PBA ReporterIn China, unnamed 55-year-old father was reported to have handed a suicide note to guards at the Shanghai Railway Station, expressing shame that his son was still single at 29 years.
Handing the suicide note, the man announced, he had just overdosed himself on medication so already on his way to the great beyond. He fainted afterwards but was rushed to the hospital and resuscitated.
In the note, he addressed his son, saying he “”lived a life of shame” because his son did not get married at a ‘very old’ age of 29 years.
“People of my age in the village all have children and grandchildren already,” he reportedly wrote, adding: “But you are 29 and have achieved nothing,” the suicide note read.
Expressing gratitude for the man’s survival, onlookers took the event to social media, wondering why Chinese mounts so much pressure on their youth to settle down so early.
On China’s Twitter-like platform, Weibo, one user commented, identifying with the man’s pain points.
“The father’s responsibility is to raise his son well and give him a good education, but also see him married and start a business. Only then can he complete his mission,” he wrote.
In the Chinese culture, young men are pushed to settle down as soon as possible because they are “expected to carry on the family lineage,” said Mu Zheng, a sociology expert at the National University of Singapore
According to the sociologist: “Marriage has also been an important marker of social maturation and personal success.”
She said: “Given China’s high housing prices and the expectations for men to assume the majority of costs in a household, transitioning to marriage indicates that the man is socially and financially ready.”
Reports say, everyone is expected to get married before they turn 30 and it is not uncommon for parents to push their children in that direction, even setting up blind dates for them.
If young women were unable to get married after 27, they are tagged: “Sheng nu,” which means “Leftover women.”
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