| Man Spinning In Ball On Lake | Music | 00:00 |
| Young couples | CAMPBELL: It’s a hot weekend in Beijing, and the fun is just getting started. | 00:18 |
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| The parks fill with young people relaxing from the working week. | 00:26 |
| Crowds of older people in park | But some desperate parents are here for business. | 00:32 |
| Mother in park with placard | WOMAN: My son doesn’t want me to be here. He says he’s too young and not in a hurry to get married. I want him to be married within one or two years. | 00:38 |
| Love market | CAMPBELL: This is a love market -- one of many that have sprung up in parks across the city. Thousands come each weekend to try to match-make their wayward children. | 00:51 |
| Parents in park love market | WOMAN 1: Is your daughter healthy? She’s not fat, is she? WOMAN 2: No, no, no, she’s not fat. WOMAN 1: We just don’t want anybody overweight because my son is only 55 kilograms. | 01:04 |
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| CAMPBELL: Parents display their children’s photos and exchange vital statistics on prospects and income. | 01:19 |
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| WOMAN 1: What is her height? Is it over 1.6 metres? WOMAN 2: She’s about 1.64, 65. WOMAN 1: Is your daughter a member of the Party? WOMAN 2: No she’s not. She’s not very political. WOMAN 1: That’s OK, that’s OK. WOMAN 2: Then how should we contact each other? | 01:26 |
| Young parents with children at park | CAMPBELL: In this land of the one-child policy, they fear they could miss out on that most precious thing -- a grandchild. But increasingly, their gen-Y children see the world through different eyes. | 01:46 |
| Mia putting on makeup | Music | 02:02 |
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| CAMPBELL: As night falls, Mia Shuang Li is getting ready for what some might call the meat market. | 02:20 |
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| At 24, she has no interest in marrying for at least 10 years. Like all her friends, she just wants to have fun. | 02:30 |
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| MIA: Sex is a lot of fun. Sex is obviously more fun than movies or other kind of entertainment. And people nowadays are | 02:45 |
| Mia | crazy for entertainment. They feel this because the pressure in their work is so heavy, and they feel that they deserve to be entertained after dealing with so much stress. | 02:59 |
| Party boat | So they would go out and get sex, like to go out and get a big good burger or good sandwich . | 03:14 |
| Mia and Queenie board party boat | Music | 03:23 |
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| CAMPBELL: Mia and her best friend Queenie Wong Qing let us join them on the weekend prowl. | 03:33 |
| Mia and Queenie on party boat | Club Music | 03:39 |
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| MIA: Friday night is a preview. | 03:45 |
| Mia | Saturday night it’s the actual action. So you actually go there | 03:56 |
| Mia and Queenie on party boat | and if you see a guy you like you get his phone number, and you think ‘What’s the best way to approach him or to try to date him?’ | 04:03 |
| Mia | and you do that, and you ask him out. | 04:14 |
| Mia and Queenie at bar | Club Music | 04:17 |
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| CAMPBELL: In Beijing’s bar district of Sanlitun, there’s plenty of matching going on, but not much that will lead to marriage, or even a phone call a week later. | 04:24 |
| Club | Now this isn’t just a simple generational clash, because nowhere on Earth has changed as much as China has in the past 30 years, especially here in the capital. And for the parents of Beijing’s 20-somethings, life wasn’t just different -- it was like a different planet. | 04:48 |
| Archival Communist Film Of Women | Music | 04:56 |
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| CAMPBELL: From the 1950s to the early ‘80s, China’s Marxist fervour was matched only by its social prudishness. Unmarried women were effectively sexless means of production. Western dress and music were banned. So was sex outside marriage. | 04:59 |
| Li Jia | LI JIA: I remember while I was working at the factory, a colleague of mine was caught having an affair and he was sent to three years in labour camp. | 05:25 |
| Photo. Li Jia as young woman | CAMPBELL: As a teenager in the early ‘80s, Li Jia Zhang had to leave school to work in a rocket factory. LI JIA: When apply to get married, you have to get permission from your work unit. | 05:34 |
| Li Jia | And before you get that you have to go to the hospital to get check up and including if you are still a virgin. And they will state if you are still a virgin or not. | 05:45 |
| Beijing streets/ Young people | Music | 05:53 |
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| CAMPBELL: In less than a generation, Beijing women have traded Mao suits for fake Chanel. Most are staying single till their late 20s, leading a lifestyle their parents saw as Western decadence. | 06:04 |
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| Music | 06:18 |
| Mia at home in apartment | CAMPBELL: Mia lives alone and makes a living as a video producer. She’s never been outside China, but follows global trends through the internet. And she doesn’t want the distraction of a full-time boyfriend. | 06:23 |
| Mia | MIA: I think the focus for all my friends is their career, because China is developing so fast. Actually, all my friends are getting promoted so fast, you can’t believe it. Like a company would expand, maybe double its size in Beijing in maybe two months. So if you work for a company for two months you’re suddenly the head of sales. But if you date a guy for two months, that’s almost no progress. So just thinking about which one is worth more your investment of time, it’s easy to decide. It’s the career. | 06:38 |
| Queenie at work | Music | 07:25 |
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| CAMPBELL: At 23, Queenie is already a magazine editor with a dozen employees. QUEENIE: I think as a mature girl | 07:37 |
| Queenie at café with Mia and Li Jia | I feel like I’ve got to solve my own things first, and then like, consider love. Because love is not a like, guarantee for your life, so you have to survive in the society first. | 07:48 |
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| CAMPBELL: During a break from their busy schedules, she and Mia agreed to meet Li Jia for a coffee and chat. | 08:01 |
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| LI JIA: Now, it’s just amazing. They’re so young, so worldly and so experienced with men. | 08:08 |
| Li Jia | I don’t think I was kissed before I was 22. Now, looking back what a waste of time! | 08:14 |
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| CAMPBELL: Li Jia is now a well-travelled divorced mother of two and a successful writer. But she struggled for her freedom, leading pro-democracy protests in 1989. | 08:27 |
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| LI JIA: Today’s young people they are, just so different from us. They grew up in a very affluent society and no political turmoil and the most vast majority | 08:41 |
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| of urban girls, they are one-child children. They get lots of attention from family, so they have such a strong sense of entitlement. They’re certainly | 08:48 |
| Queenie sips drink | not shy. They’re very self centred very hedonistic, never shy in pursuing their money and pursuing material wealth, in pursuing career, love and sex. CAMPBELL: You don’t agree, you’re not self-centred? | 09:00 |
| Mia. Pan to Queenie | MIA: I’m not self-centred at all. Well, in contrary, I feel I have so much to offer, I have so much to give. I’ve so much to give to the people I love. QUEENIE: We just don’t want to be limited by anything else, like what limited like the last generation, right? | 09:12 |
| Parents at love market | CAMPBELL: Back at the love markets, anxious parents aren’t giving up trying. | 09:35 |
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| WOMAN: I heard that parents come to this park, so that’s why I am here. | 09:41 |
| Mother at market | I am worried because she’s a girl. If she’s a boy it wouldn’t matter but a girl can’t get too old before she marries. | 09:45 |
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| CAMPBELL: But in China’s new economy, this is one market that’s faltering as young women chase the uncertain dreams of Sex and the City. | 09:53 |
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| Music | 10:03 |
| Credits: | Reporter: Eric Campbell Producer: Mavourneen Dineen Camera: David Martin Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen | 10:08 |