GOLDSEA | IDENTITY

STAYING SINGLE
The quest for fame and fortune keeps young Asian professionals single well into their mid-30s.
by Dan Turner
PAGE 1 of 5

ressure? It's what you feel when a cousin you've never met comes over to visit from Korea, and practically the first words out of her mouth are, "Are you married?"

"I want to be rich and famous. Once I'm at that stage, I want to marry."

     It's the anguish of having your traditional Chinese parents fix you up with a nice Chinese girl they know, who turns out to be about as interesting as a traffic school instructor, and then act hurt the next day when you tell them you're not interested in seeing her again.
     It's the knowledge that fertility won't last forever and the pool of single men your own age seems to get smaller and smaller every year.
     Anybody who's still single by the time that dreaded 30th birthday rolls around knows something about pressure. But for Asian Americans, caught between two cultures with very different attitudes about marriage and family, that pressure can have the weight of a dozen atmospheres.
     Statistics show that Americans are choosing to get married later in life than ever before. And it's not just happening here--in affluent Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, more and more men and women are kissing their 20s goodbye with bare ring fingers. The phenomenon is probably related to better opportunities for women, who are no longer forced to get married in order to live independently. Men too have their reasons for staying single longer.
     We interviewed over a dozen single Asian men and women to find out why they've chosen to stretch the string a little before tying the knot. Their reasons vary, but almost all of them feel the weight of a biological and cultural imperative pushing them into a path they've so far managed to skip along the way.
     Money might be the most important factor pushing back traditional early weddings. The reason, based on our interviews, is one of the crowning ironies of human courtship: women want it so they can support themselves without a husband, and men want more of it so they can support a wife.
     "I grew up with nothing, and I don't want my kids to grow up the same way," says Harry Dang, a single Vietnamese American producer in his 30s. "I want them to have the good life."

Money Matters
     In his quest for the good life, Dang typically arrives at his film studio at 6:30 a.m. and stays long into the night, sometimes not returning home until 3 a.m. the next day. This isn't the kind of schedule that makes for happy marital relations. But, as Dang puts it, "I want to be rich and famous. Once I'm at that stage, I want to marry."
     Money and career are the most frequently cited barriers to dating and marriage. Many of the Asian professionals we interviewed said they typically work well over 60 hours a week, making it almost impossible to cultivate a non-work relationship. Finding the time to find someone is a constant challenge for those who make career a top priority. And the ups and downs of dating can create emotional pressures that busy people don't need.
     "Heartbreak slows you down, and I'm in the fast lane right now," Dang says. "I'm married to my production company. When you're married, you want to give 100 percent to the relationship, and that's just what I'm doing." PAGE 2

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