Thursday, December 31, 2009

Word of the Day: Naked Wedding

One of the hot Chinese words of 2009 is 裸婚 luo (3) hun (1) or "Naked Wedding".

At first glance it sounds like walking down the aisle in your birthday suit, but in China it means tying the knot without the requisites of a lavish banquet, an apartment, car or diamond ring -- just a 9RMB ($1.32) wedding certificate.

An increasing number of young people, but particularly young Chinese men feel hopeless at ever getting married because of their lowly-paying jobs; women tell them not to propose unless they already own an apartment which is practically impossible for someone earning an average wage. However, in some cases, parents will scrape together everything they have in order for their son to have better marriage prospects.

This has led to the ongoing debate about astronomical housing prices thanks to greedy real estate developers and the government not doing enough to ensure a proper supply of housing that people can afford within their lifetimes.

It also reveals how materialistic women can be, though some of the fairer sex are willing to be "half naked" ... but only if the man owned his own home.

1 comment:

ks said...

i have heard of some countless true love stories from china. they are not all THAT materialistic. the liu xiao bo couple is only one of such good example.