Juliet Married Romeo Who Had a House

When I’m with Ce-ge, he always loves talking to me about major and future career matters. I don’t know if he does this often with others too. He really likes considering life prospects, and exchanging opinions with everyone has probably become his habit. I’ve had two recent opportunities to eat at the same table with him. Both times we talked about houses and marriage.

“In this current situation, can you get a wife without a house?”

“Don’t even think about it. Today’s girls are very realistic!” I answered loudly, same as last time.

“What about houses in rural areas?”

“Rural areas?! Who would want to marry into the countryside now? I don’t even want to stay in the countryside myself, let alone ask someone else to come suffer with me. Before girls get married, they always ask a few questions: Do you have a house? Do you have a car? How many zeros in the bankbook? Even if the girl doesn’t ask, her parents will definitely ask.”

My judgment is based on some real situations I know about. These facts have somewhat influenced my views on marriage and put constant pressure on me to earn money. I have a distant cousin, over twenty years old, quite pretty. She had several relationships with marriage as the goal. Almost every time she was about to cross the marriage threshold, she was defeated by harsh reality. Her parents’ condition for her marriage was that the guy must have a house, or be able to buy one immediately. I knew one young guy—I’d met him a few times. He worked at a landscaping company with a monthly salary of four or five thousand. He was very enthusiastic and proactive. I thought his conditions were decent. I thought their loving relationship would eventually lead them to the wedding hall. It wasn’t until last New Year that I found out they’d broken up again. Because my aunt and uncle’s only condition was that he must have a house—otherwise, don’t even talk about anything. He couldn’t meet it. His parents in the countryside couldn’t even come up with the down payment money. Although his salary was slightly higher, with Chengdu’s housing prices, he could only buy one square meter every two months. Can a girl in her twenties wait for you to save up the down payment? Who can guarantee she’ll still love you then? In the end, this young guy just left. I wonder if his mood at that time was helplessness or anger? Resentment that his father couldn’t step up, cursing his own incompetence, or complaining about skyrocketing housing prices? My cousin now has a new boyfriend who just graduated from university. I don’t know how strong his personal abilities are, but his current conditions can meet all her family’s requirements—he has one or two houses left to him by his parents. Now my cousin can get married, right?

Their marriage doesn’t affect me much, but these experiences I’ve learned about have deeply touched me. I worry that one day when I’m about to bring the woman I deeply love into the church to receive the priest’s blessing, her parents suddenly ask if I have a house—what would I answer? Maybe I’d say:

“Auntie… oh no… Mom, would a rented house work?”

“No! Don’t get married for now. Young man, go buy a house!”

I might go find my dad: “Dad, buy me a house? I’m getting married.”

My dad would say: “Son, your dad isn’t surnamed Li!”

Then it becomes Romeo and Juliet… or maybe just me as Romeo alone, with Juliet running off to find Romeo who has a house.

Tying marriage to a property deed—I wonder if this is what China has always called “characteristics.” Sometimes I think, if only the woman I marry were one of Goriot’s two daughters, there’d also be a large dowry coming. Fantasy can’t overcome reality. I fucking live in a heavenly dynasty where prices are skyrocketing! For example, when eating, I bought a pancake. The cafeteria staff pressed 1.2 on the card machine. I swiped, then he said it was wrong and pressed 0.3 yuan again on the machine. FK, you haven’t even mastered pressing 1.2 yet? Now you’re practicing 1.5 again! Can’t you go slower? A small pancake, I can afford it. But most people can’t afford housing prices that rise every day. In this era of nationwide property speculation, many companies doing real business have switched to speculating in real estate. They’re not focused on their own enterprise development. Employee benefits and wages haven’t improved. Housing prices are soaring into the sky. When employees’ children want to get married and don’t want their kids to continue suffering like them, they’re all willing to find a son-in-law with a house and car.