Saturday, May 20, 2006

Women and Marriage in Taiwan

A new poll out from Commonwealth, though unscientific, does give some indication of the state of singlehood among the island's females.

Modern Taiwanese women seem to be increasingly nonchalant about marriage, with more than 70 percent having toyed with the idea of remaining single. About 40 percent of them, both married and single, fancy having more than one lover and almost ten percent have had that experience, according to a poll by Common Health magazine.

According to the magazine 7.7 percent of all married women who responded to the survey have had more than one lover, but 80 percent of them still believed in true love and accordingly were still waiting for their "Mr. Right," and refused to make any compromises in the search.

I often tease my students about their dating habits, for they date one man and stick with him for years.....

"How old are you Tammy?
"21"
"How long have you been going out with your boyfriend?"
"Three years."

....but when they go to Sogo, they try on fifty before they find the right one, I'll tell them. But teacher, comes the reply. Men are more important than shirts. Just so, I say, which is why you should date a few of them to find out what a good man is. A large number of my students seem to be resigning themselves to never having a man, and another sizeable component is living with their boyfriend, although few admit it. But for your foreign men, there are lots of single women in their 20s and 30s with jobs, good English, and searching for Mr. Right.

1 comment:

Ed en Vadrouille said...

I feel from what i've perceived and been explained that there has been major changes in relationships in the past few years.

Most men are apparently still looking for a tai-tai, taking care of the kids and the parents at home, cooking, and being as dependant of them as possible.

I recently had a good friend of mine, 29, quite pretty, owner and manager of a multi million dollar business, who was approached by a long term friend of her mother about a "nice local guy". She added "and since she likes to do business, if they get married she could have a little tea shop in the garage"...

On another hand, i see more and more girl having outlandish claims about the qualities that their potential boyfriends need to have.
My own girlfriend (a southern taiwanese) remarqued that the "average beauty" now has the claims and the feeling of importance of a local diva.

It seems quite a lot of people just manage to kick themselves out of the "market" by being so demanding when they dont have themselves so much to offer.

Add to that the bunch of decerebrated zombies who keep hitting compulsively on the foreigners, and the situation is sometime a bit weird.

From what i understood of Japanese people, there are in a similar situation (even if they seems to have greater cross-gender communication issues).