How lonely single men created China's dangerous real estate bubble.
BEIJING — When Xiaobo Zhang got married in the early 1990s, he and his bride, like millions of other couples across China, were given a small room to live in by his danwei, or work unit. At the time a lecturer at Nankai University in Tianjin, Zhang's room was utilitarian and unremarkable, virtually indistinguishable from the ones inhabited by his colleagues. In a word: average.
In the China of the 1990s, which was characterized by a pubescent limbo between the economic reforms of the 1980s and the last decade's explosive growth, Zhang recalls that mostly everyone was average. People were neatly packed into work units, generally laboring under the same conditions, eating in the same canteens, and sleeping in the same blocks of industrial-looking housing provided by their employers. There was little disparity in salaries, and few cars and luxury handbags to spend those salaries on.
During these times, Zhang explained, occupants paid minimal rent for their work-unit housing -- which was issued based on seniority, family size, and rank -- and could essentially stay in it forever. There was no legal market for buying and selling property in China, even in rural areas without employer-provided housing, where families built their own homes. Then, in 1998, the Chinese real estate market was born. It began with a decision by the Chinese State Council to monetize housing in an attempt to develop a commercial private market for real estate. In other words, instead of just providing apartments for lifetime occupancy, companies, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies began to give their employees the option to purchase the housing they lived in. Fourteen years and a serious housing construction boom later, China's property market has allowed for one of the world's largest accumulations of real estate wealth in history, valued at $17 trillion in mid-2010 by HSBC Global Research and worth some 3.27 times China's GDP. (To better understand the scope of the construction boom that precipitated this massive accumulation of wealth, it's worth noting that between 1998 and 2008 alone, 14.4 billion square meters of residential housing space were constructed in China, according to China Statistical Yearbook figures. That's equivalent to 160 times all the residential space on the entire island of Manhattan.)
This is where the definition of "average" in China starts to go a little wonky.
As a result of the real estate boom, reports in Chinese media indicate that the average property in a top-tier Chinese city now costs between 15 and 20 times the average annual salary, though J.P. Morgan reports indicate something closer to 13. (For purposes of comparison, in most of the world's cities, the housing-cost-to-income ratio hovers between 3-to-1 and 6-to-1, rounding out at about 3-to-1 in the United States.) This is especially problematic in China, where thanks to still-prevalent Confucian ideals of the male as the "provider, " home ownership has become an unspoken prerequisite to marriage.
It's a tough, competitive life for men in China these days, in part due to the aftershocks of the one-child policy, which has left the country with a gaping gender imbalance of 120 boys for every 100 girls. Author Mara Hvistendahl reports in her book, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, that by late 2020, 15 percent (or roughly one in six) Chinese men of marriageable age will be unable to find a bride. She predicts that China will see an increase in what's already happening in Taiwan and South Korea, where men doomed to bachelorhood as a result of gender imbalance are boarding planes to Vietnam. Roughly $10, 000 covers their flight, room and board, and the price of a Vietnamese wife, according to Hvistendahl, and this practice has become so common that the imported wives "get a booklet translated into Vietnamese explaining their rights when they get married at the Taiwanese Consulate."
Although instances of bride-buying and bride-napping are often reported in China, men are also turning to the web in the face of increasingly heavy competition to attract a mate. On China's mega microblogging website, Sina Weibo, a page called "Save a Single Police Officer" was created by the deputy director of a police station in Sichuan province to help his employees find a spouse. He feared that given the gender imbalance and the grueling work hours of his men, they would become guang gun, or "bare branches, " a term usually used to describe men in China who cannot find a wife.
The page launched this February with the profiles of five police officers, including a strapping young man with a gun who goes by the name of "Cola427." Offering a mix of local news, weather reports, and the profiles of single officers (including some female ones) who have been added to the mix, the page now has more than 55, 000 followers. This July, a post encouraged all citizens to rejoice because Cola427 (with over 6, 000 followers of his own), age 29, measuring in at 1.78 meters and 70 kilos, had found the love of his life through the site.
Millions of other Chinese men are not so lucky. While the most disadvantaged are the country's poor male farmers, who now live at society's rock bottom in rural villages devoid of women their age (as females tend to leave in search of better jobs and marriage prospects), the marriage challenge is rippling its way up through the classes. It is manifested most clearly in China's real estate market, where -- given the highly desirable nature of property -- men are pouring all their savings as a means of improving their chances of finding Mrs. Right, or any Mrs. for that matter.
