A father in China is trying to sweeten the deal a little bit for his son.
He's trying to get his son married.
He's looking for a partner for his son.
And so he actually went viral for buying his son 20 commercial properties in this
desperate attempt to make him seem more attractive to potential partners, right?
So the dad located in China's Hebei province,
showed up at a matchmaking corner at a park, which by the way, is a thing,
I'll explain in a second to look for a wife for his 24 year old son
with 20 property deeds in his hand as like a dowry of sorts, okay?
So first of all, what the hell is a matchmaking corner?
It is a thing.
So matchmaking corners are basically public spaces where parents
gather to find potential mates for their children.
Professional matchmakers also attend these meetings to help connect parents
with one another.
And they're found in major cities and even small towns in China, okay?
Now, how many deeds in total matchmakers are being asked in a now viral
video that he filmed himself?
In the video the father opens a pink bag and replies, less than 20 copies all our
commercial properties that are registered with the House Management Bureaus.
So this is all on tape.
It's a video, but it's all in Chinese, so we just decided to give you that quote.
Anyway, but here's a photo of the bag filled with the deeds to the commercial
properties that the dad bought for his son.
Now the story went viral this week and the video actually attracted like 78
million views and it even sparked like a pretty fierce debate about,
I don't honestly, I don't even know what the fierce debate is about.
Like I kind of get it.
People are like,
well why do you need to sweeten the deal with all these properties?
What's wrong with your son, that kind of stuff.
One person defended the father saying the father is not trying to show off.
He just wanted to display his sincerity and
find a daughter in law of equal status.
Said the matchmaker named Zeng who registered the father's details for dates.
He said his son has a stable job and has many good qualities and
continued, well, I should hope so.
I should hope that his father would say that about him.
But I don't like great, I mean, isn't this what happens in one form or
the other when it comes to a lot of matchmaking?
>> Yeah -. >> I don't know why this is a problem.
>> No, I know, look, I could clearly see why it's a problem for some, but
that's because we live in different cultures and we're all on the same planet.
We're all human beings.
And we all have very similar hardware, but our software,
that's our culture is very different.
So I can see why a lot of people in America would be flipped out by this and
I'll give you both sides.
So maybe the call it loosely the western perspective is you should marry for love.
And they think that that's such a given.
There's no question about that.
That's why they find this story super awkward.
Like how bad is your son that you had to get not one, not two but
20 different properties to convince anyone to marry him.
>> I'm not buying it.
I don't think that's the western culture.
I think that's BS.
>> [CROSSTALK] A lot of people think that,
I would bet that the majority in America would think that.
>> That is what they say.
But I would argue the behavior is a little different than that.
Are you kidding me Jake, ton of people marry for
money in America in the western world.
They just try to lie about it.
That's what I think.
>> Yeah [CROSSTALK].
>> That's my take.
>> No but anna that's super fair.
But at least they are lying about it cuz in our culture it's shameful to
marry for money.
We look at, look at that gold digger right?
>> Yeah, true.
>> It's a pejorative, it's insulting.
Do people do it anyway, of course.
But by the way do most people do it.
I don't know that most people do it.
I mean that's why we have that insult of gold digger cuz it's
some people who very specifically do it, right?
But in other cultures it's perfectly normal.
They don't think it's weird at all.
They don't think it's desperate.
They don't take any of that stuff.
And a critical part of that was of equal status, right?
Because I just went to a Turkish American event over the weekend and
they were explaining what they used to do in the old days.
So this is true for a lot of the old cultures, right?
They would do dowries.
And so when you came to the home of a woman who is now available for
marriage and I'll get to how we used to do this in the west as well.
They would lay out all of the dowry and the bigger the dowry
the higher up you could marry because the rich wanted to marry the other rich and
you wouldn't marry based on your societal status.
It was both like a bribe in a sense.
Okay take all of this stuff with a few dowries when you marry our daughter,
you get all of this, right?
