Romance Chinese Style
Groom: For a Chinese person, finding a wife and getting married is a big thing. I feel very emotional, and terribly nervous. I couldn't sleep last night.
Bride: We were going to have the wedding last year, but we Chinese believe it was an unlucky year, it had no spring.That's why we've chosen now.
COMM: As the Chinese saying goes, where there is love, there is a way. But for some, it's not all plain sailing.
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COMM: Since it opened up to the west, China has been a country in a hurry, where cars replaced bicycles, fashion outfits replaced Mao suits, and the pursuit of romance replaced Party loyalty.
COMM: In the new China, the idea of romantic love is changing fast.
COMM: The 'Eight Minute Club' in Beijing is the country's first online speed-dating organiser, catering for 20 to 30 year old young white collars who are cash rich and time poor.
Wang Pu: You have 10 to 12 pairs, all the girls stay where they are, and the guys have a list of numbers. You go and talk to each girl by their number, and chat for eight minutes. The bell rings when the time is up, and you move on to the next person.
COMM: Originated in the US, the idea of Eight Minute speed-dating was brought to China a few years ago. Despite its western birth, such a name goes down well with the Chinese, as eight happens to be China's favourite number, sounding close to the word 'prosperity'.
Sun Xiu: We charge 150 yuan. At each event you get to meet eight people, so you are spending just over 10 yuan on each person. If you take the girl out on your own you'd have to buy her dinner, that will cost more than 100 yuan. So ours is a very economic way of dating. In two hours you get to meet so many people. It's very efficient.
Wang Pu: I have a great need to communicate with others, and I love chatting. So this eight minute thing is just what I need. I get to meet more than ten different girls at a time, and I can show off the best of me. When they all choose me, it feels great.
Sun Xiu: There are more single women out there in big cities than single men, particularly in foreign corporations in Beijing. I've heard people say that those girls cry in their rooms because they can't find a partner. They are too busy, and under too much pressure, they don't have time to go out.
******(reporter: where are the men?)
I think they must be farming in the countryside. (laugh).
COMM: Today, China's love affair with the computer has gone beyond eight minutes. As the world's second largest internet nation, online chatting and mobile phone texting are popular ways for strangers to meet and fall in love. Digital love.
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COMM: Beyond China's modern surface, not everyone in China finds love on the internet. Ai Hui , a 32 year old cameraman is marrying his girlfriend Yihui, a 27 year old teacher. Like many others, they were introduced by a mutual friend. Although it wasn't love at first sight, shared traditional values played a big part in bringing them together.
Groom: Our idea of love is different from that of our parents generation. We have more romantic ways to express our love, but what remains unchanged is our respect for traditions.
Groom : She possesses the traditional virtue of a Chinese woman. She is a very innocent girl, just like a sheet of white paper, pure and faultless. She touches me.
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COMM: While for some, romance blossoms naturally, for others, true love is an art which needs to be taught and learnt by all Chinese.
COMM: Du Sheng Xiang, a 40 year old ex salesman, sees himself as China's first teacher of love. He has just opened a new training centre in Beijing where he runs weekly classes on the theory of romance.
COMM: Before that, he had sold a long list of products.
Du: Iron and steel, software, garments and training. So many. Now I am selling myself. I am selling my ideas. I am an educator, I am a teacher who sells ideas.'
COMM: To Du Shengxiang, known as teacher Du, China's new social problems mean a new business opportunity.
Du: The economy growing fast, brings a lot of change in our life, including love, but Chinese people don't get, how to say, are not getting preparation for that change.
Du: First they don't know what deep feeling is, then they don't know how to express. A man is afraid of expressing love to a lady, they think, I must have a lot of money, I should have a PhD, I should have a big house, apartment, then I can express my love'
COMM: At the school of love, teacher Du's weekend class is starting in a usual jovial mood. He loves cracking jokes, but making serious points at the same time.
Du: This is 'The Art of Loving' by Eric Fromm, I want you to learn. E Fromm, This is from America. You go and read it up. Zhinan, next time you should talk to a girl about this. Say to her - I've been learning the art of love, if you think the idea is absurd, then let me tell you what love is. You bombard her with the theories until she feels dizzy. Then she'll fall for you. She definately will. Instead of going out with a fool with a house and a car, she'd want to be with someone who truely understands love.
COMM: Du's students are young and bright, but they find it difficult to express their emotions freely.
Wang Ying: Is love simply a feeling? For example, if I have feelings for a boy who is not a good character, who I know I shouldn't fall for, is this love?
Zhiwei: Asians are quite reserved, westerners are more straight forward. We rely on suggestions and we guess what the other person wants. It's never direct. For men or women. Teacher Du makes us more open. Being reserved is so tiring.'
COMM: Teacher Du's outgoing character has been a great influence on his students.
Du: We need to learn to share our feelings. It's psychologically important. A lot of people just don't know how to do that. Yesterday I gave a talk at Beijing Normal University, as you all know. A student said to me, “why do I have to express my feelings? Keeping it to myself won't kill me”. To be honest, I think that's very sad.
