台湾女性不惧当“剩女”

In a sleek uptown nightclub, the queen is holding court. At her dinner table, men hang on her every word, and women echo her pearly laugh as she raises a wine glass in a toast.

Tonight's dinner is limited to 50 paying guests, most of them female, attractive and single. This is the demographic that can't get enough of the queen -- born Chen Yi-li, though she refashioned herself as 'Illy' after the Italian coffee brand. Her sassy tales of righteous freedom, which have been spun into three books and inspired a TV soap opera, make her an icon of sorts for Taiwan's young female 'singletons,' who see marriage and motherhood as a straitjacket.

With one of the world's lowest birth rates, Taiwan faces the prospect of a rapidly aging population without a young workforce to support it. The government is scrambling for solutions, with experts pushing measures such as workplace day care, tax breaks for parents and generous maternity leave. But for a generation of Taiwanese women who embraced higher education (more women than men have college degrees) and demanding careers, the age-old stigma of being unmarried has given way to a celebration of single life that government incentives won't easily overturn.

Government officials also are playing the patriotism card, proposing that children should be seen as a 'public asset.' Peter Hu, director of the National Immigration Agency, says parents create children not just for themselves, but for Taiwan. Such rhetoric seems unlikely to sway Taiwanese weighing the pros and cons of parenting. What's more, those college-educated women who do marry now don't do so until they're 32 on average, meaning their biological window to reproduce is relatively short. (By comparison, the average marrying age in Japan for women of all educational levels was 28.5 as of 2008.)

Some unattached female 30-somethings refer to themselves, half-joking, as 'loser dogs,' after a 2004 Japanese book on the same phenomenon in that country. In Taiwan, their spending power hasn't gone unnoticed: A real-estate company recently advertised a small, ritzy apartment as ideal for 'loser dogs.' This economic muscle is part of what gives women the freedom to embrace the single life.

'Women now have choices,' says Violeta Zhang, a 33-year-old accountant who says she plans to stay single. 'I can hang out with you, but I'm not bound to you. That's a choice.'

Family and friends often see the lifestyle as a phase and expect the singletons to settle down, and many singletons do insist they're not opposed to marriage, just determined not to commit until they find the right partner -- one who respects their independence and shares their life goals. Presumably that means not expecting a wife to stay home and put up with a meddling mother-in-law.

'Men have to change,' says Lan Pei-chia, a sociologist at National Taiwan University.

'I'm selfish. Most single women are selfish,' says Jiang Chun-mei, a 43-year-old English teacher.

In her 20s, Ms. Jiang had a steady Taiwanese boyfriend, but was put off marriage by the prospect of moving in with his family and becoming 'one more chopstick' at the table. After seven years she broke it off. (Her former boyfriend married another woman within a year; the couple now has two children.)

Today Ms. Jiang dates only foreign men who don't want to tie her down. Her circle of friends includes both single and married women. She jokes with her single friends that their future will be a Taiwanese version of the 'Golden Girls,' an American TV show about four female retirees living together in Florida. 'It's just my lifestyle,' she says. 'It's natural, quite comfortable.'

Last year, Ms. Jiang took a month off to visit France, staying with friends. Ms. Zhang, the accountant, can't get enough of Spain and is fluent in the language. For Ms. Chen, the singleton guru, the hot destination is Bangkok. She recently wrote a Bangkok guidebook, spliced with photos of her shopping for clothes and eating her way around town.

Ms. Chen's career as a professional singleton began in 2004; a cosmetics-company employee living at home with her family, she launched a blog, www.wretch.cc/blog/illyqueen. (Her royal title was inspired by friends' remarks that she had a regal air.) In 2007 her first book, 'I Am Queen' sold 100,000 copies, and now she's a full-time writer and celebrity, dispensing advice on modern relationships via her blog and at paid lectures.

At the nightclub dinner, sponsored by a make-up brand, Ms. Chen, wearing a stretched black-and-white striped sweater over a pair of purple stockings, hands out prizes, gives effusive speeches and poses for pictures with guests, mostly avid readers of her blog.

Strictly speaking, Ms. Chen, 30, is no longer a singleton. She's in a relationship that's lasted two years, and is even thinking of marrying her boyfriend -- though she's not sure she wants children, particularly if they might get in the way of her career.

