BEIJING — Dating is hard at the best of times. In China the stakes are high from the outset: the expectation is that it should lead to marriage; never mind love for love’s sake.
即使萬(wàn)事俱備，相親也不是一件容易的事。在中國(guó)，相親從一開始就存在高風(fēng)險(xiǎn)：人們期望一段相親可以最終帶領(lǐng)他們走向婚姻，至于愛情，就顯得無(wú)關(guān)緊要了。

A friend recently went on a blind date in Beijing. Arriving at the coffee shop, he found not only the girl but her mother, too. Within minutes she bombarded him with questions: What does he earn? Where did he study? Does he own a house?
我的一位朋友最近參加了北京的一場(chǎng)相親會(huì)。當(dāng)他到達(dá)那家咖啡店時(shí)，他發(fā)現(xiàn)和相親對(duì)象同時(shí)出現(xiàn)的還有她的母親。短短幾分鐘內(nèi)那位母親向他扔出了一連串的問(wèn)題：你賺多少錢？你從哪里畢業(yè)的？你有房子嗎？

Romance in China is often sacrificed to practicality; dating has largely become a commercial transaction. In Beijing parents gather in parks to introduce their children to one another. Singles’ clubs set people up according to requirements — height, income, property. And tens of thousands descend on matchmaking events in cities like Shanghai looking for the perfect mate.
在中國(guó)，浪漫總是敗給現(xiàn)實(shí)；相親從很大程度上已經(jīng)變成了一種交易。在北京，有許多父母聚集在公園里，把自己的孩子介紹給多位異性。單身俱樂(lè)部把客戶按照他們的要求進(jìn)行劃分——身高、收入、財(cái)產(chǎn)。在上海這樣的城市里，成千上萬(wàn)的人們涌向各種相親活動(dòng)，期待找到那個(gè)完美伴侶。

For Chinese men today, being the perfect mate means having a car, an apartment, a good salary and, preferably, a tall stature. Women, meanwhile, must be married by 27; after that they are branded sheng nu or “l(fā)eftover women.” (This derogatory term — whose prefix “sheng” is the same word used in “l(fā)eftover food” — was listed as a new word in 2007 by the Chinese Ministry of Education).
對(duì)于當(dāng)今中國(guó)的男人們來(lái)說(shuō)，完美老公的定義是有車有房，高收入，如果身高也不錯(cuò)就更完美了。而女人們一定要在27歲之前嫁出去，否則就會(huì)被貼上“剩女”的標(biāo)簽。（“剩女”是一個(gè)貶義詞，其中“剩”和“剩飯”里的“?！笔且粋€(gè)意思，而這個(gè)詞已經(jīng)在2007年被中國(guó)教育部收錄為新詞。）

“Marriage in many ways in China is a way of pulling resources,” says Roseann Lake, a Beijing-based journalist researching a book on sheng nu. In one direction, at least. “The idea that a woman, no matter how successful she is professionally, is absolutely nothing until she is married — it still comes down to that.”
“中國(guó)的婚姻在許多方面就是財(cái)力的比拼，”一名常駐北京的記者羅斯安-雷克說(shuō)。她正在研究一本關(guān)于剩女的書。至少在某種程度上來(lái)說(shuō)是這樣的?！坝幸环N觀點(diǎn)認(rèn)為，一個(gè)女人無(wú)論在事業(yè)上多么成功，如果沒有結(jié)婚她就依然一無(wú)所有。而這種觀念依然大行其道?！?/div>

Matchmaking — through work units and family — was, and still is, commonplace. The one-child policy has further reinforced these expectations. With no welfare system in China, the young are expected to provide for the old: whom you marry matters for your entire family.
不管是過(guò)去還是現(xiàn)在，牽線配對(duì)依然非常普遍，無(wú)論是在工作單位還是在家庭環(huán)境中。計(jì)劃生育政策又進(jìn)一步助長(zhǎng)了這種觀念。由于中國(guó)欠缺社會(huì)福利體系，人們普遍認(rèn)為年輕人應(yīng)該供養(yǎng)老人。因此你和誰(shuí)結(jié)婚事關(guān)整個(gè)家庭。

These concerns aren’t evenly shared, and they expose something of a generation gap. Children of the 1980s and 1990s — who were born in better economic times and fed on pop music and movies — are in less of a hurry to get married than their parents were.
并不是所有人都認(rèn)同這種觀念，這也從某種程度上反映出了代溝。生于80和90年代的孩子享受了更好的經(jīng)濟(jì)環(huán)境，他們聽著流行音樂(lè)、看著電影長(zhǎng)大——他們對(duì)于婚姻的渴望并不像他們的父輩那樣強(qiáng)烈。

The best-selling author Wang Hailing, who wrote “Divorce with Chinese Characteristics,” relays stories of pushy mothers on her micro-blog. One told her daughter to attend blind dates while she’s still at a “valuable” age.
暢銷書作家、《中國(guó)式離婚》的作者王海鸰在她的微博上連載心急的媽媽們的故事。有一位母親讓自己的女兒去相親，雖然她的女兒還沒有到“剩女”的年紀(jì)。

Xie Yujie, a 26-year-old resident of Wenzhou, a city of more than nine million some 230 miles south of Shanghai, is unmarried. Despite a promising career as a nurse, her parents remind her daily of her filial duties to find a husband. Xie is looking for love, but her parents chastise her for not being more practical. “Money worship and materialism is the reality,” she explained last week.?
26歲的謝玉潔（音）還是單身，她來(lái)自溫州，一個(gè)有900多萬(wàn)人口、位于上海以南大約230英里的城市。她是一名護(hù)士，雖然這個(gè)職業(yè)不錯(cuò)，她的父母依然每天提醒她要找老公以盡孝道。謝玉潔想要追尋真愛，可她的父母卻怪她太不現(xiàn)實(shí)?！鞍萁鹬髁x和物質(zhì)主義才是現(xiàn)實(shí)，” 她解釋說(shuō)。

And so now some single women in Chengdu, in southwest China, pay more than $3,100 for a special training course in how to snag a millionaire husband.
而在中國(guó)西南部的城市成都，有些單身女性花了3100多美元參加特殊訓(xùn)練課，培訓(xùn)的主題是如何釣到富豪老公。

These are extremes, of course, but the pressures are real. Although China’s skewed birth rate means there will be a surplus of about 24 million men in China by 2020, the majority of these bachelors will live in rural areas. In major cities — where the rate of housing costs to income can reach 12:1 — finding a good match is a constant worry for educated, ambitious women.
當(dāng)然這些都是極端的例子，但這種壓力是真實(shí)存在的。雖然中國(guó)畸形的出生率意味著到2020年，中國(guó)會(huì)有2400萬(wàn)男性可能會(huì)打光棍，但這些人大部分還是會(huì)生活在農(nóng)村地區(qū)。而在一些房?jī)r(jià)和收入的比例高達(dá)12:1的大城市，對(duì)于那些受過(guò)良好教育、有雄心壯志的女性來(lái)說(shuō)，找一個(gè)好老公依然是讓她們一直焦慮的問(wèn)題。

They’ll be looking not just for a fetching smile or that spark of chemistry, but also for the promise of money and connections.
對(duì)于那些參加相親會(huì)的人來(lái)說(shuō)，他們不僅僅在尋找一個(gè)迷人的微笑或是愛情的火花，他們更期待的是金錢和關(guān)系上的保證。