"Mathematically, they can't get married, " says Zhang, referring to younger Chinese men and their double burden of financial demands and the shortage of available women to marry. In 1994, he moved out of his danwei to study for a Ph.D. at Cornell University in the United States. Today, he works as a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington and as a professor at Peking University. Along with Columbia University economist Shang-Jin Wei, he has published several studies on China's economic growth, including one that shows how 30 to 48 percent (or $8 trillion worth) of the real estate appreciation in 35 major Chinese cities is directly correlated with China's sex-ratio imbalance and a man's need to acquire wealth (property) in order to attract a wife.
"Mother-in-law syndrome" -- the idea that Chinese mothers-in-law are driving up the price of real estate by refusing to allow their daughters to marry men who are not homeowners -- has been widely reported in China, but Zhang and Wei take things a step further. They show how Chinese cities with the highest ratio of men to women are also consistently the ones with the highest percentages of real estate appreciation, which follows the logic that fewer women means more competition among men and a greater need for a flashy house. At the same time, rental prices in these cities have increased minimally by comparison, lending credence to the theory that the rise in real estate prices is not driven by an actual demand for housing, but by the demand to own a house.
This demand has no doubt contributed to fears over China's housing bubble, which has been the source of concerned speculation now that China's economic growth has slowed to 7.6 percent, the lowest since 2009. A recent IMF publication shows how a decline in the Chinese real estate market could do everything from affect the price of zinc and nickel to trigger a trade slowdown with South Korea, Japan, and other G-20 partners. Yet from the marriage-market perspective, the demand for property appears unrelenting.
Berlin Fang, a columnist, literary translator, and associate director at the North Institute for Teaching and Learning at Oklahoma Christian University, argues that the demands of the marriage market and China's relatively new market economy are so heavy that "Chinese men have lost the ability to be average." Like Zhang, he recalls the days of the danwei with bittersweet nostalgia, as a time when people weren't so quick to size each other up in terms of their market value. There was a certain comfort and ease to being average, one that has become extinct, given the extreme competition to be one of the "haves." In such a densely populated country, Fang insists that "average is the new mediocre."
The distinction between "average" and "mediocre" is one that has been ticking on the Chinese national psyche, as indicated by one of the questions on last year's gaokao, China's notorious college entrance exam:
Fang notes that the question was a source of heated debate, as there were concerns that today's students might not be able to distinguish between "mediocre" and "average." In a country where the social pressure to excel is so acute and mediocrity is rarely an option, Fang agrees that the question is knotty. He suspects it was designed to make students understand that it's acceptable to be average, so long as it's an aspirational average, not a feckless one.
Examples of responses that earned perfect scores can be found on Chinese news portal Sina.com, including one that tells the story of Wang Xiaobo. Following a subpar performance at the office, Wang does not receive the bonus he was expecting. When, over a meal of freshly prepared fish, he reveals to his wife that he was denied his bonus, she, "putting down her chopsticks and losing color in her face, " laments that she is destined to live a lowly life, having such a good-for-nothing husband. After nursing his woes with a bit of alcohol, Wang hands his life savings over to a shady investment banker and eventually loses everything. Naturally, he heads to a lake to commit suicide, but instead ends up saving a nearby drowning woman. This good deed restores his honor, and he eventually becomes the hardworking, well-earning man whom his wife wants him to be.
While Wang's story certainly reflects a triumph over mediocrity, the fact that his wife's well-being is so dependent on his financial performance, and that Wang is so clearly depicted as her provider, reflects how ingrained these ideas remain in modern Chinese society.
Yet because it's nearly economically impossible for most Chinese men -- average or otherwise -- to be the providers they aspire to be, they frequently have to rely on their parents for financial support. This is a slippery slope, as it often gives progenitors more control than warranted over their son's choice of a partner, but Chinese parents -- keen to have their sons dutifully snuggled into wedlock -- gladly chip in. Zhang and Wei's study shows how this plays into China's household savings rate, which at 30 percent is among the world's highest. They argue that this fact is of particular economic concern, as the high marriage-related savings rate contributes to China's current account surplus, which in turn drives down China's exchange rate and perpetuates the global trade imbalance.
"It's completely unsustainable, " says Zhang, arguing that the exact opposite -- less saving, more spending -- is what China's economy needs to keep afloat. But because men need to buy homes, they save. And because their demand for homes drives up real estate property, everyone else must save too, in order to keep up.
