Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World's Next Superpower

by Roseann Lake

Forty years ago, China enacted the one-child policy, only recently relaxed. Among many other unintended consequences, it resulted in both an enormous gender imbalance—with a predicted twenty million more men than women of marriage age by 2020—and China’s first generations of only-daughters. Given the resources normally reserved for boys, these girls were pushed to study, excel in college, and succeed in careers, as if they were sons.

Now living in an economic powerhouse, enough of these women have decided to postpone marriage—or not marry at all—to spawn a label: "leftovers." Unprecedentedly well-educated and goal-oriented, they struggle to find partners in a society where gender roles have not evolved as vigorously as society itself, and where new professional opportunities have made women less willing to compromise their careers or concede to marriage for the sake of being wed. Further complicating their search for a mate, the vast majority of China’s single men reside in and are tied to the rural areas where they were raised. This makes them geographically, economically, and educationally incompatible with city-dwelling “leftovers,” who also face difficulty in partnering with urban men, given the urban men’s general preference for more dutiful, domesticated wives.

Part critique of China’s paternalistic ideals, part playful portrait of the romantic travails of China’s trailblazing women and their well-meaning parents who are anxious to see their daughters snuggled into traditional wedlock, Roseann Lake’s Leftover in China focuses on the lives of four individual women against a backdrop of colorful anecdotes, hundreds of interviews, and rigorous historical and demographic research to show how these "leftovers" are the linchpin to China’s future.

Genres: China, Nonfiction, Feminism, History, Sociology, Asia, Audiobook

288 pages, Hardcover

First published February 13, 2018

About the author

Roseann Lake is The Economist’s Cuba correspondent. She was previously based in Beijing, where she worked for five years as a television reporter and journalist. Her China coverage has appeared in Foreign Policy, Time, The Atlantic, Salon, and Vice, among others. She lives between New York City and Havana.

Reviews

[Adri Joy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite my interest in the subject, I will not be touching this book. Unintentionally or otherwise, it erases the groundbreaking contributions in this field made by Leta Hong Fincher, whose public writing on this subject has been available since 2011 and whose own book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China - which Lake fails to cite in her bibliography, despite exchanging numerous e-mails and soliciting ideas and "thoughts" with Hong Fincher over a period of years, and listing 30 other works unrelated to Shengnu specifically - was released in 2014.

When called out on this, Lake claimed she deliberately chose not to read Hong Fincher's work when it came out in 2014 because she wanted to "remain focused" on her own work. If that's the case, it shows an extremely poor attitude to research - it is the duty of a good researcher to engage critically with work that's come before, and that engagement is ESPECIALLY valuable if works are taking their subject matter to different conclusions. Lake is apparently privileged enough to believe that her audience won't be put off by her openly admitting she has failed to read key texts on the subject she claims to have expertise on... unfortunately, in my case at least, she's wrong.

A deeply unfortunate book which should be a source of embarrassment to both the author and the publisher. Nobody is saying that there can't be multiple books on this subject, but Lake has offered a pitiful excuse for erasing the work of someone whose labour she clearly DID use, and she's now benefiting from it with complete impunity. Yuk.

(Further reading: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2...)

[Emily Jang · Rating 1 out of 5]

A fascinating topic: how the landscape of marriage is changing in modern China. However, the author does not do it justice - not by a long shot. Lake is unintentionally uncharitable throughout out the book, which is littered with microaggressions and off-color remarks.

Here's a few petty examples;
"In addition to being a mediocre brand of Japanese dairy sold widely in China, Suki is the name of Beijing's most sought-after bikini waxer" (104). ... Do you think you're being funny?

"Any 'gratitude love' that grew between them was acknowledged in society as a pleasant by-product of their union, much like whey is a pleasant by-product of cheese" (101). Why are you oversimplifying people's love in order to compare it to cheese? This isn't even good writing. It's flippant and unnecessary.

"Young men have witnessed the decline of the salaryman (pronounced sa-ra-ri-man in Japan) and understand the extreme pressure associated with being dominant (or sole) breadwinner in a society that no longe offers the jobs to make that feasible" (212). I included the entire sentence so it's clear that explaining how "salaryman" is pronounced in Japan is not relevant, and serves merely to perpetuate a trope about Asian accents.

