A friend exclaimed, "She has the body of a twenty year old!" That much was evident from the vacation albums Lily had posted on her website. Here she was...bikini-bared on a beach in Vietnam, petting a dog in Turkey, and plucking fresh fruit from a tree in California.
Earlier this year, Lily had quit her career as a manager in the import/export industry to devote herself to full-time husband hunting. "My two biggest pressures are marriage - having my own family, and my aging parents' health. It's not housing, money, or a job."
Citing her strong work ethic and open personality, she was a natural leader in her company. Her younger years passed quickly as she completely devoted herself to her work, located in Shenzhen. Her job put her in contact with lots of foreigners. Although her English was poor, she found herself having much more relaxed conversations with them than with Chinese men.
Earlier this year, Lily had quit her career as a manager in the import/export industry to devote herself to full-time husband hunting. "My two biggest pressures are marriage - having my own family, and my aging parents' health. It's not housing, money, or a job."
Citing her strong work ethic and open personality, she was a natural leader in her company. Her younger years passed quickly as she completely devoted herself to her work, located in Shenzhen. Her job put her in contact with lots of foreigners. Although her English was poor, she found herself having much more relaxed conversations with them than with Chinese men.
Passing quickly into her 30s, she started thinking about finding a boyfriend. A native Beijinger, she returned home at age 34 to settle down. She was introduced to a professor who taught at Renmin University. "He was an impressive man, very well known in China," she said. She asked her parents for approval of their relationship. They balked at the age difference: he was 15 years older.
"We didn't see each other very often because he was busy teaching but we had a special relationship nonetheless. At the time he was lecturing about intellectual property, a very new idea in China then. He would talk to me about these things and I was like a sponge, soaking up all of his knowledge. Every time I spoke to him it was extraordinary. But at the time I didn't think it was love."
The subject of marriage came up when his mother started pressuring for marriage. Almost 50 years old, he was still very much his mother's son. His mother wanted to see her son get married and not waste any more time. "At the time I reacted, how could this be? He wasn't my dream prince on a white stallion, handsome and great in every way. I initiated the break-up."
Lily spent a month mulling over her decision and realized that, compared with all the men she's encountered, no one else could measure up to him. She tried to go back to him, but he refused to see her again.
"From 1999 to 2009, I couldn't face anyone else. During these ten years I spent every weekend writing poems and letters to him. I drew out all of my dreams. My entire existence at that time was grey. I spent the whole time writing him, designing every envelope, every letter. He never responded once, the entire ten years. In my heart I thought, he can't not respond, at least he can tell me. I held onto this belief for ten years. Those were the best years of my womanhood. "
"I like smart men. There were other men that people tried to introduce to me but I felt that no one could understand me. They don't know what I want. I don't want to be taken out to dinner, or to go to a movie. Chinese men don't know what you want. All they know is to take you out to a good restaurant, thinking that is a big deal. Actually women don't care about that. Even just having a nice chat, having someone listen to you. Even though my English is poor, my interaction with foreign men seems different because they seem to know what I want. "
In 2009 Lily started a website.
"We didn't see each other very often because he was busy teaching but we had a special relationship nonetheless. At the time he was lecturing about intellectual property, a very new idea in China then. He would talk to me about these things and I was like a sponge, soaking up all of his knowledge. Every time I spoke to him it was extraordinary. But at the time I didn't think it was love."
The subject of marriage came up when his mother started pressuring for marriage. Almost 50 years old, he was still very much his mother's son. His mother wanted to see her son get married and not waste any more time. "At the time I reacted, how could this be? He wasn't my dream prince on a white stallion, handsome and great in every way. I initiated the break-up."
Lily spent a month mulling over her decision and realized that, compared with all the men she's encountered, no one else could measure up to him. She tried to go back to him, but he refused to see her again.
"From 1999 to 2009, I couldn't face anyone else. During these ten years I spent every weekend writing poems and letters to him. I drew out all of my dreams. My entire existence at that time was grey. I spent the whole time writing him, designing every envelope, every letter. He never responded once, the entire ten years. In my heart I thought, he can't not respond, at least he can tell me. I held onto this belief for ten years. Those were the best years of my womanhood. "
"I like smart men. There were other men that people tried to introduce to me but I felt that no one could understand me. They don't know what I want. I don't want to be taken out to dinner, or to go to a movie. Chinese men don't know what you want. All they know is to take you out to a good restaurant, thinking that is a big deal. Actually women don't care about that. Even just having a nice chat, having someone listen to you. Even though my English is poor, my interaction with foreign men seems different because they seem to know what I want. "
In 2009 Lily started a website.