Seventy-one percent of single women prefer that their future husbands be homeowners, according to the 2010 Marriage Market Survey in China. It is culturally approved -- even expected -- for a woman to "free-ride" and move into her husband's house without making any contributions to it, but given the astronomical cost of housing, more women are helping to cover costs too. Doctoral research by Leta Hong Fincher of Tsinghua University focuses on Chinese women who are pitching in, if not shouldering, the joint purchase of a home with their husbands. She points out that this may work to their disadvantage down the road. Due to traditional, yet increasingly improbable, ideals of the man as the sole provider, homes are generally registered under a man's name. According to Chinese law, property belongs only to the person whose name it is registered under, so in the event of a divorce, women who are not listed as co-owners will lose out on financial contributions to their former marital home. Fincher also cites instances in which young women are hassled by parents into transferring their life's savings to a bachelor relative, so he can use the money to buy a house and increase his chances of finding a wife. Because it is assumed that a woman will marry into a house, the logic goes that she has a less pressing need for savings of her own.
On the other hand, women who are homeowners before marriage are considered better off, and this can actually improve their chances of "marrying up" into the echelons of moneyed men who have bigger houses than they do. Jeannie Wang, 29, of Beijing, is one of those women. Well-employed at a major auditing firm, she purchased an apartment as an investment and plans to live at home with her parents until marriage. "Ideally, I would like a man to also have a house of his own, or at least the earning potential so that we can buy one together, " she says, slightly concerned that having a man move into her house would humiliate him. "I wouldn't mind so much if I really cared for him, but it's something I think few Chinese men would go for."
Her case illustrates the double-edged nature of female property ownership in China. Own something, and it might allow you to marry someone with something bigger. Own something too big, and it could intimidate potential suitors.
For men, however, bigger is always better. Zhang recalls visiting villages in China that were bedizened with a "phantom third story." This type of construction refers to a two-story house with an unfurnished, unfinished third story built to make the house appear more grandiose from the outside. The trend has taken off in neighborhoods where the competition for a wife is particularly fierce; in some areas, it has become mainstream to the extent that matchmakers won't schedule an appointment with a man's family unless his house has the requisite phantom floor.
On a more recent trip to China, Zhang landed in the southwestern city of Guizhou with a colleague from an Ohio university who was puzzled to find himself in what appeared to be an entire village full of churches. As it turns out, in addition to phantom third stories, owners are competing to add height to their homes by upping the size of the lightning rods on their rooftops. And the bigger they get, the more they look like crosses.
The most alarming thing about these budding basilicas may be that the majority of them remain empty. After they are used to bait prospective wives, the newlyweds often migrate to larger cities. Zhang says this is known as the "two-rat" phenomenon, as it refers to the migrant couples who live in urban, underground rented rooms like rats -- and, yes, sometimes also with rats -- while their large, rural houses are left vacant. This phenomenon begins to explain why there are some 64.5 million empty houses in China, according to economist Yi Xianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Wei and Zhang estimate that the pressure to accumulate wealth for marriage is responsible for 20 percent of the growth of the Chinese economy, as men scramble to start businesses and secure high-paying jobs in order to keep up with expenses. The word fangnu is an example of their struggle. Literally translated, it means "a slave to the home" and refers not to a woman who is a slave to housework, but in most cases, to a man who must slave at his job in order to afford a house and, by extension, a wife.
Sensing the challenges faced by Chinese men in the dating and marriage departments, 29-year-old Vincent Qi is trying to make a difference. Born in China, he went to college in Britain and speaks English like an over-caffeinated grad student. Now in Beijing, he calls himself "The Lady Whisperer" and markets himself as an online guru on how to get women. Qi also teaches online classes on confidence-building, self-improvement, and how to be an all-around better man. He has over 4, 000 followers on China's Weibo, and just three months since the online launch of his tuition-based school, he has attracted over 100 students -- all male, and all rather average. They include a motley mix of students, small-online-shop owners, and working professionals on various rungs of the career ladder.
"Socially, we [Chinese men] need to be average, " says Qi, stressing that "China is not a culture that values individuality." He is quick to add, however, that from a monetary perspective, it's highly preferable to be well above average. This creates a paradox for China's "average Zhou": how to be far enough above average to be respected, without exceeding the culturally enforced limitations of what is considered respectably above average?