I get it, Lake is white. She can't help but write from her western perspective ("The gaokao is the closest thing China has to the SAT" is a laughable comparison: first of all, she doesn't even bother explaining what the SAT is because clearly her audience is American; more importantly, the SAT is NOTHING compared to the gaokao, and to include the two in the same sentence reveals her astounding ignorance).

Yes, I'm picking at the edges here, because it actually hurts too much to unpack the heart of the matter. I am Taiwanese-American, raised and educated in the western world. However, as I am ethnically Chinese, any discussion of Chinese culture and history still feels personal.

Anti-Chinese sentiments are not new, but they are certainly on the rise. And to read such a sloppy book as this is to recognize that the west is not interested in understanding China: we just want to make them a laughing stock, to poke fun at them, to other them in big and small ways. The bar for publishing such unnecessary, stock commentary is so low, as demonstrated by this book.

I know Lake's intentions were good: she lived in Beijing, made Chinese friends, became genuinely curious about why her independent, successful friends were single, and learned about the complex cultural and historical context backing the institution of marriage. This reads like an article that turned into a book deal: frankly, this book should have stayed a blog, as it's frankly not fit for publishing (should I also mention the multiple typos and blatant statistical errors) because Lake's personal biases and perspectives do not do it justice. Her uncharitable depictions are everywhere--seeped into her metaphors--and undermine any outward attempts to better understand China. I genuinely believe that if Americans were to pick this book up and take it at face value, we will not form bridges. We will merely affirm the western view that the Chinese are strange, backwards, other. And we, at least I, simply don't have time for this.

[Lucia Nieto Navarro · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5

Este libro no es una novela como tal, sino que es un ensayo donde la autora nos cuenta las historias personales de cuatro mujeres Chinas con las que pudo convivir durante un tiempo.
Cuatro mujeres a las que se las llama “Mujeres desechadas” como el propio nombre del libro indica, mujeres que no quieren casarse, mujeres que no quieren depender de nadie, y estas mujeres al final son las imparables a pesar de la sociedad en la que viven.
Las historias están entrelazadas con diferentes comparaciones con otros países como son Japón, Singapur, Estados Unidos y Corea, hablando de la presión que tienen las mujeres por encontrar un marido, por no poder estudiar, y muchísimas cosas mas que la autora refleja en este ensayo cortito.
Me llama la atención como un tema tan importante, como ha sido la ley de la política del único hijo o la dificultad de la independencia de las mujeres que decidían casarse, la autora lo trate de una manera con humor y con mucho respeto.
Asique recomiendo este librito para aquellas personas que quieran entender un poco mas este país tan “complejo” y que te deja teniendo un respeto mucho mayor hacia estas mujeres.

[Sigrid-marianella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having seen the leftover monologues staged in Beijing in 2014 I have been eagerly waiting for this book to be released and to get to know these awe-inspiring women better.

This book follows the personal stories of a handful of so-called “leftover” women, revealing that unlike what their label suggests, these women are fierce and unstoppable despite living in a society that discriminates women. The personal stories are interwoven with interesting comparisons with other countries, as well as interesting descriptions of previous waves of marriage-defying women in China’s history.

It takes a special talent to write about a serious topic with both humor and respect, something Lake manages to do well in her book. It is a light and fun read, I found myself smiling throughout and falling in love with the women in her book. Those looking for an academic scholarly overview will not find it here, rather the central focus of the book is to put a human face on the demographic shift of women marrying later and later. Ultimately the book leaves you with a deep sense of respect and belief that these women will continue to break barriers in the future.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book after reading all the controversy over it, so wanted to see for myself what it was all about. I quickly figured it wasn’t like Leta Hong Fincher’s book, the other book it’s been compared to. I’ll review hers later this month. For Lake’s book, I thought it flowed well and it kept my attention throughout. It was a little lite in some parts (body waxing in China anyone?) and I found some mistakes (Prime Minister Yew of Singapore and some pinyin errors) and didn’t really like the mention of “girls” when she was talking about women, but the main gist of the book was compelling. The one-child policy has caused a gender imbalance and women are coming out ahead as they are more highly educated than ever before in China. But the choice of men is lacking. The women are either more highly educated than the men they meet or the educated men are threatened by these women’s intelligence and advanced degrees. Lake explains that this was true in the US and many men there are no longer threatened by marrying up. Will China follow suit? It depends, according to Lake, on whether Chinese men can mature and catch up to modern dating practices. All I know is that dating in China is so much more awkward now than when I was there 20 years ago. It makes my story seem normal compared to what’s going on there now.

