Privacy fears a festival concern
Source: Xinhua |
January 31, 2013, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
AS though struggling to get a ticket back home for the Spring Festival holiday was not good enough, young Chinese are increasingly complaining about their probing parents and relatives wanting to know their salary and marital status.
The festival, which falls on February 10 this year, marks the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year, an annual occasion for family get-togethers and reunions.
A recent post on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, listed a string of questions that young Chinese are likely to face when they return home to their families - questions that cover everything, including salary and love life, that many are deriding them as too invasive.
Nearly 200,000 people have left comments on the post, revealing their own embarrassing experiences. A woman named Geng Lu cited a litany of questions that she faced during previous visits.
"How much did you get for the year-end bonus? Do you have a boyfriend yet? When are you going to get married?" she wrote. "The cross-interrogations freak me out. The thought of being embarrassed makes me hesitant to rush home for the festival," the 24-year-old woman said.
Geng is just one of the increasing number of young people who say they feel suffocated by their relatives' overwhelming concern about their private lives.
The difficulty young people are having in accepting their relatives' well-intended inquiries can be attributed to the fact that the two generations are growing apart in terms of how they believe the former should live their lives, said Xia Xueluan, a sociology professor at Peking University.
For centuries, Chinese parents have believed in marrying off their children at an early age, with expectation too for grandchildren. However, youngsters now are more inclined to set their own timetable regarding marriage and kids, Xia said.
Salaries, like marital status, are more a matter of privacy that young people would rather their parents did not pry into. Some of them come up with white lies regarding their salaries and marital status, or even rent a partner!
"The essence of the Spring Festival should be family reunions and affection, which should not be overshadowed by materialism," said Zhang Taofu, a journalism professor at Fudan University.
The festival, which falls on February 10 this year, marks the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year, an annual occasion for family get-togethers and reunions.
A recent post on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, listed a string of questions that young Chinese are likely to face when they return home to their families - questions that cover everything, including salary and love life, that many are deriding them as too invasive.
Nearly 200,000 people have left comments on the post, revealing their own embarrassing experiences. A woman named Geng Lu cited a litany of questions that she faced during previous visits.
"How much did you get for the year-end bonus? Do you have a boyfriend yet? When are you going to get married?" she wrote. "The cross-interrogations freak me out. The thought of being embarrassed makes me hesitant to rush home for the festival," the 24-year-old woman said.
Geng is just one of the increasing number of young people who say they feel suffocated by their relatives' overwhelming concern about their private lives.
The difficulty young people are having in accepting their relatives' well-intended inquiries can be attributed to the fact that the two generations are growing apart in terms of how they believe the former should live their lives, said Xia Xueluan, a sociology professor at Peking University.
For centuries, Chinese parents have believed in marrying off their children at an early age, with expectation too for grandchildren. However, youngsters now are more inclined to set their own timetable regarding marriage and kids, Xia said.
Salaries, like marital status, are more a matter of privacy that young people would rather their parents did not pry into. Some of them come up with white lies regarding their salaries and marital status, or even rent a partner!
"The essence of the Spring Festival should be family reunions and affection, which should not be overshadowed by materialism," said Zhang Taofu, a journalism professor at Fudan University.
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