One of Qi's students, 28-year-old Rodman Xie, thinks he is close to finding the answer.
"I took the gaokao three times and still only managed to get into a very average university, " he says. "By societal standards, I've failed at many things, but I've never stopped setting goals for myself, and that's what keeps me going." He admits that though things seemed easier in the days of the almighty work unit, he wouldn't trade that kind of stability for what he describes as "the diversity that contributes to a healthy society -- the sort of diversity that we're starting to have now."
A native of China's northeast, or Dongbei region, Xie works in marketing at an export company in Shanghai, a city that he admits wasn't his first choice, but where he moved for the opportunities. He describes the women there as "materialistic, " but seems relatively unshaken by the doom and gloom of the gender imbalance.
He explains that in addition to a whole lot of stress, the last 30 years in China -- his lifetime -- have also brought a whole new realm of possibilities. "We can change cities, change careers, pursue our interests, meet people from all over the world, and sometimes even travel to foreign countries, " says Xie. "And for now, that kind of average is good enough for me.
不斷擴大的單身人群
20世紀90年代早期張曉波（音）結(jié)婚的時候，和其他數(shù)百萬夫婦一樣，他和妻子一起搬進了單位分給他的一間小房子里。當時他是天津南開大學的一名老師，分到的房子實用而普通 幾乎和同事們住的房子沒什么區(qū)別。就一個詞:普通。
由于80年代的經(jīng)濟改革及過去10年里經(jīng)濟的迅猛發(fā)展，20世紀90年代的中國正處于茫然的青春期。張回憶說，幾乎每個人都很普通，大家都穿著整齊的工作服，在同樣的環(huán)境下工作，在同樣的食堂吃飯，在同樣的單位發(fā)放的工裝房里睡覺。每個人的工資也沒太大差別，就算有錢也沒地方去買車或者奢侈的手提包。
張解釋說，那時候單位分房或論資排輩，或看家里人口多少或看職位高低。住戶只需付很少的房租，而且?guī)缀跏强梢砸恢弊∠氯サ摹Ｄ菚r候中國沒有買賣房產(chǎn)的合法市場。在農(nóng)村雖然沒有單位住房，但是人們都自己蓋房。1998年，中國國務院決定將房屋貨幣化，希望以此形成民營房地產(chǎn)商業(yè)市場，中國房地產(chǎn)市場隨之產(chǎn)生。換句話說，公司，非營利性組織和國際機構(gòu)開始給員工們買下租房的權(quán)利，取代了之前只提供長久居住單位房的做法。14年過去了，在經(jīng)歷了一番住房建筑熱潮后，中國房地產(chǎn)市場已經(jīng)成為有史以來世界上最大的房地產(chǎn)財富聚集地之一，據(jù)匯豐銀行全球研究報告顯示，2010年房地產(chǎn)財富總值為17兆億美元，是中國國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值的3.27倍。要更好地了解這輪住房建筑熱何以帶來如此巨大的財富積累，可以看中國統(tǒng)計年鑒，僅在1998年到2008年間，中國共增加住房用地1440億平方米。而這相當于整個曼哈頓所有居住用地的160倍。