[Jonathan Yu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recognize that as a man, I cannot testify to experiencing this for myself so let’s get that out of the way. I also recognize that I’m an outsider to the mainland, but then again so is the author.

With all that being said this is an okay book that most deeply focuses on a very specific group of people - college educated urban elite women with dating issues. I can only believe this is a trend because the authors friends attest to it.

I can recall just a handful of interviews with the men themselves. The intro briefly goes into a story of one such guy in a rural area but that’s the only such in the book. I’d like to have seen why they and their families feel uncomfortable dating women who are so successful.

This book has a sensationalist feel to it: Look at how Asia treats its women, the horror! I find that awkward to deal with because as much as I like to learn more and am interested in the topic, I found this way of handling needless.

I am still looking for a good book on this topic. I’ll write about it when I find it.

[Chunchun · Rating 3 out of 5]

多给1分是由于趣味性，很推荐闲暇时当作消遣。
问题一：塑造的几位女主角，都惆怅着嫁人问题，且各有各的头痛，只有那位游走于各类有钱男人的漂亮外围女最为潇洒和有钱，从男人当中得到了房子、车子、各类名牌，印象最深的一幕是外围女与作者、耶鲁女孩结束聚会分别时，她开着保时捷（好像是卡宴？）扬长而去，作者与耶鲁女孩骑着电动在寒风瑟瑟中回家，结局是外围女放弃了一位愿意娶她的富二代，选择了一位医生。当然作者觉得其他几位也是happy ending，找不到对象的换了工作或者回老家了，找到对象的买房结婚了。这传递了多么感人的三观？全书围绕着找对象这个主线，显示出intelligent的女性在男人面前不如漂亮会撒娇的女人优秀，这就是女性的价值，是superpower？
问题二：这些女性或明或暗都能看出是中产到精英家庭出身，抛开找对象，单从事业来看，这几位能代表广大的底层家庭出生的剩女吗？
问题三：作者想要把在中国看到的、听到的全都要融进一本书里（达到惊异的效果？），像是异国见闻录。
问题四：最后两章可能想要升华全书的高度，从生育之类的杂七杂八拼凑了一堆，但很明显作者没有这方面的学术背景，只能是大篇幅paraphrase别人的研究结果。
问题五，一些小错误都不是问题，但因为前面的不满意，导致缩小了我对这些小错误的容忍度，比如恩爱的拼音写成en nai，后面爱情又是拼对的，还有其他拼音错误；顾宝昌的名字在很近的位置出现两次，一次用gu baochang，一次用baochang gu，所以作者只是罗列了道听途说的个别研究，连基本的文献综述的功夫都没有去做过。

[David Kirschner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book about educated women in urban China and their struggles dealing with expectations of marriage. There's history of marriage, love, and family planning policies in China, cross-cultural comparisons with Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the US, some discussion of the pressures men have to deal with as well, and more. Seems really well researched (though apparently there is some controversy over a key missing citation), and I learned so much while reading. As someone who lived in Singapore for four years for graduate school and befriended a handful of highly educated Chinese women, this book was like a lens through which to revisit the various conversations we had about dating, marriage, love, and relationships. I'd be listening and think "Oh yeah, I remember when so-and-so was telling me about that!" Definitely recommended if you have an interest in demography and family and marriage patterns. It's kind of like Modern Romance or Going Solo, but about Chinese women.

[Ravi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting look at Chinese (and global) views on marriage, Chinese dating culture, the One Child policy and Asian demographic trends. The author inserted too much of her Western bias for my tastes but the book was otherwise great.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lake is a good journalist who now works for the greatest newspaper in the world, but this book fails because she tries to do more than she is capable of. She is at her best when she is reporting, telling the stories of these women and men who are struggling to figure out what sex means in contemporary China. She adds pathos to complicated arguments, and brings their stories to an English-speaking audience in a language that is easy to understand, but the work had flaws that I found too great to get over.

