Love deferred for the good life

Many Chinese parents want their daughter to marry because they fear she will end up lonely. [Photo provided to China Daily]

As Chinese parents ask their children, "Don't you think it's about time you got married? " more and more are replying, "I don't think so."

Zhang Zixuan has decided to paint herself out of the corner that society had painted her into. In that corner stand many of her peers, single women in their late 20s and early 30s anxious about being unable to marry before it is "too late".

The anxiety they feel is so palpable that they are willing to subject themselves to blind dates that well-meaning parents or other relatives or friends arrange for them, eager to spare them of the supposed ignominy of being tagged "left on the shelf".

These days, too, many avail themselves of the possibilities that online matchmaking sites offer them of meeting "the right person".

In Chinese society it has traditionally been deemed not only appropriate but almost obligatory to marry before the age of 30 - a rule applied much more aggressively to women than men - but things are changing.

Zhang, 32, of Beijing, has decided to throw convention out the window and devote herself to the present love of her life, painting. A career as an artist is much more important to her, she has decided, and other matters of the heart can simply be allowed to take their course.

Right now, she says, she enjoys her life as a single person and is prepared to wait for Mr Right to appear at a time that destiny dictates. Apart from painting, her leisure time is fulfilling, she says, spending it with friends, going to the gym, watching movies, going to concerts and learning the mandolin.

"What matters most to me is making my mark in the arts. If, because of work, destiny or whatever, I never marry, I can happily live with that."

Early last year she quit her job as a reporter because she wanted to be an artist. She detests rigid routine, she says, preferring adventure and the vagaries that life happens to serve up, and she often travels alone.

"Over the years I have not met anyone who could give me the true feeling of love. If I really like someone it is me who takes the initiative."

Although she has little experience in long-term relationships, she says, she longs for an intense and dramatic relationship.

"If I die without having had such an experience, I will rue it because I think I will have missed out on something. But I will feel no such regret simply because I never married."