the marriage and admires her for being with him throughout that time.

However the same could not be said of Sue and Steve, Wedding #1. When Block contacted Sue about doing the documentary, she said she had just filed for divorce the day before. She had recently found out her husband had been cheating on her and had another woman, which was a complete shock to her.

The filmmaker was able to get Steve's side of the story, where he says the marriage became lifeless, particularly when three children were in the picture, and things were very routine.

In the end there is a scene with Sue looking back at her wedding photos. She says she can look at them because it's a different person in the picture.

One sad couple was Danielle and Adam, Wedding #90. Block remembers Danielle as a radiant bride, but when he met them again five years later, she was severely depressed, something she had before, but the sadness was magnified after taking hormone pills to get pregnant.

With the two of them together, she looked despondent and very pessimistic, saying how she could not contribute as much as she wanted to the family because she was tired all the time.

But her husband was so stoic and even said on camera: "I personally feel like you're completely worth waiting for, for this to fix itself one day. And even if that's never, I still think that I wouldn't want to do this with anyone else, you know?"

Wedding #112: Heather and Sam after their ceremony

To add more depth to 112 Weddings, Block also interviewed a lesbian couple who were also wedding photographers. Anna and Erica have been together for four years and are keen to get married, to be recognized legally as a couple.

And then as a counterpoint to the previous weddings, Block follows Heather and Sam, Wedding #112, and both are very articulate in talking about their hopes and dreams of what they want their marriage to be like. The film ends with the end of their wedding ceremony, and they begin walking literally into the sunset, into the unknown.

112 Weddings makes you realize that there are a lot of things people don't necessarily consider when they get married, but by the same token, you don't know how you will deal with a situation until it happens, and it requires teamwork. Love and communication are essential, but also can the relationship sustain through time? No one knows until they actually go through with it...

Review: Ghost Bride

Would you mind being married to a ghost?

"Are you afraid of ghosts?" a Malaysian-born Singaporean friend asked me a few weeks ago.

Shen then proceeded to tell me about a novel by Malaysian writer Yangsze Choo called Ghost Bride and when I next saw my friend she passed the book on to me.

I don't usually read much fiction these days -- perhaps too engrossed with current affairs and read magazines and newspapers both print and online.

So it was interesting reading Ghost Bride and being transported back to colonial Malaya in the late 1800s, where people used rickshaws to get around and those who were more enlightened wore western clothes and were educated overseas.

Li Lan is a teenage girl born in Malacca, and raised by her amah who also looked after her mother, who died when Li Lan was young. Her father was scholarly, but didn't have a head for the family business. After a series of deals gone sour, he turned his attention to opium and frittered away the family fortune.

Author Yangsze Choo, fourth-generation Malaysian Chinese

And as a result, some debts need to be repaid and the father asks his daughter if she would be a ghost bride to the wealthy Lim family, whose son and heir Lim Tian Ching recently died.

When Li Lan visits the Lim household for the first time, she falls for Lim Tian Ching's cousin Tian Bai, and then the battle for affections begin -- even the ghost of her husband-to-be haunts her heart.

In writing the story, the author used the premise of ghost marriages which were usually made between two deceased people with both families recognizing the the marriage, but there were also cases where a living person married someone who was dead.

These were usually cases where the betrothed person died, or giving the woman the rank of wife to a concubine who had produced an heir. And then there were situations where a girl, like Li Lan, entered a household to become a widow for a man who died without a wife or descendants.

Ghost Bride is a fantasy story that interweaves Chinese superstition around ghosts, the lifestyle of Straits-born Chinese at the time, as well as a lot of imagination about what the underworld would be like.

Choo puts all these details together in a well written tale that, to be honest, at times were predictable, but was told in such a way that you had to keep reading to find out what happened next.

It's a fun read and though I enjoyed the novel, luckily I haven't been haunted by these ghosts yet...

The Marital Pressure's On

Baihe website helps singletons get matched up to please their elders

Over Chinese New Year, young mainland men and women who are single dread going home for the holidays because they know they will be grilled by their parents and relatives asking when they will get married.

During my time in Beijing, there were news stories about men willing to be their pretend boyfriend and actually go to the woman's hometown and stay with her family -- sex not included -- for a fee.

They would meet before the actual Spring Festival just to see if they could somehow get along, go through the terms of the agreement and then go ahead with the farce.

I don't know anyone who actually resorted to that route, but it seemed the men were trying to fill a desperate need, though the reality of the situation must have been awkward to say the least.

And now a dating website is under fire for pressuring young women to hurry up and find a mate.

Matchmaking website Baihe has come out with a TV commercial about a well-to-do young woman and her aging grandmother. Viewers can see the family is wealthy as the living room seems quite large... In any event after the young woman's university graduation, her grandmother asks her when she will get married, and she persists as the young woman grows older.

Grandma keeps persisting that her granddaughter get hitched

It gets to the point where the young woman decides she must do something about this with the help of Baihe and in the last scene she is dressed in a gorgeous bridal gown covered in lace and pearls and finally tells her grandmother on her hospital bed that she has finally tied the knot.

The commercial has provoked some interesting online reactions, some infuriated that the website has played the "filial piety card" in order to pressure young people to rush into marriage just to please their elders. Some are so angered by the site that they promise to boycott it -- a usual knee-jerk reaction from mainlanders who are annoyed at anything.

Others suggested that perhaps people should be having conversations with their elders that pressuring them to get married does not help the situation.

"Besides the conventional family values, people shall not sacrifice their own happiness to comply with their family members' unreasonable demands," commented Peng Xiaohui, a prominent sexologist and Central China Normal University professor.

But not everyone has the same idea as Peng.

Some not only think of it as a Confucian ideal to strive for, but are only thinking in the best interests of the child or grandchild to find a mate to share their happiness and burdens together.

However, not all elders know how complicated and difficult the dating scene has become thanks to the proliferation of divorces, mistresses, long-distance relationships and so on.

Dating websites can either solve the problem or make them even more complicated...

It all comes down to luck.