She often times makes statements that are unsupported and difficult to understand, and worse, the honesty of these claims is often debatable. In the first few pages, she claims that China's is the largest economy in the world, a claim she makes repeatedly throughout the book. Most experts agree (including The Economist, where Lake now works) that China's economy is the second largest to the US.

Pointing out these problems may seem knitpicky, but it gets at a larger problem with her work. Let's dive into a short statement that she makes and show why these little issues, when repeated throughout the book, add up to big trouble. "It's worth recalling that extramarital activity has been a driving force of China's history for dynasties. The country's most powerful leader - Wu Zetian - served as a Forbidden City concubine during the Tang dynasty." First, she indicates that Wu Zetian gained power through extramarital activity...but being a concubine is actually a position in which you are married, in the Chinese context. Second, she didn't serve in the Forbidden City, which was not built until seven centuries after Wu Zetian had died. Third, no Chinese historian would suggest that Wu Zetian was the most powerful leader in China...I'm not sure where Lake is getting this from, but it is bogus. Of course, there is no objective metric for power, but, if there was one, Wu Zetian would not land on top of it.

When Lake veers away from what she does best, tell the stories of these women, she often makes monumental claims that are simultaneously difficult to understand and unanchored to facts. She even made the absurd claim that Qingdao, a coastal metropolis of nine million that is a major center of trade and banking and played an important role in modern Chinese history, "is something like China's answer to Atlantic City, minus the casinos." First, what is Atlantic City without the casinos. And second how is Qingdao anything like Atlantic City, with its population of 38,000 and no industry (other than the casinos, which she is sidelining). I think she makes these wild claims because she feels like they allow the average Joe to better connect to China, but the way she does it is just wrong.

These problems of fact and wild claims largely come up when Lake pretends to know something about history. The reason is because she knows very little about China, or at least the China beyond what she lived in the middle of while working for a few years as a journalist in Beijing and trying to learn Mandarin. Like most novices in China, she feels like it is sufficient to say that something happened in the Tang dynasty and draw a straight line from there to the present. But one couldn't do the same for France (Charlemagne did it, so obviously modern Parisians men do it). Of course, it works neither in France nor China.

What's worse is that she tries to ground her claims in history, but she uses these tenuous historical claims instead of grappling with history that matters for the story she wants to tell, that is Maoist history. Mao may have done horrible things, but the Cultural Revolution, lead by his wife, was a period of radical equality among the sexes. This is incredibly important to understanding what is happening to sex today in China, but Lake does not deal with this, preferring instead to touch on Tang dynasty factoids she found on Wikipedia.

Lake is a good journalist, but this is probably not a book she was qualified to write. She is at her best when she is talking about the people she talked to in China; she is at her worst when she gets away from that.

As to the controversy boiling over about her relationship to the scholarship of Leta Hong Fincher, I do not have any insights I can add, other than to say that if Lake had stuck to talking about the women she talked with, she could have ducked this controversy entirely, since that is a work of scholarship and she was essentially trying to write a piece of journalism, something that needed to be grounded in people's stories, not academics.

I was able to make it through 24% of her book before it got to be too much to take.

[Diana Baquero · Rating 5 out of 5]

In addition to providing a socioeconomic analysis of the value and contributions of women in the Chinese economy, Lake beautifully conveys the nuanced experiences of "leftover" women in China who are navigating restrictive and unequal gender norms while trying to balance their personal and professional priorities. It highlights the hidden short and long term implications of excluding women from development processes in China as well as other countries around the world. The human element of the stories of the women featured in the book makes it easily relatable (for women everywhere!) and an excellent way to get people to reflect on and discuss how policies and social norms can severely impact the daily lives and futures of both women and men, as well as the ways in which we interact and choose to construct our relationships. The book is superbly well written, original and optimistic. As a gender researcher, it is rare to come across books like this that unpack complex gender dynamics in a format that is digestible and that can so easily resonate with the general public.

[Nina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eh.

This book feels very much like a long-form expat journalist article-cum-B+ undergrad dissertation.

Lake's original research seems to be limited to about six of her friends and acquaintances, including (not joking) her waxing lady and Chinese teacher, and less than a handful of Chinese academics. Her sample size is so small and her sample population (city-dwelling barbarian handlers) so skewed that I can't really recommend this book as treading new ground for anyone who has lived in China for more than a month.