COMM: Beyond the cultural reasons for his students' communication problems, teacher Du sees a deeper truth about a rapidly changing society.
Du: I think most people don't believe each other deeply, with the development of China's economy. That's the key point.'
COMM: China's economic success has made a lot of people rich, but love can still be the hardest word to say.
Part Break ---------------------------------
COMM: Chinese weddings today combine East and West, both in customs and in costumes. But the all important wedding banquet has to kick off before 12 to avoid bad luck.
COMM: Groom Aihui and bride Yihui have been dating for two years. After a few unsuccessful relationships on both sides, they are hoping that their marriage will finally bring them life-long happiness.
Groom: I don't think it's an easy thing to find true love today. People are vulgar, and they hide behind a mask, so it's not so easy to really get to know someone.
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COMM: Finding love in China today may be a hard task, but the loss of love seems easy. Over the last two decades, China's divorce rate soared by 5 times. When award winning TV drama 'Divorce Chinese Style' hit the nation's airwaves, the story of a woman loosing her husband through her own jealousy struck a cord with millions of Chinese viewers.
Shen Yan: There’s too much temptation and TOO MUCH pressure out there. Living in such an environment it's very hard to be rational,…. it becomes a madness. This is a very Chinese situation today . It's just a nightmare, every family worries, is the man going to meet someone today, or is he going to be seduced, what's going to happen... Everyone lives in fear.
Shen Yan: What's funny was that a year before I started making Divorce Chinese style, I got divorced myself. The key members of our production team, including my cameraman, my artistic director, they were all newly divorced men.
COMM: China's loss of love has created great opportunities in a new divorce industry. Divorce lawyer Wang Fang, an ex economics student, is the founder of divorce123.com, and a success story in China's love business.
Wang Fang: China's greatest asset is our population. A large number of people means a large number of families. A large number of families means a large number of family disputes. So the market demand is great.'
Wang Fang: I think I have the right image, I am very approachable. When the media interviews me, they like what the see. So I think the supply side is not bad either.
COMM: While new Chinese laws have made divorce much easier, Wang Fang is denfensive about the worries behind China's high divorce rate.
Wang Fang: There are many rich people in China now. They can afford to pursue spiritual needs. Marriage is no longer just about two people sticking it out together. They want harmony, happiness and romance. So when they feel that their marriage has become a torture, they won’t hesitate to choose divorce.'
COMM And divorce can be a painful experience, as teacher Du shows his class.
Du: Look. A man is like this rubber band. It's very characteristic of him. He tolerates without complaint. But if the woman keeps nagging, they will split.
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COMM: For newly wed Yi Hui and Ai Hui, togetherness is everything. But in their romantic world of two, parents still play a big part.
Groom: As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing is having a good character, like does she treat my parents well, does she really love my parents, only then would she know how to love me.
Bride: My mother is very supportive of our love. She often tells me what to do. For example, I should show respect to his parents, and ring them regularly to ask after their health. I should care about them, not just him.
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COMM: In the new China, arranged marriage is long gone. But in a country where young professionals are too busy to look for love, their anxious parents are now driven to do it for them.
COMM: This is China's newly emerged love market for the white collar workers, where parents exchange photos, numbers and details of their children, hoping to find them the perfect package.
Father: God bless the poor parents. We all want our children to get a good partner, but they are busy. So we have to come here to put on such a performance. ( laugh)'
'My son is quite shy. He doesn't like going to the clubs or Karoke bars. He's always at home. We are very anxious. He is already 35.'
'He is a Tsing Hua university graduate, specialising in IT management. He wants to find someone in similar fields. He's only about 1.7m, so he wants someone about his height, healthy, even better if she's pretty.'
Mother: Oh dear, I've come here so many times and I'm very tired.
My daughter is a graduate from the TianTsing Technology University. She's a sales manager selling construction materials. She is 30, born in 76. She would want to find a graduate at least.'
'She went to meet one a few days ago, he runs his own business. (cut to) when she came back she told me what an idot he was! (laugh)
Nowadays they are all only children, they’ve got no one to lean on. Friends don't count. I think people just use each other in today's society. When you get to your 40s and 50s if you don't even have anyone to bring you a cup of tea, wouldn't that be sad.'
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COMM: But sadness is a word for the past. Today, China's search for love and happiness has started a romantic revolution, with unreserved energy, and great uncertainty.
Wang Pu: 'Oh dear, what is love. Such a big question. Not even Marx can answer it.'
Shen Yan: 'Love is a short term madness.'
Wang Fang : 'Love is a passion. But it doesn't last.'
Du: 'Love is an art. Love is not a car.'
COMM: But even for a true romantic like teacher Du, love in the modern China spells profit.
Du: 'In future our price should be increase very high and rapidly. And the earlier the people study the course, the less loss they feel in love'.