在台湾一个时髦光鲜的夜店里，“女王”正在主持晚宴。餐桌旁，男人们抢着应和她说的每一句话；女人们则在她举起葡萄酒杯祝酒时，随她一起放声欢笑。

博主、作家、夜店女王陈仪丽(音)。对她的支持者而言，“仪丽女王“就是单身的代言人。今天的晚宴只有50名付费客人可以参加，大多数是魅力十足的单身女性，她们都是“女王”的拥趸。“女王”本名陈仪丽(音)，但她给自己起了个与意大利咖啡品牌相同的谐音英文名“Illy”。她推崇女性要享受单身的自由，这一思想已促成三本书和一部电视剧的诞生，让她成为台湾信奉独身主义的单身女性的代表人物，这些女性把婚姻和生儿育女视为一种枷锁。

台湾的人口出生率居全世界最低行列，正面临人口的快速老龄化，缺乏年轻的劳动力来支撑社会发展。政府想方设法寻求解决方案，专家纷纷出招，如在工作场所设立托儿所、给有小孩的家庭减税，以及延长产假等。然而，对学历更高（现在大学学历的台湾女性比男性多）、更注重事业发展的新一代台湾女性来说，长期以来对大龄“剩女”的指指点点已经被坦然接受单身生活的潮流所取代，政府的鼓励措施无法轻易扭转这一趋势。

政府官员还在打爱国主义牌，提倡把孩子视为“公共财产”。台湾内政部入出国及移民署(National Immigration Agency)代理副署长胡景富说，父母生孩子不光是为自己，还是为台湾；但这种花言巧语似乎很难在台湾人权衡是否生孩子的问题时成为一种砝码。此外，有大学学历的台湾女性的平均结婚年龄为32岁，也就是说她们的生育适龄期相对缩短。（相比之下，截止到2008年，有大学学历的日本女性的平均结婚年龄为28.5岁。）

30岁以上的未婚女性半开玩笑地称自己是“败犬”，这个名字来源于2004年日本出版的一本讲述同一现象的书。在台湾，该群体的消费能力并没有被忽视。一家房地产公司最近在给一种小户型豪华公寓打广告，称其专门为“败犬族”量身定做。这种经济能力也是女性可以自由选择单身生活的原因之一。

“女性现在有多种选择。”33岁打算独身的会计张小姐说，“我可以跟你约会，但不会受你束缚，这就是多种选择中的一种。”

独身女性的亲友往往将其单身生活视为一个阶段，希望她们最终安定下来，结婚生子。此外，不少独身主义者坚持说，她们并不反对结婚，只是下决心在找到理想的另一半前坚守阵地。理想的另一半必须尊重她们的独立性，拥有共同的生活目标；也就是说，不能指望妻子呆在家里相夫教子，忍受婆婆的指手划脚。

“男人必须改变自己的想法，”台湾大学的社会学者蓝佩嘉说道。

“我很自私，大多数独身女性都很自私。”43岁的英语教师江春梅(音)说道。

20多岁时，江春梅有一个稳定的台湾男朋友，但她由于不愿接受住进他的大家庭，成为“多添一双筷子”的那个，因此推迟婚期。七年后，她提出分手。（她前男友一年后娶了另一个女孩，已有两个孩子。）

现在，江春梅只跟不想把她拴在身边的外国男人约会。她的朋友圈既有单身女性，也有已婚女性。她和自己的单身朋友开玩笑说，她们的未来将是台湾版的《黄金女郎》(Golden Girls)，这是一部讲述四个女性退休后一起住在佛罗里达的美剧。“这就是我想要的生活方式，”她说，“这很自然，也很舒服。”

去年，江春梅去法国度了一个月的假，跟朋友住在一起。会计张小姐特别喜欢西班牙，说一口流利的西班牙语。独身名人陈仪丽最喜欢的地方是曼谷，最近写了一本曼谷的旅行指南，里头有不少她买衣服和品尝美食的照片。

陈丽仪宣扬女性独身主义的事业始于2004年，当时她在一个化妆品公司上班，跟家人住在一起，她开了一个博客（www.wretch.cc/blog/illyqueen）（朋友说她颇具皇室气质，她灵机一动就把自己取名为“女王”。）2007年，她出了第一本书《我是女王》，卖出10万本，现在成为全职名人作家，通过博客和收费演讲传播自己对现代两性关系的建议。

夜店的晚宴由一个化妆品品牌赞助，陈仪丽身穿一件加长的黑白条纹羊毛衫，腿着紫色裤袜，不时分发奖品，做煽情的演讲，与来宾合影留念，后者大多数是她博客的粉丝。

严格说来，30岁的陈仪丽不再是独身女性，她已经跟男朋友交往两年，甚至到了谈婚论嫁的地步。不过，她还不确定是否要生孩子，尤其是如果孩子会阻碍她事业发展的话。 （实习编辑：顾萍）