Leftover in China

by Roseann Lake

  The next morning, after having gotten word from the Hong Kong gentleman’s mother that her son had enjoyed meeting Zhang Mei, the matchmaker rang Zhang Mei’s mother to share the news and instruct her on next steps: Zhang Mei was to report to the local animal market at eleven a.m., where the matchmaker would be waiting for her.

  Zhang Mei, who loves to sleep in, could not understand why she needed to trek across town in the cold to meet a bumptious old matchmaker at an animal market, but her mother did not give her time to dissent. After being hustled out the door, Zhang Mei arrived at the market to find the beaming matchmaker holding a small green creature in her left hand.

  “There is something about your energy that is blocking your chances at marriage,” she said, waving her free hand around Zhang Mei’s head as if playing the castanets. “If we free up that energy—by allowing you to symbolically free this small animal—your chances will improve,” she explained, again with far more gesticulation than necessary to make herself understood.

  Before Zhang Mei could protest, she had been handed a turtle and was being led to a nearby lake. The lake was nearly iced over and she couldn’t help but imagine that the turtle would die of hypothermia—thereby freezing her into singlehood for all eternity. The matchmaker was so persistent, however, that Zhang Mei had no choice but to play along. As they reached the edge of the water, she began to coax the turtle out of her hands, but he would not budge. Was he dead already? Zhang Mei tapped his shell. Somewhat panicked, she lowered him onto the lake’s surface as gingerly and humanely as possible. Once there, she gave him a small nudge on the rear. He moved a few inches, then stopped near a small rock. As Zhang Mei left him to roam free—an action that she was vehemently reassured would be reciprocated as positive energy for her husband search—she saw a man in the distance. Walking away with the now very satisfied matchmaker, she couldn’t help but notice that as they got farther, the man worked his way closer to her four-legged friend. They turned off the lake path before Zhang Mei could actually see what the man was up to, but she walked away with a strong sensation that he might be in the business of reselling the turtles purchased by naïve single women and their well-meaning, but entirely misguided, matchmakers.

  That, or he was craving turtle soup.

  Fate in Eight Digits

  Back in Beijing, June’s Chinese New Year holiday wasn’t going any more smoothly. “I haven’t slept for days and my ears won’t stop ringing,” wailed her mother, looking haggard and exasperated.

  It wasn’t until she spoke to her older cousin Wei Wei that June learned the reason behind her mother’s sudden and mysterious case of tinnitus. In an attempt to assuage some of the holiday marriage pressures she knew June would be experiencing, Wei Wei thought it might be wise to have her ba zi checked out. As mentioned earlier, most often, ba zi are consulted to assess strategic partnerships and business transactions, though I’ve heard of them being used to determine everything from the most provident day to hold a wedding to the most auspicious day to take someone off of life support. A cross between astrology, fortune-telling, oracle bones, and a bit of good old-fashioned hocus-pocus, they are taken very seriously in some circles, allowing so-called ba zi experts the opportunity to charge significant sums for their services. Conveniently (or perhaps dangerously), a person does not need to be present for his or her own ba zi reading, which means that anyone with the knowledge of an individual’s exact date and time of birth can commission such an assessment.

  Wei Wei reasoned that if she had June’s ba zi examined and the expert was able to confirm that marriage was indeed in her near future, June’s mother would relax and allow June to enjoy the holidays as she deserved to. Wei Wei did not, however, consider what might happen if the ba zi report revealed otherwise.

  “Your ba zi indicate that you’ll get married at age thirty-four,” Wei Wei explained to June. “I thought this was very good news, but your mother didn’t.” Apparently, June’s mother was horrified that she’d have to wait another seven years before her daughter’s wedding. “What will I do until then? I simply cannot relax until she’s married,” she told Wei Wei. June’s mom then retired to her room complaining of tinnitus, insisting that nothing but news of her daughter’s engagement would restore her aural health.

  As an aside, in relaying these stories of histrionic mothers, I don’t mean to give the impression that they are all crazed connubial conspirators. In fact, having met almost all of them, I can say with utmost sincerity that they are delightful women whose interests extend far beyond the ring fingers of their only daughters. Christy’s mom is an avid community volunteer, having gone as far as Sri Lanka to assist in social welfare projects. June’s mom is extraordinarily well read, in addition to being a very talented musician who is regularly called upon to give professional piano performances. Zhang Mei’s mother is the leader of her local ladies’ dance troupe, a stellar cook, and a wickedly sharp mahjong player. My understanding is that each of these women have their moments of acute marriage hysteria—moments that, according to my sources, have a tendency to center on Chinese New Year. For the most part, however, they are engaged, active members of their communities who genuinely mean well, but occasionally feel compelled to approach their daughters’ search for a life partner with the same zeal as their extracurricular activities—often to disastrous outcomes.

  In an attempt to gain some more insight into the eight little digits that threw June’s mom into a tailspin, I thought it might be wise to speak with a ba zi expert. I wanted to get a better sense of what exactly these numbers could convey about a woman’s marriage prospects and I was also curious to know how they were calculated. The few Chinese ba zi experts I reached out to were cagey with their information, but I eventually came across one in Kuala Lumpur who was very generous with her time and knowledge.