Lake also cites heavily from other (frankly better) books, such as Mei Fong's "One Child", Zheng Tiantian's 'Red Lights", and a large smattering of Western press news articles about single thirty somethings in Asia from Foreign Policy, the Economist, and British press. If you follow Asian social issues at all, this book will feel like a generic google search.

As for the controversy that Lake did not cite a famous book on this topic, Leta Hong Fincher's "Leftover Women", I am both disappointed in Lake but also believe her claim that she didn't cite it because she didn't use it. Lake's bibliography is shorter than most of my graduate school paper bibliographies - Lake probably didn't read Fincher's book before publishing her own (frankly its probably safer for her that way - her book is a very lackluster copy of Fincher's). I think the whole controversy speaks to Lake's dilettantish writing and her glaring White Girl in Asia syndrome (her PR photo for this book has her wearing two gigantic Chinese lanterns as earrings. Groooan). (*White Girl in Asia syndrome: if something in Asia is new to you, it is new to everyone and you must share your discovery. The fact that native writers or academics have already discovered this phenomenon does not concern you as a WGiA. Comorbidities include; matcha latte instagram photos; ironically owning a rice paddy hat; ironically using South Korean face whitening products; summer voluntourism; studying yoga in Thailand; Buddha tattoos).

The final annoyance of this book is the ending. Lake mostly strikes a note of warning for Chinese government planners, which I think is apt (although I'm sure none of them can be bothered to read this pap). And yet..."Still, I am rooting for China. I believe in its women, I have faith in its men, and most of the time - when I feel like I can get a reasonably accurate reading of the tea leaves - I am not distrusting of the government's stated goals."

If Lake had put this sentence at the beginning of her book instead of the end, I would not have read it. Anyone who has "faith in [Chinese] men" (despite her own narrative detailing monstrous anti-female sexism pervading Chinese society), and "believes in" Chinese women (whatever that means) and thinks that either of these things matters is a damned fool. Also, for anyone who isn't distrusting of the Chinese government's stated goals (on gender policy or any other policy) - I have an empty apartment building to sell you in northeast China...real cheap. Critical thinking is a journalists JOB, and Lake is clearly incapable of it.

TL;DR: this book is trash. Do not read it.

[Angela Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was fascinated by this book. I've always been intrigued by the Chinese attitude towards education, and wondered what my life would have been like if I'd been born there. I was thinking of the positives of such a rigorous education system, and had no clue at all about the societal pressures to marry. In fact, I had assumed that with the gender imbalance it would be relatively easy for a woman to find a partner.

Roseann Lake does a great job at informing the reader of the problems educated Chinese women face in their late twenties and into their thirties. This book is a fascinating insight into a problem I hadn't even realised existed, and I learned so much about modern vs historical Chinese culture and family. Reading the book I was acutely aware that, had I indeed been born in China, most likely this would have been my life. As a happily single thirty-something, it really resonated.

The factual information is interspersed with anecdotes from Lake's time working in China and they really give a human (and at times, very funny) aspect to the book. I was lucky enough to win this book in a Goodreads giveaway and it may, just may, persuade me to give more non-fiction a try. Maybe. In a bit. Maybe.

[Suzanne]

A really interesting, eye-opening and quickly-read report on what it’s like to be a well-educated, female 30-something in China today, and the various cultural and economic forces that play into it. As an extra benefit to me personally, it explained SO much about the previously mystifying behavior and attitudes of one of my former co-workers.

[Anatl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A riveting and edifying read that explores the demographic and social challenges that ensue when women rise in education and migrate to work in the big cities, while rural men stay behind to take care of their properties and aging parents, and find themselves without viable wives. And as women have better jobs and education they prefer to stay single than marry traditional husbands and vice versa, the men are seeking "plain yogurt" women who they can shape and who will uphold old patriarchical norms.

It explores the history of romantic love and marriage and the generations chaning attitudes, the social norms and customs surrounding Chinese marriages, as well as exploring what takes place in neighbouring countries like Japan and Korea who seem to have declining marriage and birth rates. It explore Singapore government funded efforts to mix singles and boost marriage and fertility. Pairing Singaporean men with Chinese women is a rising phenomenon apparently, as Chinese women have partners who don't need a homemaker but a partner to help build their business, while Singapore women are less likely to follow their lead and prefer to pursue their own carrers and buisnesses.

