Civil servants, also known by contemporary young people as the "end of the universe". They are not only the goal of the millions of people's life and death competition, but also the top of the contempt chain in the marriage and love market.
For example, a Douban big V works within the system and talks about a small thing around him: his elders want him to find a colleague and introduce a boyfriend to his cousin. My cousin is beautiful and has a good education and works in a good company, but he still makes trouble. Because in the conditions for choosing a spouse in the circle of colleagues, the appearance and academic qualifications are secondary. The key is to have compiled !
Another example, some netizens shared a WeChat Moments advertisement for marriages for generations. The bright keywords and detailed requirements made the people who were eating melons open their eyes and thought that compilation was a kind of reproductive isolation .
picture source network, infringement
The status of civil servants in the marriage and love market is not unique to our country, and East Asian countries are surprisingly consistent in this regard.
There have been news reports in South Korea in recent years that the most favored future spouse profession for young people is civil servants. Some Japanese journalists also expressed their feelings that "civil servants are popular no matter where they are!" after investigation.
This reporter is named Akane Jin. She is in her thirties, single, and works in the famous KMT. She has reported on Japan's severe problem of low birth rate. In this process, she also became curious about the source of the birth rate, the current situation of the continued decline in marriage rates.
Japan has been rising in recent years (Photo source: "The Time of Marriage")
As of 2020, Japan has 1/4 of men who have been unmarried for life and 1/6 of women who have been unmarried for life, and this proportion is still rising. Kyodo Society where Akane is located simply proposed the term "the era of marriage difficult" to describe this phenomenon.
Why are fewer and fewer people getting married? What is the difficulty of getting married? With these questions in mind, An Akane began to investigate the world of marriage and love in contemporary people, an indispensable part of which is to sneak into various blind date scenes.
01 Blind date immigration tour group
Marriage rate is constantly declining, but blind date methods are becoming more and more diverse. For example, Akane Jin had a "blind date immigration tour group", which was organized by the government and aimed at organizing women from big cities to travel to small places and meet local men. The logic of this activity is that Japan's population is concentrated in several major metropolitan areas, while small places are gradually withering. The rate of unmarried women in big cities is higher, while in small places where industries such as agriculture are mainly used, the rate of unmarried men is higher (this is very similar to that in China). Under normal circumstances, the two did not have a chance to meet each other, so the government wanted to make connections.
The organizer was very thoughtful: If women in big cities intend to move to a small place to settle down, they only need to pay the food, accommodation and transportation fee, and can visit the local scenery and taste delicious food in a group. The local male group is led by a "marriage and love mentor" to teach them how to communicate with women step by step.
Men and women participating in the group can visit together or get to know each other at the exchange meeting. After the event, everyone has to hand over the card with the favorite object to the organizer. Jin Yeqian, who was following the interview, found that the woman in was more popular, while the man was a civil servant.
This is not an isolated case. Jin Yeqian found that civil servants are very popular no matter where they are.
02 Parents' blind date
Jin Yeqian has visited various blind date activities, which is considered to be a battle-breaking battle, but she still feels strong pressure at the scene of "blind date agent".
East Asian parents seem to have a significant say in their children's marriage. Just like Chinese parents are keen on posting resumes for their children in the blind date corner of the park, Japanese parents will also take their blind dates instead of their children.
China's park blind date corner (Photo source: Internet)
Many parents' ideas exudes the atmosphere of the old era, believes that not getting married is unfilial (Akari Jin Ye, who is unmarried in her thirties, unfortunately got shot), and he is also naked when talking about conditions: The age and fertility of women are hard indicators, and the popularity of men is proportional to their academic income.
Japanese agent blind date symposium (Photo source: Kyodo News Service website)
For example, A mother in her seventies insists on helping her son in her fifties find a wife in her twenty years.Because the gap between was too big, she was repeatedly rejected, but she still didn't give up and told reporters: "My son is young, (the reporter couldn't recognize him after seeing the photos.) Only a young wife can give birth to two grandchildren for me."
Another example is that there is a mother's son who is a national civil servant who graduated from Tokyo University . The female parents lined up in front of her for a long line of talent shows, and scrambled to promote: "My daughter has good cooking skills" and "they have common interests and hobbies"! One of the parents' daughters worked in a large enterprise. The mother even asked: "My son is very busy. A woman who works full-time like a man is not suitable for him. Can your daughter quit?"
03 Reasons for not getting married
However, Anita Jin's original intention was not to observe who is best to find a partner. What she is more concerned about is why some people find a partner in . There are many different situations in
. Although some people have the intention to get married, they have never been successful due to regional, economic and other factors.
