奋斗 in Ningbo

[yialanliu]

It's not necessarily the girls themselves, but the whole culture and their families. People also care a lot about keeping up with their peers.

While it is true for parts of the society, for the haves(people in the top 0.1%), it's not true at all. For instance in Shanghai, people are known to be very cheap and care a lot about money. However, even in that city the people who do have it are not that bad. It's only the people who have difficulty making ends meet is money that important.

In my circle within Ningbo, no one cares about money and there are plenty of girls who are very well off who are willing to marry a "poor" chinese person if that person is very 优秀for instance, all my friends at Guanghua haha. At the same time, they are not willing to marry another person who is too rich because there's a problem with that since if a boy relied on you for a few years until that boy is settled, he'll b egood to you. If the boy is well off, well...

I think at the end of the day, even the people who care about money are quite practical in that requirement. A house, a car, a job, and a savings would make you an ideal candidate for marriage. If you really think about it, having all that really makes it easier to live and raise a family. Yes love is important, but wouldn't love and being financially secure be even better?

[imron]

but when you're fairly fresh out of education and embarking on the journey that is real life, you don't want to think about getting married.

From the Chinese perspective, if a girl is over 25 and not married, she'll already be getting lots of pressure from family about why she's not married yet, and from a marriageability perspective, in some people's eyes over 25 is starting to get a little over the hill already.

[yialanliu]

She offered to pay for him to study Chinese full time whilst she supported him

That sounds pretty unusual to me.

That's not that unusual, my fiance is paying for my apartment, and car right now during my internship.

EDIT: should clarify, living in her spare apartment and using a spare car, but it's all hers and none of it is my own. So technically, she's not paying for it, but you know what I mean

[imron]

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's not that common. As far as I can tell, guys who 吃软饭 also aren't really seen in a positive light by society either. In the cases where I've seen it, even if it didn't bother the girl, her friends would still be trying to convince her to dump her 窝囊、没出息的男朋友.

[yialanliu]

In my opinion, 没出息的男朋友 refers to ability and not necessary to current monetary situation. I would argue that 出息，钱途 is different then 钱。The ability to make moeny is alot more important than having some money right now.

Anyways, might be uncommon, but not unheard of.

[gato]

That's not that unusual, my fiance is paying for my apartment, and car right now during my internship.

EDIT: should clarify, living in her spare apartment and using a spare car, but it's all hers and none of it is my own. So technically, she's not paying for it, but you know what I mean

You mentioned that your family is well-off, so it might not be representative. if you were from a poor family and only have vague career prospects, then that would be something.

It's just hard to believe that in your "circle within Ningbo, no one cares about money". There must be some reason for that. If you are talking about rich people not caring about money, then I would understand, because they have money already.

[jkhsu]

EDIT: should clarify, living in her spare apartment and using a spare car, but it's all hers and none of it is my own. So technically, she's not paying for it, but you know what I mean

So is she making monthly payments for the apartment or does she own it? Given that the both of you are already engaged, her charging you for these things would be unusual. Who's buying the house when you get married?

[yialanliu]

Her family owns it so no one's making payments or anything. Just that I am using her stuff.

With regards to the future house, it depends where we stay.

My point of course is within this context: How can you use a girlfriend's, wife's, fiance's money when she has none, so obviously there's got to be some.

@Gato, yes my circle right now tends to be very well off. However, it still is important for me to say that. When you see people carry LV, and later find out she makes 3k RMB a month and just spent 2 months salary on that bag it shows the importance of money and the ability to show you have it. However, when I see the spending habits of the group of people who have a good bit of money, it's not that bad especially when people don't penny pinch. I see a huge difference in paying for a meal. In China, people tend to have a clear way of showing serious wanting to pay grabbing the check and a fake version of it whereas in the other group, you don't see it at all. People just say I'll pay and no one will stop you because it's a given that anyone eating here can easily pay this bill (another example of living within your means when your check isn't going to cause financial burden and the faking of the rich isn't pronounced at all). Lastly, as a foreigner, I think most of us are way above average Chinese salary levels and standard of living. Because of this, I wanted to mention that the comparable circles we are in are different than standard Chinese and if we shoudl compare, we should compare from like groups.

[gato]

We don't have a disagreement in principle then. My bringing up the point originally was to note to the OP that career and husband may be a factor for his girlfriend and her family, though he doesn't detect it. Given up a steady job for an uncertain future in China may or may not be seen in a positive light from that perspective. Since we don't know her family's situation, it's hard to say. But generally, I think even rich families care about the relative balance between husband and wife, maybe not simply in terms of money, but also in other ways.

[yialanliu]

LOL, didn't even know we had a disagreement haha. Just thought you wanted more clarification. I was given mad props to at least giving it a try in Ningbo when I prefered Shanghai, and honestly, I think trying is just as important and means a lot and didn't want to discourage him, that's all haha.

[anonymoose]

The saying 门当户对 didn't come about for nothing.

[GaryM]

I am not a China expert or so I can't really comment on social norms or necessarily understand all the complexities that go into making such decisions, but the case that I know of relates to a Chinese lady ( she was 31 years old ). She was originally from Anhui, not university educated as far as I am aware, and possibly from a poor background. However she had a successful career in institutional sales of computer hardware and systems. She offered to support my English friend studying Chinese full-time in China. They had already decided to get married by this stage. She loved her career and friends and didn't really want to leave China.

This set of circumstances may be rather unique and therefore highly unusual, but it is just another example of a case which complements that described by yialanliu. Clearly from peoples' reactions this is more uncommon than I was aware of. Ignorant of the cultural dimensions somewhat, it sort of made sense to me. I just saw this a rather pragmatic investment by a woman in the earning potential of her prospective partner. Again, I think the notion that they were already intending to get married is key here.

[ambulance112]

How easy to get a position in a business in ningbo?