China has too many men and too few women willing to date them.
Consequences are always more obvious in hindsight. But the downstream effects of China’s one-child policy (1979 - 2015) don’t seem terribly tough to puzzle out. Quickly: When families only get one baby, they choose a boy. Especially rural families. When there are more boys than girls, girls have the upper hand in the dating market.
The New York Times (NYT) recently released a short documentary on a “dating boot camp” for China’s “30 million so-called surplus men.” We’re introduced to Wu, a 27-year-old delivery driver.
“Why aren’t you married? You’re in your late twenties,” Wu’s niece asks.
“No one wants to marry me,” he says.
“So work harder.”
Later, Wu reveals, “I work from 6:30 a.m. until after 9 p.m. For very little money. When I am not sleeping, I’m working. No time for dating. I’ve never had a real girlfriend, and I’m envious of others. When TikTok became really popular a few years ago, my feed was full of videos that teach you how to get a girl.”
Through Tiktok, Wu met Hao, a self-described “dating coach.”
“Most of my clients are defined as failures,” Hao says. “But they shouldn’t be deprived of love.”
We see Hao’s trainees getting haircuts and learning how to pose for photos.
“Infinite handsomeness,” he tells one of the men.
“Put your legs on the table,” he tells another, “Look arrogant.”
We see Wu “cold approaching” women in public, asking to add them on WeChat, only to be rebuffed.
“I grew up in a very poor rural village. I remember playing with friends along the road. We’d see abandoned baby girls. It was disturbing,” Wu tells the camera.
“Since all I interacted with growing up were boys, I know nothing about how women think and feel.”
“Given what society is like today, as an ordinary man, I can change nothing,” Wu says in the documentary.
And Chinese women, it seems, don’t want ordinary men.
YouTube is blocked in China (though this isn’t strictly enforced). Still, for a taste of a popular Chinese export, consider the YouTube channel “Asian Drama Junction.” The channel has racked up nearly half a million subscribers, and millions of views, summarizing Chinese (and Korean) romance dramas in Hindi. There’s a theme to the fantasies.
A lower status woman is plucked from obscurity by a higher status man, often a CEO, who happens to look like a member of an Asian boy band. If this sounds familiar: “Fifty Shades of Grey” was the best-selling book of the 2010s.
You may be thinking: “These stories are a little degenerate, but not civilization-ending.”
You are not a Chinese government official.
Chinese authorities are reportedly taking drastic steps to curb their “delusional female standards” crisis.