Leftover Women
shengnü 
剩女

By lisa

EastSouthWestNorth is a great website where you can find some in-depth article that focus on the problem of Chinese society. “ Hong Kong’s Troubling Shortage of Men” http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/12/hong-kongs-troubling-shortage-of-men/281942/ ( accessed on 21/02/2014)
is one of the work post on the The Atlantic written by a foreign freelance writer who try to present the marriage situation in Hong Kong by showing lot of Chinese ways of expressions and culture features to the English readers that have limited contact to Chinese society.

    I would like to have a brief analyze on this article using the concepts we have learned from class. First of all, we can easily find that in order to improve the credibility of the information, the writer had referred to many statements from the local citizens such as a public relations adviser, a professional researcher from Chinese University in Hong Kong or common people like Miss Phoebe. By translating their words into English revealed the real situation in Hong Kong which may be different to other part of the world.

 For example, from the words of Miss Phoebe “ Most of my single girl friends are all panicking about finding their other half now because men have a tendency to favor younger girls,” she explains. “Asian men seem to be attracted to girls around 25 rather than girls over 30, so if we don't find the right man soon, our chances of meeting a future partner will get slimmer.” we learned a typical culture from Asia that is different to the Western culture that men tend to like younger girls and single women who are in their late 20s or early 30s will be branded as “leftover women” or “shengnü” which is a use of language mixing in this piece of work.

Furthermore, as it is reported by the Dr.Suzanne Choi that due to Chinese traditional marriage norm of men marrying down and women marrying up, “some men may be unable to find a local wife due to their comparative socioeconomic disadvantages. But some may also want to find a wife with lower qualifications and earning power anyway, so they can conform to social expectations” , it is a use of culture bricolage that let more people without this value or norm in mind get to understand the phenomenon in Hong Kong.

At last, it also talked about the famous TV series in Hong Kong Bride Wannabes and use the word of “ Love Coach” which is also used in western countries to shorten the distance between readers and Hong Kong by re-contextualizing and it not only gave people an inner look on this issue but also disclosed a beauty standard in Hong Kong which is that women are expected of double eyelid.

In a word, it is a very nice piece of article that worth reading and learning from. It exposed the marriage market and problem in Hong Kong in an exact way and throw out a social issue that we all need to think of. I think that might be more points in it can be analyzed by the concepts we have learned from class that I have not covered. Would you find more about it and leave your commend? Tips: you may also find articles on the same topic through other channels such as BBC News or New York Times,ect.