至此“普通”這一概念在中國開始改變。
據(jù)中國媒體報道，由于房地產(chǎn)熱，中國一線城市的普通房產(chǎn)要價約為人們平均年收入的15到20倍，而摩根大通報告顯示約為13倍。世界上大多數(shù)城市的房價和收入比在3:1到6:1之間浮動，美國房價與收入比大約是3:1。這在中國是很大的問題，因為大多數(shù)中國人仍然堅持男人是一家之主的傳統(tǒng)儒家思想，自有住房就成了不言而喻的結(jié)婚前提條件。
如今中國男人的生活很不容易而且競爭激烈。部分原因是獨生子女政策造成國內(nèi)性別嚴重失衡。中國男女新生兒的比例達到了121比100。資深作家哈維坦多在她的《非自然選擇：重男輕女，后果是一個世界全是男人》一書中寫道，到2020年底，中國將有15%（大約為6個里面有1個）的適齡男子找不到配偶。她預測，未來中國會和現(xiàn)在的臺灣和韓國一樣，越來越多的男人由于性別失衡成為單身漢，選擇飛往越南。哈維坦多還指出，花在來回航班，住宿，和娶回一個越南妻子上的錢大約得10000美元。而且現(xiàn)在這種做法非常普遍，這些從越南來的妻子甚至“可以從臺灣領(lǐng)事館得到一本翻譯成越南語的小冊子，上面解釋了他們結(jié)婚后有什么權(quán)利”。
盡管中國也有買婚、搶婚的相關(guān)報道，但男人們面對日益嚴峻的競爭態(tài)勢也開始把注意力轉(zhuǎn)向微博。在中國大型微博網(wǎng)站上，四川省一名警察局副局長創(chuàng)建了名為“拯救單身警察”的專頁，幫他的下屬找對象。他擔心性別失衡和艱苦的工作讓他們變成光棍。在中國“光棍”常被用于指找不見老婆的男人。
該頁2月份創(chuàng)建，上面有5名警察的個人資料，其中有一個持槍的魁梧的年青男警察，名叫“可樂427”。主頁上有當?shù)匦侣劊鞖忸A報，和后來加上去的單身警察的個人資料（包括一些女警察），現(xiàn)在已有55000多名支持者。今年7月，一個貼子讓所有人都感到高興，因為29歲，身高1.78米，體重70公斤的可樂427（他本身就有超過6000人的支持者）終于找到了他的愛情。
然而其他數(shù)十萬中國男人并不是像他那樣幸運。其中最不幸的要數(shù)生活在農(nóng)村社會底層的男性農(nóng)民，他們很窮而且沒有適合他們年齡的女性（因為大多數(shù)女性為了更好地工作或婚姻都離開農(nóng)村）。但是這種婚姻挑戰(zhàn)已經(jīng)迅速蔓延到了社會的各個階層。這在中國房地產(chǎn)市場上表現(xiàn)的淋漓盡致。除了房產(chǎn)本身的吸引力外，男人們傾其所有儲蓄購買房子希望以此增加找見“白雪公主”的機會。
張在提到現(xiàn)在中國年輕男性面臨的經(jīng)濟需求及適婚對象短缺的雙重壓力時說，“理論上講，他們要結(jié)婚很難?！?/p>
1994年，他搬出單位住房前往美國康奈爾大學攻讀博士學位，現(xiàn)在在位于華盛頓的國際糧食政策研究所任高級研究員。他與哥倫比亞大學經(jīng)濟學家魏尚金（音）一起發(fā)表了一些關(guān)于中國經(jīng)濟增長的研究。其中一份研究顯示，在中國35個大城市里，30%到40%的房產(chǎn)升值（價值8兆億美元）與中國的性別失衡及想要找到配偶的男性的購房需求有直接關(guān)系。
一種觀點認為中國的岳母拒絕讓自己的女兒嫁給沒有房子的男性也導致了房價的上漲。這種觀點被稱為“岳母綜合癥”，在中國被廣泛報道。但張和魏的研究更加深入。據(jù)他們的研究顯示中國男女比例最高的城市也是房產(chǎn)升值百分比最高的城市。這也就意味著一個城市里女性越少，男性之間的競爭就越激烈，房子的需求也就越大。與此同時，這些城市里的房租價格僅有小幅度的增長，因此人們越來越相信，房價上漲并不是因為想要房子住，而僅僅是要有一套房子。
