After a decade shooting news stories in China for National Geographic, CNN and CBS News, American cameraman and director Nathan Mauger decided to find out how people in contemporary China view love and marriage, the topic of his documentary, 'The People's Republic of Love.'
contemporary：当代的，同时代的 documentary：记录，纪录片
The film is far from a touchy-feely examination of romance, instead exploring Internet dating, cheating husbands, lesbian and gay issues, communist matchmakers and the Happy Wife School, where new and prospective brides are offered an 'MBA in love.' Mr. Mauger, 36 years old, recently completed editing the film and expects it to release later this year.
touch-feely：过于感情化的，婆婆妈妈的，卿卿我我 lesbian：女同性恋
He spoke about the state of love in China and how it's being ruled by money, familial expectations and the desire to have it all. Edited excerpts follow.
How does the situation for Chinese looking for love differ from that of people elsewhere in the world?
Mr. Mauger: In China, the dating culture is much more conservative. Casual relationships are not encouraged, and dating is basically just a tool used for getting married, rather than fun. We filmed at the headquarters of the biggest dating website in the world, and they talk about how they're trying to prove they're geared toward marriage, not just dating. That's a big difference from the West.
conservative：保守的
What did you learn about how the young generation views love?
The materialism, how romance is basically a luxury in China, and how people are so unhappy about that. You have men complaining about how women only want men with money and property, and if they don't have an apartment they're out of luck. We profile a dating-show ['Pursuit of Love'] episode in the documentary, and followed a male contestant who is judged by a dozen female contestants. He's an artist, handsome, going abroad and so on, and for most of the show he's a superstar. But he doesn't actually own a house. He rents. And in the space of just a few minutes, the experts on the show take him down. It's brutal. Suddenly, everything that was attractive about him starts to work against him. He has long hair, so in the first part of the show they're saying he's an artist, a romantic. But after they find out he doesn't own a house, his long hair is seen as a sign that he's unstable and irresponsible.
materialism：物质主义，唯物主义 episode：片段，插曲 contestant：竞争者，参赛人
How great a factor is family pressure to get married?
Materialism is in your face and easy to understand, but the family pressures are even greater, I think. Men ideally get married at about 26 to 28 years old and women at 24. You date to get married, you get married to have a child, and if you don't deliver, your parents are going to give you hell. That's also the background to the main opposition to homosexuality─same-sex couples can't naturally give birth, so it's seen as basically a crime against your family.
give hell：挨痛骂，受严惩 homosexuality：同性恋
What about the country's LGBT population? What did you discover about their ideas when it comes to love?
We did a big section in the documentary about homosexuals in China, including 'fake marriages,' where lesbians marry gay men to trick the parents of both parties. For Chinese migrants, this can seem like a solution: You leave your city or town and live a gay lifestyle somewhere else, then just go home for Spring Festival, and your parents never wise up.
wise up：知道，了解
What can happen when people tell their families about their sexual orientation?
It can turn into a complete disaster, like for one lesbian couple we filmed. This gay woman is living in a major city and had just told her mother two weeks before we started filming her that she's gay, and her mom disowned her. Conversely, we also filmed two men living in the countryside in an openly gay relationship, who are accepted in their town. It's not like they're having gay-pride parades there or anything, but people see them as a legitimate couple. Having said that, the mother of one of the guys lives 100 yards away, and she doesn't approve at all.
disown：否认，脱离关系 legitimate：合法的，正当的
How has China's rapid development affected the notions of love and marriage?
Development has been very, very fast, and that's wreaked havoc on what people want and expect. Standards of living have gone up so much, so quickly, and that's having a trickle-down effect on romance, as strange as that sounds, because expectations are rising, too. In the documentary, we filmed this traditional Chinese matchmaker who mostly helps migrant women who come to the city to do menial labor. He only matched one couple in a year. In his interviews, he's very, very frank about why that is: because the women he works for have unrealistic expectations. He says they want 'everything'─ a man with money, a house, a car, and also someone who will love them. He's saying all this with a smirk on his face in the documentary and calls this kind of expectation unrealistic.
notion：概念，见解，意图 wreak：发泄，报仇 havoc：浩劫，大破坏，蹂躏 menial：仆人，卑微的
frank：坦白的，直率的 smirk：假笑，傻笑，得意地笑
Any other examples?
We also filmed a private detective who says the mistress culture is a result of China's opening-up policies. And he's in a position to know. Women hire him to follow their cheating husbands, and he does it with video cameras and GPS trackers. His interview was one of the most memorable that we did. He also talked about how mistresses are seen as a way of showing your wealth, like a gold chain.
mistress：情妇，主妇 memorable：显著的，难忘的，值得纪念的