social class incest

marriage markets and wechat groups

a couple months ago my mom asked me to join a wechat group with other 'american born chinese' students and said it would be a great place to meet with others because we share a similar background.

at first i thought it was a considerate gesture but then found it kind of odd that we had to give an introduction and send a picture of ourselves to join. it later turned out this group chat is for parents to help their kids find a partner from a similar socioeconomic background and the picture is to help the parents consider their options for their kids.

they believe that finding someone from the same social class will help better understand each other, that if you were raised in similar ways, you'd have similar views.

though i think this generally right, what really makes me really uneasy is that she uses this as the filter to view people.

my first boyfriend wasn't good enough for me because he went to uc santa cruz, a school 'lower' than cmu. my second boyfriend wasn't good enough because he dropped out of school. both of them didn't meet her marks, so they were instantly dequeued.

i try not to let what she thinks intrude on the way i view people, but it keeps finding its way in. when i meet people from a school 'lower' than cmu, i find myself putting her words in my mouth. i don't like it, and i don't believe them, but they're there.

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i visited a marriage market in shanghai a couple weeks ago and it looked like this:

parents sit in front of signs that say the basic info of their kids or friends' kids: gender, age, what school and major they graduated from, monthly income, where they're from, personality, height, what they're looking for, their contact info.

all of the parents who go there keep their kids anonymous because its embarrassing for them. their kids could be completely oblivious to their parents camping there each weekend, trying to help them find a partner of similar socioeconomic status and upbringing. there's a gap between who they are as a person and who they are as an anonymous piece of paper in the marriage market.

when i hear how my mom describes me to her wechat friends, i get really uneasy. at first glance on paper, i'd seem like an amazing bragging point to any other asian parents: carnegie mellon student, fluent in chinese, has worked at facebook, has won numerous awards at art competitions and hackathons.¹

but this isn't the me everyday. this doesn't encompass my thoughts, personality, the ups and downs i go through. it doesn't say anything about my compatibility because it's not trying to look for compatibility. it's my personality as a static trading card.

when her wechat friends then meet me, i barely resemble my mom's description. they imagine me as some quiet, hardworking girl who is well-behaved and tame, qualities you'd expect from reading who i am on paper. but i'm actually the complete opposite, having rebelled and not listened to her for the majority of my childhood. some of her friends are disappointed, realizing she had created this idyllic version of me that they've believed in all this time. i'm disappointed, for her saying such things about me that fall so far short of who i am. my mom's disappointed, realizing she has failed in marketing my personality to yet another parent.²

i'd like to think that it is possible for me to connect to any other being on the planet, old or young, with language barrier or without, religious or not, straight or queer, human or not. i think it's important to understand another's background, but not use it as a factor to restrict the groups of people not to engage with. social class certainly informs the frequency of personality types encountered, but it is not deterministic of someone's values which settle or to make friends with.

i'm always fascinated connecting with those very different from me, hearing their stories, unlocking parts of the world i've never seen before. seeing the world continuously expand, walking the new shortcuts and alleyways. crossing, discovering, building bridges.

1. this is also what makes me so hesitant about introductions that are through a profile or resume of me rather than an understanding of who i am as a person

2. recently my mom has basically ‘adopted’ one of my friends who moved near her after graduating and started introducing her to guys instead of me because she’s basically given up on me :’)