這種需求無疑引起人們對于中國房地產(chǎn)泡沫的擔心，有人猜測，正是房地產(chǎn)泡沫造成中國經(jīng)濟發(fā)展放緩至7.6%，這是自2009年以來的最低數(shù)值。國際貨幣基金組織的一份最新刊物顯示，中國房地產(chǎn)市場的萎縮會影響方方面面，包括鋅、鎳的價格以及減少中國與韓國、日本和其它20國集團國家的貿(mào)易。
方柏林（音）是一個專欄作家和文學翻譯家，現(xiàn)任俄克拉荷馬基督大學教育學院協(xié)同董事。他認為婚姻市場的需求和中國相對較新的市場經(jīng)濟給中國男性帶來的很大的壓力，“他們已經(jīng)失去了成為平凡人的能力”。和張一樣，他也很懷念以前苦樂參半的單位生活。當時，人們并不忙著就自己的市場價值你追我趕。作個普通人很自在。然而現(xiàn)在這種自在的舒適已經(jīng)消失了，人們都搶著成為“富人”。方還說道，在一個人口這么多的國家里，“平凡就意味著新的平庸”。
中國人一直在強調(diào)“平凡”和“平庸”的區(qū)別，這一點從去年的一道高考題目中就可一窺一二。高考即中國眾所周知的大學入學考試。
“請以拒絕平庸為題，不避平凡，不可平庸，為人不可平庸，平庸便無創(chuàng)造，無發(fā)展，無上進。處世不可平庸，因此，要有原則，有鑒識，有堅守。不少于800字，除詩歌外文體不限。”（譯者注：中文題目來源：新浪教育）
方指出，這個題目引起了激烈的討論，因為有人擔心現(xiàn)在的學生可能不知道“平庸”和“平凡”的區(qū)別。在中國這樣一個人人都想要出類拔萃的社會大環(huán)境下，沒有人想選擇平庸，方也覺得這個題目很困難。他懷疑出這道題目是想讓學生們明白，平凡是可以接受的，只要你想要要做一個積極向上的平凡人，而不是一個一事無成的平凡人。
在中國新聞門戶網(wǎng)站新浪網(wǎng)上有很多令人滿意的回復，其中一個講述了王曉波（音）的故事。由于在工作中的不佳表現(xiàn)，王沒有獲得預期的獎金。妻子在家為他準備了新鮮的魚湯，吃飯的時候，他說自己沒有拿到獎金。妻子頓時“放下筷子，面容失色”，抱怨說有這么一個飯桶老公，看來自己只能過苦日子了。對酒消愁后，王把所有的積蓄交給了一家靠不住的銀行，血本無歸。于是他便跑去湖邊跳湖，結(jié)果卻救了附近一個溺水的女孩。這種見義勇為廣受褒揚，最終他變成了妻子希望的那樣，工作努力，收入也很豐厚。
雖然王曉波（音）的故事證明了人可以戰(zhàn)勝平庸，但是卻反映出現(xiàn)代中國社會一個根深蒂固的思想：他的妻子的幸福完全依賴于他的經(jīng)濟狀況，王曉波一人維持著家里的生計。
然而，大多數(shù)中國男人--無論普通與否--在經(jīng)濟上都幾乎不可能滿足他想要達到的程度，因此他們經(jīng)常不得不依賴父母的幫助。這樣很危險，因為父母往往因此對于兒子在選擇對象上有更大的控制權(quán)。但是中國父母認為自己有責任讓兒子擁有幸福的婚姻，所以愿意提供經(jīng)濟上的幫助。張和魏的研究表明這對中國居民儲蓄率也產(chǎn)生了影響?；橐龃婵钫伎們π畹?0%，比例之高為世界之最。他們認為這一事實會帶來經(jīng)濟上的擔憂，因為高婚姻儲蓄率造成中國目前賬戶盈余，這反過來降低了匯率，使全球貿(mào)易不平衡的問題持續(xù)下去。
“這完全是不可持續(xù)的，”張說，同時他還指出，少存錢多消費才是中國經(jīng)濟持續(xù)發(fā)展所需要的。但是由于男人需要買房，所以他們存錢。而他們對于房子的需求又促使房價上漲，其他人又不得不存錢。
據(jù)2000年中國婚姻市場調(diào)查顯示，71%的單身女性希望自己未來的丈夫有房子。中國人歷來都認為女孩子嫁人就應該直接搬進丈夫家中，不需做任何貢獻。考慮到如今天文般的數(shù)字的高房價，越來越多的女性也會盡自己的一份力幫助未婚夫。清華大學的Leta Hong Fincher博士主要研究和丈夫共同分擔買房的女性。她指出這長久下去女性會吃虧。中國的傳統(tǒng)思想是男人是家里唯一的經(jīng)濟來源，因此一般情況下，房主都是男人的名字，但這種傳統(tǒng)思想正變得越來越不可能成為現(xiàn)實。根據(jù)中國相關(guān)法律，房子只屬于房主。所以倘若離婚，女性由于沒被列為房子的共同擁有人而吃虧。Fincher還舉例說，有些女性還不停地被父母嘮叨，要她們把存款給單身的男性親人，這樣他們就可以用這些錢買房，更有可能找到妻子。因為人們都認為女人嫁人的時候會有一座房子，所以她們不是那么迫切的需要存錢。
