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‘Force to marry disorder’: Chinese mother who takes single son, 38, to psychiatric hospital for annual check-up gets dose of own medicine

South China Morning Post 8/2/2023 Yuanyue Dang

Millions watch video of man, 38, who says he goes along with annual psychiatric check-up just to please his mother
Pressure to get married is ever-present in China, but at Lunar New Year the demands intensify

A 38-year-old man is taken for a check-up at a psychiatric hospital in China by his mother every Lunar New Year because he is single.

A video of the man - from the central Chinese province of Henan - which was reported on by Sohu News and The Beijing News, has gone viral and provoked a lively debate about the pressure to marry on the mainland.

In the clip - which has been viewed more than 4 million times - the man, surnamed Wang, says that he has never brought a girlfriend home at Lunar New Year.

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This has resulted in his mother believing he "has something wrong in the head".

The dutiful single son says he goes along with his mother's insistence on annual psychiatric check-ups to keep her

The bizarre "diagnosis" has meant that since 2020, his family has developed a strange tradition, following each Lunar New Year holiday, his mother takes him to see a psychiatrist.

On February 4, Wang was once again taken by his mother to the Henan Provincial Psychiatric Hospital.

This time, however, the doctor told the mother that her son was not ill but that it was her who had had a problem as she had developed the mental disorder of "forcing her son to marry".

In an interview with The Beijing News, Wang said he has worked in Beijing for more than a decade, formerly as an actor and now as a tennis coach.

In China, the pressure to marry is ever-present, but the demands ramp up over the Lunar New Year period. Photo: Shutterstock

"I should not be identified as an unmarried person. I am just very busy and haven't met the right person. My mum can't sleep because I don't get married, so I feel quite upset." Wang said, adding that he went along with his mother's strange hospital fascination to reassure her.

Wang also said that in his rural hometown he is known as the "super old single man".

In addition, he said he has not saved enough money for a down payment on a home in Beijing and as such, "who would want to marry me?"

The video posted by Sohu News has garnered more than 2,000 comments, most of which tell how their elders push them to get married.

During the Lunar New Year, when young people living in the big cities return to their hometowns, generational conflicts over getting married intensify.

While the older generation in China wants their children to marry and have kids earlier, the younger generation tends to marry later or is sceptical about marriage for many reasons.

These include daily living pressures and a lack of social support.

In addition, in many less developed areas, the practice of "bride price" in which the groom's family is required to pay a sum of money to the bride's family to obtain their permission to marry, still persists.

One online observer said: "Those who marry casually are the ones with mental problems."

Another said: "Why are we acting like sinners in society if we don't get married?"

‘Force to marry disorder’: Chinese mother who takes single son, 38, to psychiatric hospital for annual check-up gets dose of own medicine

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