I can't begin to cover all the subjects the book touches, and all the personal stories and daily lives detail from the women that surround the author. It ties in well with a book I read on the One Child policy way back. Where 150 million households have only one child that is also their social security, the demograpic situation becomes a serious liability.

[Entset · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was very interesting!

[Lauren Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was FASCINATING. I loved it

[Nicole Means · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit too anecdotal for me, but overall a good read about China’s dating scene.

[Ioana Lily Balas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading through the other reviews, I can see that there is some controversy hinting at the fact that a similarly themed book came out years before it, whose research the author intentionally ignored. I cannot comment on that since this is the first time I hear of it and I haven't studied this matter at all, so I'll only speak as to the merits of this variant of the 'Leftover in China' material, by Roseann Lake.

It's fascinating to understand cultural and societal dynamics in different places of the world, and China's authoritarian regime certainly provides an interesting study. From what I've learned so far, I understand that China has done a lot more to raise the level of education and work opportunities for women, together with a sense of respect during employment, than South Korea in Japan. But up until the last few months, I didn't know much else about the life of a woman there.

The numbers didn't strike me as particularly odd. In the West marriage rates are going down, the median age of first marriage is increasing and this obviously has consequences on nataility worldwide. This discussion brings women into the forefront. What does it mean for those with university degrees? And then China has some unique challenges in this domain too: What effect did the one child policy, implemented between 1979 and 2015, mean for the balance of the population? How do Confucianist values play a part in relationships?

The book reads easily, it made me think of something in the style of a Vox video, with data and resources, while also focusing in on a few key people to follow along and understand the details of their particular situations.

There were many things that captivated me:
- Dating is very new in China. The country moved away from arranged marriages in the 50s, and even the term of romantic love is new, having only been invented 100 years ago. This means that people don't quite know how to date, how to engage in meaningful conversation with the intention of understanding if someone would make an adequate partner.
- Marriage is seen as a key organisational, structural piece within society. If you are married it means that you are an active, engaged member of it. If you are not and have reached your 30s, you will become ostracized because you are considered to be against the grain.
- Due to a combination of the aforementioned two factors, many people see marriage as an entrance into the mature community, an expectation, a mandatory stage in life, rather than something you do for passion or love. Some of the interviewees mentioned that they've never felt 'the butterflies' even though they are in their late 20s. So people might see marriage as more of a partnership or companionship, starting with it as an inborn intention rather than something that blossoms from a loving relationship.
- Men cheating is severely normalised, especially for those with a high level of income. This goes so far that one of the interviewees, an academic, mentions that their wives would even be shocked to know they don't have any mistresses.
- Your relationship is not your business, it's everyone's business. And I don't mean only your parents or your family, but your neighbours, your employees, the services you enjoy. When registering for a marriage, one of the required documents is a stamp from work (same for divorces). And if a Chinese person wishes to marry a foreigner, this also includes signatures and fingerprint stamps from their parents.
- It's not only China, but many other countries, like Russia or Singapore, that are implementing ways to increase natality. This includes days off for women for dating or procreation, or more advantageous government schemes for married couples when it comes to housing.

This was indeed the fascinating read I was hoping for.

[Élodie (shereadsinparis) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful book ! I knew the situation of so called leftover women was not good, but this book makes me realise that some of these women are able to live life at the fullest despite their parents will and society pressure.
The book tells the story of a number of clever and ambitious women. Those testimonies are all very interesting and let the reader learns about an other side of China.

[Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most interesting books I've ever read! It gives us an comprehensive and deep insight on the contemporary situation of women in China whilst also providing a good historical explanation to why things are as they are.
Another interesting feature of this book is related to how the author establishes a close contact with several different Chinese women, narrating their 'real-life' stories and accomplishments. Rapidly, you will see yourself invested in each of their individual stories, rooting for them, while also being able to understand the core issues in Chinese women movement nowadays: gender imbalance, gender inequality in employment, marital status and so on.
A great book that I reccommend to anyone, whether they are interested in feminism and/or gender studies or just a citizen worried with social inequality.