另一方面，有房的未婚女性被認為很富裕，這使得她們更有機會“攀高枝”，即嫁給有更大房子的有錢男人。29歲的北京女孩王珍妮（音）就是一個例子。她在一家大型的審計公司工作，購買了一套房用于投資，計劃結(jié)婚前和父母住在家里。她說：“我未來的丈夫最好有自己的房子，或者至少在經(jīng)濟上有以后買房的能力”。她有點擔心，如果讓未來的丈夫搬進自己的房子住會讓他感覺沒面子?！叭绻艺娴南矚g他，我不會在乎這些，但是我估計很少中國男人會這么做?！?/p>
她的情況反映出在中國女性擁有房子的利與弊。如果有房，你可能嫁給一個有更大的房子的人。如果你的房太大，反而可能嚇跑那些想要追求你的人。
然而對于男性來說，房子越大越好。張回憶說，自己曾去參觀過一些村莊，那些村莊里滿是“虛幻第三層”的房子。這種房子其實是兩層，但是上面還有一不完整的一層，不擺放任何家具，為的是使房子外觀看起來更宏偉。這種趨勢已經(jīng)在一些周邊地區(qū)流行開來，那些地區(qū)，男人們之間的競爭往往尤為激烈。在一些地區(qū)甚至成為了必需品，如果男方家里沒有這樣的房子，媒人就不會給他家里安排見面。
最近一次去中國的時候，張和一位俄亥俄大學的一位同事一起去了西南城市貴州。他的同事發(fā)現(xiàn)那里的村莊滿是教堂感覺很迷惑。原來除了“虛幻第三層”的房子，房主們又開始比誰的房子高，通過加大房頂避雷針的高度增加房子的高度。結(jié)果，避雷針越大，看起來越像十字架。
最令人震驚的是，這些看似教堂的房子大多數(shù)都是空的。一開始房子只是用來吸引未來的妻子，結(jié)婚后，他們往往會搬往大城市。張說這就是所謂的“兩鼠”現(xiàn)象。指的是農(nóng)民工夫婦像老鼠一樣住在租賃的城市的地下室里—地下室里也有老鼠—然而農(nóng)村家里的大房子卻閑置著。中國社科院經(jīng)濟學家易艷榮（音）說，這種現(xiàn)象就解釋了為什么中國有大約6450萬座閑置房屋。
據(jù)王和魏統(tǒng)計，由于結(jié)婚壓力，男人們爭相做生意，找高薪工作，這大約占了中國經(jīng)濟增長的20%?！胺颗币辉~就可以看出他們的艱難處境。字面意思就是“房子的奴隸”。它不是指女人是家務的奴隸，大多數(shù)情況下，指的是男人為了房子，妻子，不得不成為工作的奴隸。
29歲的文森特·齊（音）看到中國男人在約會和婚姻方面面臨的困難，想要做出一些改變。他在中國出生，后來去英國讀研究生，說一口流利的英語。現(xiàn)在在北京，他自稱是“女性專家”，在網(wǎng)上宣傳自己是懂得如何找到對象的專家。他的微博關(guān)注超過4000多人，而且他的網(wǎng)上收費課程開設僅僅三個月后，就吸引了100多個學員—全是平凡的男人，其中有學生、網(wǎng)店店主，以及不同職業(yè)不同職位的工作人士。
齊說：“在社會中，我們（中國男人）需要是普通人”，又強調(diào)說，“中國社會不喜歡個人主義?！比欢芸煅a充道在錢這方面，大家都希望可以高于普通人。這就很矛盾，到底高于普通人多少是沒有超越傳統(tǒng)界限的，是可以被接受的。
齊的一個學員，28歲的羅德曼·謝（音）認為他就快找到答案了。
他說：“我高考考了3回才考進一個普通的大學，按社會上的標準，我在很多事情上都失敗了，但是我仍然為自己設立目標，這樣我才能不斷進步?！彼姓J說以前的單位的日子可能更容易一些，但是他不會用現(xiàn)在的他所說的“使社會健康發(fā)展的多樣性---我們現(xiàn)在擁有的多樣性”和以前的那種穩(wěn)定做交換。
謝是一個東北人，在上海的一家出口公司做銷售。他說上海不是他的第一選擇，但是他來到上海是因為這里機會多。他說上海的女人很“物質(zhì)”。但他自己似乎并不擔心中國目前的性別失衡會影響到自己。
他解釋說，過去30年，中國的發(fā)展不僅給人們帶來了新的壓力，還有新的機遇?！拔覀兛梢該Q城市，換工作，追求自己喜歡的東西，遇到來自五湖四海的人們，有時還可以去國外旅游。我覺得現(xiàn)在這種普通很好”?！?/p>
