Zhaoji

More than a year ago while attending to Chinese class I learned the Chines word “zhaoji”. The pronunciation could be something similar to “jaoji” with an increasing tone on both syllabus. The meaning is “to be worry” or “to be anxious”.

The Chinese lesson was about the family members. In one sentence a guy whom had not got married yet was worried. Our teacher, also single, was also on the same boat. I, at that moment, did not understand the dimension of that worries.

During more than a year I had the opportunity to meet few Chinese boys and girds above 25 years old. Very often, if they were not married or did not have a stable couple started to be worried. One of the main reasons is the social pressure towards younger Chinese getting married as well as the pressure received from the family. Very often, such pressure comes from up to 6 direct family members (2 parents and 4 grandparents) due to China’s Single Child Policy.

Today, at one of the old Imperial summer residence (City of Chengde of 200.000 people) in a 500 meters walking distance I saw up to 3 stands promoting the wedding business. This places even had beautiful models showing wedding dresses in order to attract clientele.

I believe these wedding business is one more element in the Chinese society that contributes to put pressure on people still not married. Now, I understand a bit better why our teacher was putting a lot of emphasis on the word: “zhaoji”, “zhaoji”