Hi all, found this article interesting and wondered if anyone has any thoughts.
www.nytimes.com/[...]

"Job, car, house, THEN wife"

In a nutshell the article says that a lot of Chinese men are having a huge problem finding wives due to several factors: 1) the real estate price bubble, 2) wages not keeping up with rising real estate prices, 3) women absolutely refusing men without a house/apartment, 4) finally, the sex ratio skewing towards more men than women.

I hadn't actually noticed this phenom so much in KM, but I think all of those pressures have finally arrived. Also, I think that with the accumulation of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, women are accepting the role of second gal more and more. And some guys can afford that second apartment and that second car for his second gal. Its textbook sociobiology...when resources are scarce, females will head towards the goods even if it means taking second girl status.

I find it fascinating and horrifying to watch all of these things happen so quickly and blatantly here. If you hang around Kundu and take a sample you see so many old guys just flaunting their cash with their young ladies while young male club waiters just stand and watch. Doesn't this get their collective goat?

Anyway, so weird as an American to watch all of our mistakes happen with such high velocity and intensity in such a short time. China's due for a correction...I wonder how and when...

Have you ever wondered why there is so much violence in Kundu?
China also has had a 2nd wife culture for millennia. It is a status symbol here, for the man. Also, there are a lot of girls, not all of them nice, who have figured that they can earn more in a night than they can in a month at a regular job. And often they don't need to do more than flirt and have men buy them drinks and maybe give a cash tip for being nice. Or sometimes more, but not always.
There is also the phenomena of girls paying their way through college by having a sugar daddy. None of this is new.