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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, June 23, 2003

From Economic Considerations to Happiness Pursuit
-A Survey of International Marriages in Shanghai

Great changes have taken place in Shanghai People's conception towards marriage, revealed a survey recently conducted by the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau and the prestigious East China Normal University.


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Great changes have taken place in Shanghai People's conception towards marriage, revealed a survey recently conducted by the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau and the prestigious East China Normal University.
International marriage, a common fact among Shanghai families
According to the survey, among each 100 locally registered couples in today's Shanghai there are an average of 3 cases involving foreign nationals, a rate higher than that of any other Chinese provinces or cities.

Statistics showed that from 1996 to 2002 the city saw more than 21,000 foreigner-involved marriage registrations, or 3,000 couples on yearly average, a figure more than eight times higher over 1980.

"Each working day we grant marriage certificates to an average of 13 mixed couples, so as to guarantee their legal rights", said an official in charge of marriage registration of the Bureau. The "other half" in mixed couples comes from 40-odd countries and regions, nearly 40 percent being from Japan, 13 percent from Taiwan and 5 percent from Hong Kong.

Twenty years ago, the survey found, most international marriages in shanghai fell into the pattern in which local young girls, driven by the desire of changing their life through marriage, sought foreign men much older than themselves. While in recent years the age gap between the two parties of a couple have been narrowed and each year saw an average of 300 Shanghai men capture their overseas brides and take them home.

With the increased number of international marriages, Shanghai residents began to view the trans-cultural and trans-national event more tolerably.

A few years ago, Yao Tinglai, a Shanghai resident, felt more or less uncomfortable when he learned that his daughter was to marry a high-nosed American. Yet now he draws his biggest pleasure from chatting with his foreign "son-in-law" and changing diaper for his blue-eyed grandson who is no more than six months old.

"Although we and Daniel are of different cultural backgrounds and living habits, we are still able to find topics of common interest", said Yao, adding that he and his wife were quite satisfied with their son-in-law, and to better communicate with him the old couple began to learn English in leisure time.

Besides, the "get married and then go abroad" pattern in Shanghai's international marriages has changed silently, and more and more people involved in mixed marriages choose to work and settle down in the prospering Chinese city.
Marriage pattern reflects dramatic city changes
Beginning from 1980 the international marriages in Shanghai city showed a tendency of zigzagged increase, with the number of registered couples climbing from 396 in 1980 up to 2690 in 2002, the survey told.

The shooting up of such marriages in the early 1980s, a local civil official analyzed, is chiefly because of Shanghai people's sudden realization that their city had been left behind the world after years of self isolation, and as a result many women got determined to improve their living standards through marrying abroad.

In this period a considerable number of mixed couples, many of them rushed into marriage after only two or three dates, found great gaps between them in age, education level and language, and a lack of love basis often led to crisis in later days.

After 1985 overseas investment flooded Shanghai, together with foreign stuff sent to work in the city. The Shanghai natives thus had much more opportunities in meeting, communicating and understanding foreigners, which triggered off the flourishing of mixed marriage since 1989.

Marriages in this period also showed a magnificently improved quality, with narrowed gaps in age, education and language within a couple. The dating time also lengthened and many newly wedded built their home in Shanghai.

What's interesting is, after hitting a record of 3,422 pairs in 2001, the registration number of mixed couples dropped to 2,690 in 2002.

Two reasons possibly contributed to the phenomenon, said Ding Jinhong, director of the Population Research Institute of the said university. First, the Shanghai people have learned to use more reason in choosing their life-long partners instead of merely focusing their eyes on money. Second, more people chose to register their marriage abroad since it's easier for them to cross country borders.

"For today's Shanghai people, it's no longer important from where their partners come, but whether they are suitable for each other and whether they could respect and bring happiness to each other", said Yu Jian, a local expert on marriage problems. "The psychological transformation represents the dramatic changes in Chinese people's concepts for marriage brought about by the opening up and economic development in last two decades".
Shorten the distance with the world
According to the survey, Shanghai people have entered into marriage with people from more than 40 countries and regions, showing a wider range and a stronger hue of globalization.

Between the 1980s and early 90s, Shanghai natives mainly picked their spouses from overseas Chinese and those from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, for the two parties shared the same cultural background without language barriers.

Since the 90s Japan has become the biggest trade partner of the city with Japanese people taking a large percentage of foreign naturals living in Shanghai, which gave rise to increased number of China-Japan couples. In recent seven years, the number of China-Japan new weds has taken up 40 percent of the city's total international marriages.

In 2002 a quarter of the city's mixed marriages involved European and American nationals, a result of closer ties with westerners in economic and cultural cooperation and exchanges.

By PD Online Staff Li Heng


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