How to Be Single in China Part 7/8

Liz Tuccillo: People all over the world men and women are staying single longer and getting married later. Being here in Beijing, I’m realizing, In China this can come at a very high cost. What happens to the states often now is that at least it’s the option to have a child on your own. Can a woman do that at least to have that option? Chen Chang: No, we can’t. It’s government don’t love people being single mom. Liz Tuccillo: They don’t. Chen Chang: No, you have to marry then have kids. Liz Tuccillo: And what if you just had your child out of wedlock? Chen Chang: You get an abortion? Liz Tuccillo: But what if you tap your child, what would happen to the child they’d let you keep the child, I mean— Chan Cheng: You know we have a license actually like you can have a kid licensed. Liz Tuccillo: You have a child like a license for your child. Chan Chang: If you don’t have the license to a hospital they don’t help you deliver your baby. So you’re lucky, you can have baby on the street if you have scissors. Liz Tuccillo: If I was a Chinese woman and I wanted to have a child on my own, my child would not exist really here. Chan Chang: Legal. Liz Tuccillo: Not legally exist. Chan Chang: Yeah not legally. One more reason because we don’t make that much money can take care children on our own. Some women, maybe they can but too much pressure you know from the family, from friend even from you know stranger on the street that they were looking and said, “What’s wrong with you?” Liz Tuccillo: How do women feel who are getting to an age where they might be able to not get pregnant and they’re single, are they incredibly sad that they’ve lost their chance of being a mother? Chen Chang: When they decide that they still want to be mom one day they have to find a husband. Liz Tuccillo: They just have to. Chen Chang: Yeah have to—yeah even if I wait three or four years, I can’t have a baby anymore you know so a lot of Chinese actually they believe marriage and the love, that’s different things. You can’t have both. Liz Tuccillo: The characters on the show, did they ever worry that they were getting old and they won’t marry? Female: Yeah of course, of course. Liz Tuccillo: Did they talk about a lot about worrying about not having children and wanted to be mothers and did any of the women on the show ever consider marrying somebody that they didn’t love just to have the stability and to have children. Female: Yeah, yeah—in our part in our—she always wants to marry and then finally she married, the reason is she wants to have baby and that she find the man couldn’t give him the child. Liz Tuccillo: Oh, he was sterile. Female: Yeah and then they divorce. Bijiyi: I got married because I want babies so much. That’s the first thing. It’s hard to be single but it’s really harder to be a wife. Liz Tuccillo: Yeah. Did you think that they’ll be anytime in China’s culture coming up that it will be more acceptable for a single woman to have a child on her own and for that child to be recognized by the government? Bijiyi: That takes time. Liz Tuccillo: It will be for a while? Bijiyi: I don’t think so because of the population problems that comes first. Liz Tuccillo: What if the single woman wanted to adopt in China? Bijiyi: I don’t think it’s very convenient to that. Liz Tuccillo: So if living single in China means you might never get to be a mother is holding out for love of worth it.