  A self-proclaimed “wrecking ball of hopes and dreams,” Bernice Low’s family originally hails from China’s Fujian province and she has a long history of dealing with unmarried women. More progressive and pragmatic than most ba zi experts, she will just as readily advise on a “friends-with-benefits” situation as she will a more marriage-minded one. In the very forgiving “ba zi for dummies” session she gave me, Bernice was quick to make clear that ba zi represent a person’s destiny, but that destiny is only one-third of the equation. The other two equally balanced parts are feng shui, or the things that can be done to modify or tweak destiny, and man—the actions and choices we make that control our own destiny. Ba zi, in other words, are a bit like the blueprints of our lives. Whether we choose to follow them or not is another story entirely.

  A ba zi chart, she explained, is made up of eight characters (“ba” meaning “eight” and “zi” meaning “characters”) that are derived from a person’s year, month, day, and hour of birth. By cross-referencing these characters with a special calendar known as the 10,000 Year Calendar or Chinese Almanac, the ba zi chart is assembled. According to Bernice, most Chinese households have one because it’s the only calendar from which the ever-fluctuating date of Chinese New Year can be determined.

  To make ba zi reading easier, a multitude of websites and app developers have created ba zi calculators to do all of the grunt work. So for example, if we take Christy’s digits and plug them into a ba zi calculator, we’re given the following chart:

  By looking at the Earthly Branches, we can see that the hour of her birth corresponds with the earth element and that the year of her birth corresponds with the pig. The interpretation of this chart can only be made by a ba zi expert, because in order to read a chart, one needs to have a substantial understanding of how different elements and signs interact, the permutations of which are endless. Yet for general purposes, Bernice explains that when tasked with assessing a person’s marriage prospects, the first thing she does is locate a client’s “spouse palace.”

  To me, a “spouse palace” sounded like a resplendent white building housing an elaborately upholstered throne upon which the doppelgä
nger of a person’s future spouse can be found sitting as pretty as an emperor. As fanciful as that sounds, Bernice told me that I’m not too far off—she can sometimes detect certain physical attributes (height, chest size, hair color) of a person’s future spouse based on the chart—but other than that, the spouse palace is simply the ideal place on a person’s ba zi chart for his or her “spouse star” to inhabit. The spouse star, I then learn, can be located in different places on the chart, depending on the sex of the person being evaluated. Regardless of sex though, if there is a spouse star in a person’s spouse palace, this bodes well for his or her marriage prospects. If there is no spouse star (which can happen), the person in question—according to Bernice—will be a good candidate for marrying someone he or she meets through a blind date or other “arranged” situation—ideally to a mate who doesn’t have a spouse star either.

  “It sounds straightforward, but the possibilities are endless,” she says. “A man can have his mother in his spouse palace—when that happens, I tell a woman to think hard before saying yes, because it means she will be living with her mother-in-law forever.”

  Throughout our conversation, Bernice stresses that what she advises based on a person’s ba zi chart is only “insight into what can be done to make the best of a situation.” She explains that some people’s marriage charts indicate low marriage luck, which doesn’t necessarily spell doom; it just means that they’ll have to work harder to make a marriage happen (and last). That may involve moving to a new place, changing careers, or making other major life adjustments, but more than anything, Bernice emphasizes that getting married is about being proactive, keeping an open mind, and being realistic.

  “You can put new windows on the house and paint the shutters,” says Bernice, “but at the end of the day, if the bell rings, you have to answer the door!” She warns that some women aren’t always thrilled with the men who appear on the other side of the door. They have their sights set on someone wealthier or taller, and so they keep looking. Sometimes, they find what they want, and other times they just become increasingly disenchanted with the options.

  As a rule of thumb in the husband search, Bernice cites an old Chinese saying: “If your life as a wife will be worse than your life as a daughter, don’t get married!” Countless mothers, I presume, are bound to disagree, but then again, Bernice isn’t there to please them. “I’m just there to read the chart.”

  The more I learn about Chinese marriages, the more I realize that they’re accompanied by a fair amount of lore and superstition. Though now less common, there’s also wang fu lian , or what I’ve come to understand as “feng shui of the face.” Essentially, it’s a form of physiognomy in which a woman’s facial features are evaluated for signs that she might bring her future husband good fortune. Guo Jingjing , the famous Olympic diving champion from Hong Kong, is considered to be one of the best examples of wang fu lian, which is sometimes translated into English as “help husband face.” Though interpretations differ, the most common involves an analysis of a woman’s mouth, nose, ears, forehead, upper lip (no whiskers!), and hairline. If a woman’s nose is high, straight, and with a round and fleshy apex, for instance, she is said to bring luck to her future husband. Her forehead should also be round, as square ones (Angelina Jolie) are indicative of highly opinionated women. Large mouths (Julia Roberts) are considered to mean a woman is a “cash eater,” and so wives with smaller, more proportionate puckers are encouraged.