[Marina Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a fascinating read, a really well written book! Kept me interested from the beginning to the end. A delightful insight on the female reality in contemporary China. For someone like me, who gets bored very quickly when reading non fictional books, it was great. I loved all four stories portrayed and would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn a little more about China, which has been my second home for several years.

[Laura Noggle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly educated women in China are marrying later and later, if at all. A sociopolitical look at how the gender roles have not evolved as vigorously as society itself.

“Love is like a double cheeseburger. When you have it in your hands, there is nothing better in the world. But if you have it every day and for too long, it will destroy you.”

[Johnxenak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal window into the female experience in modern China. The story is told through humor, wit, and fascinating insights. A must-read for any Sinophiles.

[Jaime K · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars. There were some moral issues that I feel like Lake was lauding a bit and she could have gone more in depth. But, overall, a super informative book.

This makes me so glad to be born in America.
And I'm glad I listened to it because I can't imagine (for me, personally) slogging through all the information.

Leftovers: unmarried women over 30.
30+ years after the one-child policy was implemented (and after it was taken away in 2016), Lake begins to examine the repercussions of the generation born in that time. She also provides multiple conditions leading to the policy.

The one child policy means a generation of "onlies" (my word): in urban areas, there are more females (that is, less gender-selected abortion), while in rural areas with villages, there are more males. The females females grew up being pushed to do more and do better, and were thus offered more opportunities than in prior generations.
Between the policy and abortions, there is overall a major imbalance of M to F. And it thus complicates marriage and its expectations, especially those in rural areas.

Lake looks at the history of China (as well as some U.S. and global history), including financial [in]dependence of women and how that’s shaped views on what is an acceptable marriage.

It is filled with fascinating info I didn’t know of Chinese customs and culture, dating and otherwise.
I really like that Lake compares China with other Asian countries, including Japan and Korea. This is especially with regards to GDP, [possible] demographic crises, economic shifts, and gender imbalances (including through gender selective abortions and overall discrimination). And still, other issues are compared, bringing a fairly comprehensive red flag alert to the entire situation.
Also, wow about Singapore. Just wow.

It's scarily interesting how average ages globally have overall increased, but that China's has sprung significantly. It's projected that, within the next 15-20 years, they will be the oldest country (regarding mean age) in the world.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was lowkey worried about this book since Lake is white, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that while her whiteness does show a lot (see the many existing reviews addressing the controversy), I think overall she was as respectful as a white person can be about China. I appreciated her critical lens on China without being blatantly racist/xenophobic/sinophobic/colonialist, and I really enjoyed getting to know the interesting and diverse perspectives of the Chinese women she featured in the book. I also appreciated that queer Chinese people and their experience were acknowledged more than once here despite the main topic being heterosexual marriage. I'm trying to read more literature on my homeland this year and this set the bar pretty high!

[Joy Batra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow - I flew through "Leftover in China"! It was a surprising, thought-provoking, and often-hysterical ride. Lake's thoroughness in researching the economic and social forces driving this phenomenon was very impressive. Perhaps even more impressive, though, was her ability to blend stories of the individual women into a narrative that was both nuanced and engaging. This book taught me a lot about of China, but at the same time, it made me think critically about my own life and relationship to the world. Highly recommend this one!

[Tam]

Easy to read. Lake discusses not just China but also Korea and Japan, which is not any rosier if sometimes worse. She remains positive about the future improvement of women's standing in China though, as she believes they are inportant to the economic growth that is so crucial to the party and the country. I'm not that optimistic.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read & enjoyed as an audiobook.

Super interesting topic, but I wish each of the chapters had a clearer theme and that the book had a better overall structure since parts were repetitive and sometimes the narrative lost its way.

Some of the best parts were the anecdotes and personal stories, so I would’ve liked more of those throughout too.

[Linh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a fun and easy read; it makes sense that Lake writes for the Economist. This book is a series of long-form magazine articles. Would recommend if you're interested in dating/relationships/marriage, China and the intersection of the two.

Post-reading the book, I stumbled upon the criticisms of this book in not properly acknowledging the work of another author on the same topic. The main thing that I noticed though is that both authors are Anglo-Saxon voices writing about the topic from what can only ever be an outsider perspective...