Take Zhihe (pseudonym) as an example. She grew up in a small place and it was difficult for her to know the "quality male" she thought. At the age of 29, she moved to Tokyo to expand her circle and also actively went on blind dates. However, due to the economic downturn, she is not only busy with work, but also full of unemployment risks. does her best in Tokyo just to live, and even if she sometimes likes others, she never gets attention from others.
After ten years of drifting east, Zhihe finally decided to leave and wanted to move to a small port town to settle down. She thought there would be enthusiastic people in small places to help introduce her, but after landing, she was disappointed to find that the local male of the same age in was either married or minded that she was older.
In addition to hardware factors such as economic age, some people still lack the ability to deal with the opposite sex. For example, at various blind dates, there are always some men standing by the wall and not daring to go up and talk to women.
A "marriage and love mentor" also told reporters that there will be male students who will send many messages to women they just met to ask "Why don't you reply to me?", or unilaterally send daily accounts and their own photos.
"Marriage Difficult Times"
There are still some people who have no obvious shortcomings, but their parents' desire to control their marriage has affected. For example, 39-year-old Miho (pseudonym). She is from Tokyo, has a wealthy family, graduated from a prestigious university, and has strong work ability. She doesn't want to let down her parents' expectations in everything, and choosing a spouse is no exception.
But the mother's requirements for her future partner are "Education in Waseda/Qingying above" (similar to my country's "985 or above") "annual salary of tens of millions" (about 500,000 yuan) "Doctor or comprehensive trading club staff" , and she looks too ordinary. Although Mifan kept going on blind dates, he always ended up in vain considering his parents' requirements.
04 Other roads
Blind dates have strong purpose and should be screened in the vast crowd, and it is more efficient to refer to hard conditions such as age, income, and education. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, a new trend has emerged in Japan's marriage and love market: online blind dates emerged, which not only broke the limitations of space, but also gave participants the opportunity to communicate in depth. Some people would have missed the conditions just by looking at them, but in this case they got together.
For example, Ayako, 43, and Gide, 31, live in Tokyo, and the man lives in , Kumamoto, , have no career intersections, and the age gap is not small. After meeting each other online blind dates, they were unable to meet on the spot due to the epidemic. They often made video calls, but later they even developed to the point of living together virtually and getting married as soon as they first met.
Ayako told reporters that it is precisely because of online chat that they can calmly understand each other and open their hearts. If only meets a few times at the beginning, it will not be able to get this step.
However, some people are working tirelessly on blind dates, while others realize that they are not suitable for marriage, so they turn to explore other paths.
"Active Single Mothers" group is a representative. These women do not want to force themselves into marriage, but just want children, so they choose to have children without marriage. Some of them gave birth to children with their boyfriends, some looked for fathers for their children among strangers, and some used overseas sperm banks to complete their childbirth alone, such as the 32-year-old asexual cartoonist Hua Jingyuanling.
Japanese popular love game "The Unified Love Rebellion in the World" (Photo source: the official website of the game)
Mobile love game is popular, and it can also reflect the diversity of marriage and love forms. Akane Yoshino interviewed the president of the Japanese game company Voltage and learned that the female love game market is not only very popular, but players can also "marry" the game characters in reality. Many players hope to feel the joys they cannot experience in the game. In this era, whether love is in the "two-dimensional" or "three-dimensional" conversation is becoming increasingly unimportant.
"Marriage Difficult Times"
Marriage is like a mirror, reflecting the current situation of the times and society. Akane Yoshino recorded the current situation and evolution trend of the Japanese marriage and love market in . Her two colleagues, Sakako Ohara and Inoue Niko, conducted a survey on the elderly marriage and love market and assisted reproductive technology in , and unexpected discoveries also opened up a different world of marriage and love.
Three senior reporters wrote the results of the three-year follow-up investigation into the book "The Time of Marriage Difficult". The book contains heartfelt interviews with dozens of groups of objects, telling real stories in relaxed words, and reveals the social reality that can be empathized with across national borders with rich data and cases: employment difficulties, workplace discrimination, age anxiety, epidemic anxiety, aging and loneliness death... The book
talks about various kinds of marriage and love confusions, and also shows a variety of choices. It is not only a contemporary marriage and love record, but also a guide to the diverse life of the era of marriage and hardship.
The direction of happiness varies from person to person, and there is no standard answer on how to treat marriage. But through "The Times of Marriage", we may be able to gain inspiration and be braver to explore our direction.