  As I later discover, the superstitions surrounding marriage in China even extend to phonetics. On January 4, 2013, for instance, 7,300 couples got married in Shanghai. Why? Because the pronunciation of 13-1-4 (January 4, 2013), “yi sheng yi shi,” sounds like “love you for a lifetime.”

  Ultimately, my takeaway from this small foray into Chinese astrology and superstitions is that ba zi are a bit like the nutrition facts on a candy bar. They give you an idea of what you’re getting yourself into, but at the end of the day, how much you choose to bite off or let melt in your pocket is your own decision. In more practical terms, that means there is no guarantee that June will marry at age thirty-four, as her mother and cousin seem to have interpreted. The results of her ba zi reading simply indicate that her spouse star will be optimally positioned in her thirty-fourth year of life. She may get married sooner, later, or not at all—the mix of animals and elements that comprise her ba zi chart simply suggest that thirty-four is a propitious age for her to consider marriage.

  When I explained this to June, who originally approached ba zi with a mix of skepticism and lingering curiosity, I could see her brain begin to percolate. “So I’ve got seven more years to date around?” she said. “That seems like an eternity, but I got a late start, so I’ll take it.”

  The Classifieds

  Christy wasn’t quite so optimistic about dating. She’s thirty-four, and without any serious suitors in sight, she decided to broaden her potential pool of mates to include foreign men. But where might she find them?

  For Beijing women looking to meet Western men online, a common port of call is the personals section of a website called TheBeijinger.com. A bit of a cross between TimeOut and Craigslist, it offers an excellent spread of restaurant reviews, a calendar of upcoming cultural and entertainment events, as well as a very lively classifieds section. Using it, one can easily search for an apartment, a job, a secondhand air purifier, or, as the personals section would seem to indicate, a Western boyfriend.

  The site is all in English and generally aimed at foreigners in Beijing, with the exception of its personals section, which seems to be heavily dominated by Chinese women.

  User goodluckforme writes:

  You cute? You sincerity? You want to fall in love?

  I like the lovely big belly foreign fat man.

  sweetygurl writes:

  hello, if you are nature [sic] blonde, please contact me.

  wannamarry writes:

  don’t be afraid of my username on this website. i come here to find my western Mr. right. but people should be friends first.

  in my free time, i prefer music, reading, dvd’s, traveling, talking with friends, going outside and so on. i don’t wanna play games so if i am your right one, write to me pls. thanks.

  And user goodluckforme posts again, this time targeting a slightly furrier demographic:

  I am a Chinese woman who likes foreign men. I think your chest hair is very sexy and cute.

  what I want is a sincere feeling, hope to have a good start, share life.

  I logged on with Christy one afternoon and we perused some more ads together. We came across one from a woman who only wanted to date Dutch men because the former love of her life was from Antwerp. Then there was another woman who claimed her feet “would make any foreign man suffer” (did they smell of Époisses?), and even a few married women who claimed their husbands—who often traveled—allowed them to be served by foreign boyfriends “who knew how to do things right.”

  Then there was another category of ads, mostly written by women who had master’s degrees from the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK. Their command of English was always much higher, and they often described themselves as “untraditional.” Their ads frequently mentioned that they’d recently returned to China after an extended period abroad, and were struggling to reintegrate. These women sounded much more like Christy, but she seemed reticent to join their ranks. I decided it might be helpful to introduce her to a Chinese friend and former colleague who I knew had a geographically vast rolodex of former boyfriends.

  The Mating Game

  “I lost my virginia! But I can’t get the organism. How to do?”

  Those were the first words to come out of Beibei Wong’s mouth the morning after she’d been deflowered. It had been no easy task. For years, the young native Beijinger with stilted English had fantasized about losing her virginity, but couldn’t quite find the right time, place, or man to lose it with. “China is a crowded place!” she says in retrospect. “Th
ere’s no space to do these things!”

  Fortunately, Beibei’s big break came when she left China to become an exchange student in Sweden. Prior to her departure, she had paid a visit to Beijing’s Lama Temple, and in front of a large statue of the Buddha, prayed that he might have the benevolence to get her a little action.

  Two weeks and one romp with a Stockholm pizza-delivery boy later, her calls to the heavens were answered. That relationship didn’t last beyond the evening, but her affinity for foreign men has lasted a lifetime.

  “I just cannot date Chinese men,” she says. “Eighty-five percent of the ones my age smoke and their fingernails are longer than mine.” As much as I’d rather not defame Chinese men, I had to agree with Beibei. Smoking is ubiquitous in China, especially among the men in her age group (thirty-five and up), who also have a curious tendency of growing their pinky fingernails to very unsettling lengths. Having a long pinky finger is said to attract good fortune, but we both agreed, at least visually, all it seems to attract is unsightly black dirt, earwax, nose crust, or worse, depending on where it has last been.

  I knew that since Sweden, Beibei had dated a mix of foreign men, including an American. Their relationship ended due to geographic complications, but I could tell she cared deeply for him. Keen to get back onto the singles scene, she decided to try her hand at online dating.