And in this case it's obviously the Chinese cases for
a man and in different cultures do for men, different do it for women.
But anna and I, as she all ready watched that I'm now based on her
advice watching gilded age on HBO and what do they look at?
In the old days that's from the 1880s in New York, they looked at social status.
The rich married the rich and the poor married the poor and
all of that was based on wealth and income etc.
So people have been doing this for a long, long time.
In fact that is much more the standard way that people
got married as opposed to the new way, which is based on love.
Which is also kind of.
>> Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought up gilded age, right?
Because I really think there's a class component to this as well, right?
And I'm specifically talking about the west because in the west, I would venture
to say that even today we're talking about the heirs of wealthy individuals.
I'm pretty sure there's like some strategizing taking place to ensure that
their heirs are not marrying like the poor's, you get what I'm saying?
>> Yeah.
>> They don't do the balls anymore, like they did in the gilded age, right?
So we're gonna throw a ball and it's my daughter's coming out like super
creepy by the way, super super creepy stuff.
But I just think that it has evolved into
something a little different but it's still there.
And it's predominantly a culture within the wealthy.
That's the point that I want to make.
And in this case Homeboy got 20 deeds to 20 properties, okay?
Like he's doing pretty well for himself and he wants to make sure that his
son ends up partnering up with someone of equal value, right?
Which I guess now that I think about it, yeah it's pretty gross.
Like I didn't think about it in that way.
I just thought like I really want my son to get married, so I wanna like make him
a little more attractive to women by showing that he's good.
He's gonna have like means to take care of her.
But he's specifically looking for a woman of equal wealth I guess and that kind of.
>> Of course, of course.
>> Yeah, I'm so dumb, I'm so naïve, I'm so naïve.
So yeah I have a problem with that.
>> Yeah and of course they want the woman to be attractive and so if you've got 20
properties boy that you're gonna get one, you hope that's attractive and wealthy.
And so look I come from a family of rebels,
you're not gonna be surprised to find out.
And my grandparents age everybody was arranged marriage and
they would go through the old customs but my great aunt, she wouldn't do it.
They told her you have to get married to this person and
she's like no the guy even suit her and she's like yeah I'll go to court.
She went to court and told the story to members before TYT.COM/JOIN [LAUGH].
As I always tell you guys to be a member and there's a longer version of it.
But the short version is she went to court there like why didn't you marry him?
And she's like look at him, he's ugly and his breath smells, case was dismissed,
she won.
My dad was poor.
My mom actually was among the wealthier families in their tiny little
town in Southeastern Turkey, but my dad got a college education and
was then going to graduate school in America.
So my grandmother broke tradition to allow her daughter to marry someone
who was poor, which is unheard of, right?
And so you can't break these things.
But the old tradition is real.
And most of the time, yes, money looks for money.
But I tell you that my dad's story partly because I don't get it twisted.
The poor are also looking to quote and quote marry up, right?
In my dad's case it didn't help at all.
He never relied on my mom's side of the family and
then eventually they ran out anyway and my grandmother was right,
the education was much more valuable and my dad did great, but
did my dad's family want to marry into a wealthy family of course.
So and guys, part of the reason why we have a different culture in America is
because we're the wealthiest nation on earth.
So we have that luxury.
If you're poor in an old school country,
you ain't got no luxury to worry about, who do you love and this and that.
If you can marry into money, the family puts tremendous
pressure on you to marry into money so that not only are you saved,
but a lot of them are saved from poverty and need, etc.
And so that's why you see what you see.
But Anna to your point, yes to us and
that's why this the different cultures existing at the same time.
It's amazing cuz we see it so different.
Now, we get to what happens in matchmaking corner for the women,
if they get to the age of 27 in China and not in all of china, but
in a lot of places they're called leftover women.
Because at 27, I mean, come on there, they're past their prime.
It's over for them.
They're just left over.
Then you have to give more to entice a man to marry a woman above the age of 27.
And for us in the west, that feels super gross, right?
But for them, that's totally normal