"What kind of family acts like strangers after getting married?" Comrade Lao Sun added, speaking a fair word.
These words would never have been spoken by his parents in the past, but now that he was divorced, they naturally spoke their minds freely.
However, his statent had a bit of a conversation-stopper vibe to it. The room fell silent in an instant.
"Alright, Old Sun, if you can’t say anything nice, then shut your mouth."
"Da Sheng, your dad didn’t an it like that. It’s just that you co ho so rarely, he..." Madam Xie hurriedly tried to patch things up.
Sun Dasheng cut her off. "Mom, you don’t have to say anything. Dad wasn’t wrong."
"It’s always the son’s fault. Once he gets a wife, he forgets his mother."
"Da Sheng, that’s not what I ant at all," Madam Xie quickly denied.
Her son was still a good son. Even though the daughter-in-law she’d barely t never visited for the New Year, he still insisted on coming ho by himself. He never did the shaful thing of abandoning his own family to spend every holiday at his wife’s parents’ house.
"Right, right, right, your mom and I aren’t blaming you," Comrade Lao Sun quickly chid in.
"Dad, Mom, don’t worry. Sothing like that will never happen again," he said, looking at his parents’ graying temples and hating his forr, selfish self.
"Of course I’m not worried! Your mom has already personally scouted several potential blind dates for you. They’re all local girls from families we know well," Comrade Lao Sun let the cat out of the bag.
"Huh?"
Sun Dasheng froze for a mont but quickly composed himself.
"Mom, there’s no need for blind dates, is there?" he said, but his mother acted as if she hadn’t heard him.
She went to her room and returned with a notebook.
The notebook was filled with notes—all detailed information about the won.
"I’m just letting you take a look. If you’re not satisfied, Mom won’t force you into marriage," Madam Xie said as she handed the notebook to her son.
Sun Dasheng took it and flipped it open.
Impressive.
The notes inside were more serious and ticulous than any he had ever taken in school.
Following each woman’s information, the details Madam Xie had personally verified were marked with a red checkmark. Other unconfird pieces of information were marked with a blue question mark.
"Mom, you have the potential to be a great matchmaker. How about I set up a matchmaking shop for you at ho? It would give you sothing to do besides dancing," Sun Dasheng said with a laugh, placing the notebook on the table.
"Get out of here!" Madam Xie picked up the notebook and playfully smacked her son with it. "Are you trying to throw your mother into a pit of fire?"
"Huh? Why would you say that?" Sun Dasheng asked, surprised.
Co to think of it, the suggestion to open a matchmaking shop had been a casual remark, but now that he’d said it aloud, it suddenly seed quite feasible. It wasn’t even about the money. It would be great for his mother to have sothing she enjoyed doing. It would keep her from spending all day playing cards or betting on horses like the other old folks.
Madam Xie took the notebook back, returned to her seat at the kang table, and said, "Don’t assu matchmaking is easy just because there are more unmarried won than n in our small county."
"Being a matchmaker here ans getting nagged to death."
"Why? Are their standards too high, like the ’leftover won’ in the big cities?" Sun Dasheng knew very little about the marital landscape in small counties; you could say he was completely in the dark.
Nowadays, the mainstream dia mostly reports on the large number of "leftover won" in big cities and the surplus of bachelors in rural areas. Small counties, which fell in between, received little attention.
"That’s not it," Madam Xie said, shaking her head. Then she asked, "What kind of won do you think are the ones left over in the county?"
Sun Dasheng thought for a mont before shaking his head. He truly didn’t know.
"Most of them work within the system or in related fields: civil servants, employees at public institutions, contract staff for related agencies, and then there are teachers, doctors, and the like."
Madam Xie rattled off this information effortlessly. After all, she was a retired civil servant from the small county’s system herself and had her own channels for information.
"These won all want to find n with similar jobs within the system, and their standards are perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, these jobs only pay a few thousand a month and don’t attract exceptional n. That’s why seven or eight out of ten employees in these institutions are won. How are they supposed to find a suitable match?"
Sun Dasheng nodded in understanding. Jobs within the system in a small county didn’t appeal to outstanding n. This resulted in a mismatch between the sexes, making it nearly impossible for unmarried won to find a partner with a similar background.
"I see plenty of businesses on the street, and a lot of the owners are n. Shouldn’t they be pretty good catches?" Sun Dasheng figured these financially successful n would be in high demand.
Madam Xie shook her head, dismissing his idea. "It’s rare for won from the system to marry these small-ti private business owners. First, the won themselves look down on them. Second, their families look down on them. They all want their daughters to marry n with stable jobs."
"And that brings us back to the original problem. There just aren’t many n in the small county with stable ’iron rice bowl’ jobs. The pay is too low; they can barely support a family, let alone afford the bride price, a house, and a car required for marriage."
"According to statistics, there are currently about fifteen million ’leftover won’ within the system in small counties."
Sun Dasheng finally understood why his mother said being a matchmaker would be like throwing her into a pit of fire. The marriage market here was terrifying—in so ways, even more so than in the big cities.
At least in the big cities, there were plenty of outstanding n, so the "leftover won" still had a chance to turn things around. In a small county, finding a man they considered "good" was like praying for a miracle.
"Now I see how you managed to find a whole notebook full of potential dates for so quickly, Madam Xie," Sun Dasheng said. "They’re all those ’leftover won.’"
Reviews
All reviews (0)