介绍:
Xiaohua: Recently, there is a 2014 version of the “Top 11 Careers in China that Prospective Partners Shun the Most”. Those careers are: writer, migrant laborer, singer, delivery worker, host, salespeople, lawyer, cook, news editor, journalist, athlete and flight attendant. My question is why are three media related jobs on this list which all together has only 11 jobs.
Amy: Yes, a little bit sad. But I think it’s a little misleading thing, saying the “Top 11 Careers in China that Prospective Partners Shun the Most”. Because in reality what they have done is taking a survey of single people and figuring out what percentage of them are in certain careers, which is not the same as somebody saying I will never date you because you are a journalist or I will never date you because you are a host. It’s just…
John: But perhaps this is actually more accurate. I mean, because they are looking at the actual, you know objective reality of the leftover category so like 27 and older and who is it. The proportional of those is in what careers, right?
Amy: Yeah. But for a lot of these careers, the explanation is that they simply don’t have many opportunities to meet people. So it’s not necessarily that there being shunned because of their career. It’s just their career may not lend them opportunity to meet other people.
Xiaohua: Right, so I think the more appropriate title would be “11 careers that have the most number of single people”, probably in that. Let’s take a look at some of these ones. There are some explanations. Do you think that these are why people in those careers are single or mostly single?
Amy: Yeah, definitely. I think what is interesting is about 20% of leftover males are journalists and about 18% of them are lawyers. So if you look at journalists and lawyers, for lawyers, because of the nature inhabited of the job, lawyers always need to keep calm, be logical and they are not considered like fun and easygoing kinda people, because they are always busy.
John: Wait, so you think this is a good explanation.
Amy: I think them being busy is a good explanation.
John: So not the fact that they’re not a lot of fun because they are too logical.
Xiaohua: You don’t know. You’ve never dated a lawyer.
John: I think most of these don’t make any sense to me. Migrant laborers, I think that one is pretty obvious, I mean you’re moving around a lot. And also we have to remember that most leftover men quote-on-quote are usually migrant laborers. So there is that difference, while most leftover women quote-on-quote are usually white collar workers. But like writers, they need to stay at home and write to make a living? None of the writers I know stay at home.
Amy: They all go to cafes.
John: Yeah, they all go to cafes and bars. I mean, no seriously, you know in university, even up to now, the writers that are quote-on-quote creative that I know, they are always out. The guys usually have a girlfriend, maybe not a long-term girlfriend.
Amy: Maybe they are not presenting their best self. Maybe they are being a little pretentious when they are out there.
Xiaohua: Or I think the fact that they are not married probably because they don’t want to get married, because they have so many girlfriends or boyfriends.
Amy: Maybe, yeah. For sure, that’s got be a fact that is true.
Xiaohua: We cannot think of the career that has a lot of single people as a pathetic career that nobody can get married forever. And also, you know entertainment people and entertainers…
John: Singers especially. But also why should we care about singers and celebrities. They are famous enough.
Amy: Yeah, I mean it’s the same case in the States where singers and celebrities are always single, because they are always getting divorced and cheating on each other, exactly. Maybe if you are famous, it doesn’t count.
Xiaohua: Now let’s talk about us, the media workers. I mean hosts…
John: No, this explanation does not fit us at all. As a public figure, hosts always have good looks. We’ve talked about this previously about he or she has a face made for radio. You weren’t here for this discussion. But I think unfortunately, that applies to all of us.
Amy: Yeah. I mean this description says they have a higher standard for their partners so they think themselves as superior and thus they have trouble finding spouse.
Xiaohua: That is totally not true.
Amy: I’m not sure that’s true. But what I think is really interesting about this survey is that when we talk about leftover females, they are mostly white collar workers, including flight attendants. And that seems to make sense with our conception of what leftover women are. But this survey of leftover men seems to be a little bit weird for us, because we don’t think of journalists and lawyers as being leftover men. But we do think of leftover women as being white collar workers who have higher standards and can’t find a man because they’re working on their career.
John: Yeah, because first of all, obviously, leftover women is a bit derogatory. We need to come up with better word, but there is anything that…
Amy: Right. They are calling them leftover males and leftover females.
John: Right, but in general, it’s really derogatory to apply them to both but since we are using it, leftover women in general are more visible to us in the middle class, because they are also part of the middle to upper class. Again 60% of leftover women are white collar workers. To be honest, it’s probably a bit higher. Whereas leftover men are usually from lower to bottom ends of the social economic scale, so I think that’s really why we end up talking about leftover women more and again why they are so much more visible.
