没有车，没有房

Sito stumbled upon this sweet song:



Which links to the less sweet all-female version:



Reading the interesting reflection piece under the Baidu page on 没有车，没有房, my first thought was, since when has something as unquantifiable as love become dependent on material possessions?

It took me a second to answer myself: Since forever!

Seriously, look at 梁祝 - he couldn't marry her cos he was poor. Granted, that wasn't her fault; it was her family's. But the underlying rational remains that he was too poor for her.

(Ok, it's a story but you get the drift...)

Now, I think people generally want to look for equals as partners. I have nothing against that - say, you want someone as educated as yourself to have more common conversation topics. But some people want more than that. A single Korean guy here told Sito he thought it amazing that we went without a car cos Korean girls generally would expect their men to have a car!

I still remember watching matchmaking variety shows when I was a kid. The hosts always asked the contestants for their criteria for a partner. I often heard 安全感 and 幽默感 but I don't remember hearing materialistic replies - or maybe people were shy on TV, or everything is embedded in 安全感? :p But apparently in a matchmaking show in China in recent years, the girls gave such materialistic replies that the authorities had to cancel the show!

Anyway, in reality, I don't think people end up with spouses who fulfil all or even most of their pre-dating/marriage criteria. I think such criteria that people pull out of their imagination kind of fly out of the window when they meet the right person. Remember what Carina Lau said in Infernal Affairs II: 只要男人对我好，要我做什么都行 - ok, a bit extreme but I read it as 男人没有车没有房也没关系 :)

My Sito certainly isn't as tall, dark and handsome as the Disney princes I coveted as a kid/teenager/young adult lost in fairy tales - oops, but yup, that was me.. And no, he doesn't have a car. But together, we have a flat. And soon, a bigger family. I think we're good together :)