I mean, of course we're focused on the unwantability of the women, not the men, but isn't there supposed to be some kind of girl/woman-shortage in China in the first place? Shouldn't these ladies have the pick of the litter -- whomever they want, whenever they want?

I like this idea of parents anxiously wandering a park trying to whore out their adult children, and this ominous wall of the unloved. It feels like some kind of performance art piece.

Oh, awesome. This earlier CNN piece even tells you when this "market" happens, and HOW TO GET THERE. Nice.

http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/play/sausa…

I wonder if it's driven more by a biological desire for the so-called "immortality" of perpetuating one's geneological lineage or if it's just a social stigma of having an unmarried child that's behind this? Either way, I frequently despise human behavior and this is no exception.

Maybe there's a slightly different angle to this ... are women actually *more* pressured these days because of the lopsided ratio (which will probably be felt even more down the road)? All this social stigma perhaps has been compounded because it didn't made "sense" to be unmarried before, but now, with a shortage of young, fertile ladies, it's become a duty more than ever?

That feels like it fits the ticking bio-clock issue even better. "Fuck somebody, anybody, please, before you can't! For your country!"

@3,

I would imagine China's one-child policy only increases the anxiety. If these parents had several children, they would likely not pin all their hopes and dreams on just one.

@4,

In Backlash, Susan Faludi made a pretty convincing argument that a lot of the "you better get married now or be a spinster forever" messages American women heard in the '80s were actually about men's anxiety about not being able to find a wife.

That oft-cited study that claimed unmarried women over 40 had only a 1.3 percent chance of finding a husband came out during that time. All of that "study's" statistics were flat out bullshit.

All I have to say is that I wish that I used to live in Idaho and went to bars.

@1 I thought exactly the same thing... Way to make women feel worthless even as China is probably the only country where they're in very high demand.