Cosmetic company’s advertisement video “Marriage Market Takeover”. Source: bbc.com
On 8 April, 2016, various social media beyond and behind China’s Great Fire Wall witnessed a wave of circulation of a video titled “Marriage Market Takeover”. It is a well-made documentary. With dark green coloured background, the whole narrative seems heavy-toned but sincere at heart. A young woman shares the pressure from her parents who keep pushing her to marry (‘I won’t die in peace unless you’re married’), and eventually, the well-known catchphrase: “you are a leftover woman”, despite the fact that she has a good career and a life that she enjoys. She shared with the audience all sorts of pressures she received, and eventually broke into tears with a moving statement “maybe I am being selfish, I want to say sorry to them [parents].” In the end, she eventually went to the marriage market, and her parents, showing understanding and support, nodded in tears, “our daughter is beautiful.”
This video is part of the “Change Destiny” campaign produced by high-end Japanese cosmetic company SK-II, which has a large market in China targeting well-off women, and is made by Swedish advertising company Strobel. It tells of the struggles and pressures of China’s “leftover women”, a social group that has received increasing attention internationally as well as domestically as an increasing number of highly educated - yet single! - urban female professionals pose a challenge to the social structure, the imbalanced urban development and sex ratio, and the “harmonious society” that the government has been advocating since the last leadership - with a particular focus on birth control policy as a fundamental part of the economic reform.
