Online Class Notes (Mike)

With his slick navy suit, silver watch and non-stop smoking, Yu Feng is an unlikely ambassador for Chinese family values. The office from which he operates, in Chongqing in western China, looks more like a sitting room, with grey sofas, cream curtains and large windows looking out on the city’s skyscrapers. Women visit him here and plead for help. They want him to persuade their husbands to dump their mistresses.

Mr Yu worked in family law and then marriage counselling before starting his business in 2007. He charges scorned wives 100,000-500,000 yuan ($15,000-75,000); cases usually take 7-8 months. He befriends both the two-timing husband and the mistress, encouraging them to find fault with each other, and gradually reveals that he has messed up his own life by being unfaithful. Most clients are in their 30s and early 40s. “This is the want, buy, get generation,” he says; sex is a part of China’s new materialism. But changing sexual mores and a rocketing divorce rate have prompted soul-searching about the decline of family ties. Mr Yu claims a 90% success rate.

The ernai, literally meaning “second wife”, is increasingly common. So many rich men indulge that Chinese media sometimes blame extramarital relationships for helping to inflate property prices: some city apartment complexes are notorious for housing clusters of mistresses, paid for by their lovers, who often provide a living allowance too.

It is not just businessmen who keep mistresses: President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has revealed that many government officials do too. According to news reports Zhou Yongkang, the most senior person toppled by the current anti-graft crusade, had multiple paramours; former railways minister Liu Zhijun is rumoured to have kept 18.

China has a long history of adultery. In imperial times wealthy men kept multiple concubines as well as a wife; prostitution was mostly tolerated, both by the state and by wives (who had little choice). Married women, in contrast, were expected to be chaste. After 1950 concubines were outlawed and infidelity deemed a bourgeois vice. Even in the 1980s few people had sex with anyone other than their spouse or spouse-to-be.

Over the past 30 years, however, sexual mores have loosened and more young Chinese are having sex with more partners and at a younger age. Some clearly continue to wander after marriage. Some 20% of married men and women are unfaithful, according to a survey of 80,000 people in 2015 by researchers at Peking University.

In many respects growing infidelity is a predictable consequence of economic development. People are increasingly willing to put their own desires above familial obligations or reputation. Improved education and living standards mean they have more financial freedom to do so. Most Chinese couples previously had few chances to meet members of the opposite sex in social situations after marriage, but migration means that many couples live apart. Even if they live together, the pool of temptation has grown larger and easier to dip into, thanks partly to social media.

Businesses like Mr Yu’s indicate that not all spouses see affairs as an unpardonable offence. But surveys also suggest that infidelity is the “number one marriage killer”. Last year 3.8m couples split, more than double the number a decade earlier. China’s annual divorce rate is 2.8 per 1,000 people (also double that a decade ago). That is not quite as high as America’s 3.2, but higher than in most of Europe. That may be partly because Chinese people are more likely to get hitched in the first place: the law strongly discourages people from having children outside marriage. Even so, Chinese families are fraying fast.

This is a good topic, but I was on a businiss trip last week and almost got no time to read that dense and obscure but interesting essay, anyway this is a interesting topic that maybe can be delayed to next lesson? and I ve wrote another shorter essay instead for this time. 🙂

Is wedding still necessary in the future?

In antient time, wedding means united resources to help fight against the harsh and dangerous nature environment. The synergy brought by both genders’ advantages enabled humans to live better and spare more productivity which boost the development of science and sociology. Furthermore, couples gathered, and community had then formed. This is how civilization comes.

Wedding usually means reproduction and higher possibility of living, which are the most fundamental instincts of all creatures, therefore every creature eagers to couple under the instruction of their genes. However, nowadays, statistic shows that both the marriage rage and the birth rate of China keep going downstream in recent years while the life quality improves at the same time. Socialists try to find the reason behind this phenomenon, and eventually draw to one conclusion that this situation results from both physical and mental issues.

The physical issue is as the productivity grows, humans are no longer need to gather around to fulfill the basic survival need. The development of market economy and liquidity of resources also create the precondition for people to choose live alone. Cost of living has been cut down to an extremely low level that there is no necessity for us to wed.

The mental issue is that the threshold of obtaining stimulation has increased so that the pleasure which wedding can give us has relatively decreased. The advanced entertainment items, such as movies, games, VR equipment, all these quick pleasures are easy to get, and the brain will get accustomed to the stimulation, which may dilute the pleasure of daily life, including pleasures conducted through the daily life of couples.

This is a good topic, but I was on a businiss trip last week and barely had time to read that dense and obscure, dry but interesting essay, anyway this is an interesting topic that maybe can be delayed to next lesson? and I’ve written another shorter essay instead for this time. 🙂

Is wedding still necessary in the future?

In ancient time, wedding means united resources to help fight against the harsh and dangerous/hostile natural environment. The synergy brought by both genders’ advantages enabled humans to live better and spare more productivity which boosts the overall development of science and society. Furthermore, couples gathered and formed small-scale communities, which overtime developed into larger groups and thus created more more complicated/complex human interactions, which is the dawn of civilization.

Wedding usually means reproduction and higher possibility/chance of surviving, which are the most fundamental instincts of all creatures, therefore every creature is eager to/long for couple under the impulse of their genes. However, statistics/stats shows that both the marriage rate and the birth rate of China are going down/dropping/falling in recent years while the quality of life improves at the same time. Sociologists/demographers are trying to find the reason behind this phenomenon. Eventually, they draw the conclusion/conclude that there is a physical and mental aspect to this issue/phenomenon.

The material issue is as productivity grows, humans no longer need to gather around to fulfill their basic survival needs. The development of market economy and liquidity of resources also create the precondition for people to live alone without having to live with another person. The cost of living reduced/lowered to an extremely low level that there is no necessity for us to wed.

The mental issue is that the threshold of obtaining stimulation has increased so that the pleasure which wedding can give us has relatively decreased. The advanced entertainment items, such as movies, games, VR equipment, all these quick pleasures are easy to get, and the brain will get accustomed to the stimulation, which may dilute the pleasure of daily life, including pleasures conducted through the daily life of couples.

The sources for our pleasure have increased so significantly that we no longer need to devote ourselves to marriage to obtain the same level of pleasure/enjoyment.

Readily accessible entertainments, such as A, B, C, bring strong stimulation to the human brain, which dilutes daily pleasures, including ones from a marriage.

Vocabulary

famine (n)
The Great Famine

sociology (n)
sociologist (n) a person who studies socialists

demographics (n)
demographer (n)

intention (n)
His intention is to harm you.

motivation (n)
Money is a strong motivation/incentive for many people.

purpose (n)
The purpose of this program

hostile (adj. ) unfriendly
hostage (n)

be eager to do something
long for (v)

urge (v) to earnestly/persistently push sb to do sth

impulse (n)

pulse (n)
The doctor is checking my pulse to make sure I am alive.

impose (v) to force sth on sb