Free I Stand Corrected by Eden Collinsworth

still-unmarried women are referred to as “advanced leftovers,” and by thirty-five, a single woman is the “ultimate” leftover, spiritually flawed in thinking she is higher than the mandate of marriage. That being the case, Li Ping, a young woman I came to admire in Beijing, was spiritually flawed.
    Ping was a decent, well-educated, hardworking woman who had made a fortune launching a portfolio of magazines. She had proved herself an astute businesswoman and, by all Western accounts, a great success, but during a revealing conversation in the backseat of her chauffeur-driven Mercedes, Ping told me that her younger sister was more successful in the “important way.”
    “Why would you think that?” I asked.
    “It’s not what I think, it’s what I know. My sister is married, and I am not. I am shaming my parents.”
    Ping’s punishing words spoke of the worst kind of self-judgment, and, at the time, it was difficult for me to understand the irrational degree to which she was holding her self-esteem in abeyance until she was married.
    Fifty years after committing to advance gender equality in China, the Communist Party continues to underestimate the resistance from its nation’s culture, a culture that remains rooted in a traditionally Confucian society of male superiority. Only after living in China did I understand how women there struggle to break through the encased male-dominated work environment, not just in circumstantial ways but in the far more complex ways that have to do with self-belief. Very few possess the emotional and financial resources required to brave the tide of political, social, and parental waves pushing them toward marriage.
    Ping’s plight was not without claims on my sympathy. At one time, I, too, would have been an “advanced leftover.” To the surprise of many—myself included—I did marry. Not because my shelf life was just about to expire, but because a man I met (I shall name him W. in this book) was the irresistiblecontraband the Fates brought on board: charmingly out of order, provocatively incorrect, someone who, from the very beginning, was such good fun it would have been a sin not to have joined him for the rest of my life.
    The Chinese character for the word “etiquette” is the same as for the word “custom.” It is customary for the groom’s family to hire a matchmaker to broker a proposal to the bride’s family. If the selected girl and her parents find the proposal acceptable, research is required before the wedding date can be set. Auspicious days for a wedding are subject to interpretation by fortune-tellers, who consult the Chinese almanac—sold at the beginning of the Lunar New Year by street vendors and in bookstores—and perform an analysis based on the bride’s and groom’s birth dates and hours. Even-numbered months and dates are desirable; the seventh lunar month—the month of the Hungry Ghosts—is avoided. At the time of the betrothal, the groom’s family presents the bride’s family with gifts that symbolize prosperity, and the bride’s parents bestow a dowry on her. Unlike in the West, the Chinese do not exchange wedding vows; rather, they pay their respect to deceased ancestors and the elders in both families. Wedding gifts are in the form of monetary contributions presented in red envelopes.
    My own trip down the aisle was not as formulaic.
    I was introduced to W. in New York, and our first date was in Paris. Three days later, while I was in Berlin, he phoned from London to propose another chance to see one another when we returned to New York. Our engagement would span ten peripatetic months before we were married in Peru by the captain of a small supply boat carrying us down the Amazon River.
    W. spoke Spanish and Portuguese; both came into play during our simple wedding ceremony on the foredeck. That I didn’t understand a word in either language seemed inconsequential to everyone but me.
    “I haven’t a clue what I’m putting my