MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th August, 2020) Though millions of Chinese young people leave alone in big cities, for some of them, being a part of what media calls an "empty-nest" generation appeared to be a temporary stage in their personal development as they do not give up on the idea of finding love.
When millions of young people were celebrating the annual Chinese Valentine's Day on Tuesday by offering each other gifts or going to the movies together, Guo Xuanyi, a 26-year-old police officer living in the city of Guangzhou in southern China, decided to simply go home after work and continue his daily routine: watching his favorite tv shows online and playing video games on his smartphone.
Upon graduation from university in 2015, Guo moved to Guangzhou, located about 390 miles south of his hometown of Xiangtan in the Hunan province, after landing a job as a police officer in the city. As the girlfriend he met in university could not stand being separated after six months, Guo had been living alone and never dated anyone else in the city, where he has already bought an apartment.
"My attitude is that I have a stable job and I do have some local friends to hang out with. As the internet has become more developed, social interactions online happen much more often than social interactions in real life. That's why I became less eager to go out and meet new people," Guo told Sputnik during a phone interview.
Similar to social media's impact on social interactions among young people in many developed countries in the world, young people in China also preferred spending more time online over meeting with friends in the real world.
As a result, the latest data from China's Ministry Affairs showed that the country had about 200 million young people who were single by 2018 and about 77 million of them were living alone like Guo did. Chinese media coined a new phrase to refer to this group as the "empty-nest youth."
A large number of China's "empty-nest youth" are domestic migrants like Guo who moved to bigger cities in search of a better life far away from their family and friends. As they tried to adjust to the life in a new city, many of them faced new challenges, especially when it came to dating and finding a partner.
Guo explained that different eating habits was the biggest challenge he faced after meeting with the local girls in Guangzhou.
"The first conflict is the cuisine, as I really loved eating spicy food [which is very popular among people from Hunan province]. But when they gathered together, they would prefer to eat the local Cantonese food, which I couldn't get used to. If I find a partner in life, we need to be able to enjoy the same type of food right?" he said.
Guo added that the local Cantonese dialect and different views on family relations also made it difficult for him to find a perfect match among local girls in Guangzhou.
Instead of trying to meet more possible matches along locals, Guo decided to spend more time in the online community where he could people who shared more common interests with him.
"I often chat with a group of friends when we play the games online together. With the development of the internet and changes in people's mentality, the virtual world is no longer completely cut off from the real world. For example, I have already met with some of the friends I got to know through online gaming. I believe the virtual world and the real world have become intertwined," he said.
Unfortunately, Guo has not met anyone in the online gaming community who also happens to live in Guangzhou.
"I would not try to go out and try to meet with new people desperately. I believe the relationship should happen naturally. I'm not in a hurry to find someone," he said.
Although Guo is only 26, he stressed that he would take each relationship seriously and try to pursue a relationship with the purpose of getting married once he begins to date someone.
"I think it's a waste of time, if it's just dating for fun. That's probably why I have not tried to go on dates with many different people, because I wanted to start a serious relationship," he said.
Similar to Guo's journey in Guangzhou, Mio Yang, 24, faced almost identical experiences from 2016 to early 2020 when she worked in an online retailing company in Shanghai. Originally from the city of Zhengzhou in central China's Henan province, Yang relocated to Shanghai for better career opportunities after graduating from university.
During her three years in Shanghai, Yang rented a small studio apartment in the suburbs of the city and lived alone. Although she went on dates with different people she met through coworkers or friends, none of them impressed her enough to make her want to pursue the relationship further.
"I feel they're too purpose-oriented. After having dinner together once or twice, they would ask me to start a serious relationship with plans to get married in the future. As I'm younger than them, they probably thought I was pretty naive and would be an ideal candidate to get married with. I feel everyone's life is so fast paced and there was not any idealist effort to work on getting to know each other first," she said.
In addition, Yang said she could not stand the sexist attitude some of the men exhibited.
"Even after having dinner or going to the movies together, you could already notice a lot of little details about a person. I feel many of them do not respect women enough and have a sexist attitude. For example, some of them would share with me stories about their friends. When they talk about their friends cheating on their wives, they would argue that it's partially the wives' fault that the husbands cheated," she said.
When the COVID-19 epidemic first started in China in early January, Yang moved back to her hometown in Zhengzhou to help take care of her grandparents. The move also offered her an opportunity to connect with other people outside of her typical social circles.
During a job interview, Yang met a young man who impressed her and eventually became her boyfriend, as the young couple moved in together about two week ago.
"I only started going on dates with my boyfriend two months after we first met. The way he treated women helped him stand out. For example, when we had banquets together with other friends and acquaintances, he never pushed women at the table to drink alcohol like other men did. And he also did not make comments about women like other men did," she said.
Although Yang said she felt lucky to have found a caring partner who shared similar interests and values with her, she stressed that her experiences of living in Shanghai alone helped her become better prepared even if the current relationship would not work out in the end.
"It's best to make the best of an experience and enjoy the beautiful memories, even if the love will not work out in the end. I have always been very independent," Yang said.
The argued that she would never rely on someone else in her life and could definitely accept living alone again, calling it "part of our experiences in life."
