How life-milestones are changing in the USA and China?
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Are Chinese families achieving their life goals earlier than their U.S. peers, or do they face other challenges? Welcome to The Bridge, enlightening conversations on world cultures, life, and everything in between. Hey everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like this show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.

Hey everyone, I'm Jason Smith, originally from sunny California, now living in beautiful Beijing. Today with me is Alex Schur. Hello everybody, it's Alex. It's been a long...

I'm also in the beautiful sunny and also a little bit windy Beijing. Yeah, it's been very windy here. So where have you been, Alex? I went to travel in Cuba for almost three weeks. That was a big vacation that I took, but very much needed. And was this an everyday dancing kind of thing? You know what? I would love to say, based on how people think I dance, I didn't dance that much, Jason.

Seriously, the first couple of days was this very big music festival. And of course, there's some dancing, some dancing involved, but we're mostly because we bought the expensive tickets or close to the stage or watching the bands that we don't get to see all together like that or for this price.

After that, we went to Varadero, which is a very, very beautiful beach for a couple of days. And then after we came back, we were just mostly wondering the old town of Havana. And we took a lot of photos, took a lot of videos, but we didn't dance that much. It wasn't that crazy. Okay. I'm surprised. I'm surprised.

It was a very interesting country. It was a beautiful city, Havana is. And I surprisingly loved the food, even though a lot of people saying, oh, you know, it lacks flavor, whatever. Wholeheartedly disagree. It was very light, but it was very tasty. For some reason, I feel like the salt and sugar just taste better in Cuba. So...

And the meat was pretty fresh. We were eating at local restaurants, not, you know, tourist restaurants. So we're able to really feed ourselves pretty full, pretty well. I even changed my tasting palette a little bit. After I came back, you know, my favorite food is the spicy beef noodle soup. I had it a couple of times and I had a little bit of a stomach pain. Wow. Yeah, I think like I couldn't eat like oily, spicy food for a little bit. I'm adjusting back. I have started to

come back onto my regular diet. I started to eat a little bit more spicy stuff, but it was good for me. You know, taking an extended vacation is kind of a milestone in someone's life that they would be able to be at that career point. So according to Pew Research, Americans want to get married in their late 20s and buy a home in their early 30s. But most Americans aren't getting married or buying a house until much later.

Much later. So I wanted to talk about, because this show is essentially about Americans and Chinese people, what are the similarities and differences? Let's just start by interviewing you about this a little bit as a Chinese person. Let's do it. Not just you, but all of the Chinese folks that you know. And I know China is not a homogenous place, so there's all kinds of different answers we would get if we asked different Chinese folks.

Well, when do Chinese people typically buy their first home or have their parents help them buy their first home? If you ask people who already own homes, young people, let's say, most of them would put down a down payment in their maybe late 20s or early 30s. That's when you've already worked for a few years in your career and you've

most likely gotten married and that's kind of like you know sort of a prerequisite or what married couples would expect to have and usually I think that would come with the help of parents from both sides and then

their savings a little bit to put down the down payment and then they will work towards the mortgage for maybe two or three decades after if maybe they can pay it off earlier but usually around late 20s or early 30s that's when people own their first home of course there are exceptions where

People are a bit more achieved when they were younger or their parents, their family were more helpful. They don't really care. You know, they have the cash. They just buy a house for their kid in their early 20s. But most people wait a full years. Well, you know, you kind of give me a couple of different questions. So I guess one of the things that you're differentiating is that basically you buy a home around the same time that you get married. It's kind of like all in one package. Is that right? Yeah. Yes.

That is correct. Like this mentality is still very popular in China. Like when you're renting a place, you're not really living in your own place. But getting married means you're starting a family and as a family, you need to have your own place. And that means purchasing a property.

Well, I'm looking at the data from Pew Research Center. This data was collected from April 1st to 7th of 2024, but it wasn't published until this year. And it shows that most Americans want to get married between 25 and 29, but don't get married until between 30 and 34. And you're indicating that people get married in their late 20s or early 30s, which is not so different. It's

It's between when Americans want to get married and when Americans actually get married. But I wanted to ask you a different question. You know, you're probably, in my opinion, talking about urban Chinese folks. Yeah. Yeah. So what about in the rural areas? I would guess I'm just guessing they might get married early. I was just thinking about that. I was just thinking about that.

Yeah, they do. They definitely do. And especially, so basically the less developed area is the chances of people getting married at a much younger age is a lot higher. And I think it's the same as well, at least based on people that I know.

in the United States, if they're from a smaller town. My friend got married when he was 19. And then I have like family relatives that are getting married younger as well. But again, even that age is being pushed up a little bit as every part of China is opening up, is developing. There's more migration of the population, like whether you're from a bigger city or a smaller place, there's more chance for them to go out and see

What's going on? My mother's family is from the rural area. And when I was a little kid, I remember hearing wedding news about family relatives and the guy would be like 20, the girl would be 19. And then if you date, yeah, if you date back, like this is what I was like a baby, baby, like maybe five, six years old. Yeah.

Later on, the age goes up a little bit. But if you think about like 30, 40 years ago, that could be even younger. So that's why there are a lot of videos on social media that you see. And it's like, oh, the post 80s, which is my generation, you know, people that are born in 1980s. Oh, the 80s baby that's already a mother-in-law. And you look at her, she looks very, very young. But her kid is already getting married because they got married early. Yeah.

So it is definitely true in bigger cities. I think the age is probably...

gonna rise even more in the next couple of years because you know it's hard to save money in a bigger city and put out a down payment for a house but yeah there's a big difference there's a big gap i was in the countryside a few years ago and we were in the deep countryside of shendong basically probably like the poorest place you could go in shendong and i was out there meeting some lovely people through my extended family through my wife and stuff

And I met a couple, a young couple. This is not about their age, but I remember talking to them and I was like, oh, you know, where have you traveled to? And they were like, oh, nowhere. And I was like, oh, yeah, but have you traveled to, you know, Yantai, which is the nearest city. It was a couple hours away by driving a car. And they're like, nowhere.

no. And I was really surprised because I've been to several countries and in those countries and as many cities. And here was this couple that I was meeting who were in about 30 years old, husband and wife. And they literally had not been anywhere. And I was just like, because, you know, you're in a Chinese city, like Beijing, you meet anyone and you say, oh, where have you been? I've been to Thailand. I've been to China. I've been, you know, they travel a lot and they've been all over China.

And then you go to the countryside and the lifestyle is just completely and totally different. I mean, it's just like a whole different universe. It's very shocking. Speaking of traveling for people that live in the countryside. So like my aunties and my uncles, they like to travel as well. But when they're talking about traveling, they're not talking about traveling to Cuba, traveling to, you know, to Singapore or any of these countries. They hop on a bus. They're organized whores for people.

that live in those areas. And the tours probably cost them like, I don't know, 50, 70 kuai or something really cheap. Mostly just the bus. And then the places they go to sort of like a local reservoir of something. And there will be a couple of pieces of big rocks and then they can get on a small boat and row a little bit and then go next to like a

big garden of local flowers and they take photos, but they have such a blast. And so that's a very specific situation for anything consumer related in China. There's like so many different levels of the market because those places will not be attractive for people that don't live in that region. But for them, it's like, you know what, let's go together. Let's

go on an organized tour, a couple of friends and family and take the bus for two hours, take photos, eat some food together. And it's fun for them. And they do that a lot. Very affordable as well. You're listening to The Bridge.

Here in Beijing, we have the Palace Museum, formerly the Imperial Residence. One of many, actually, because China's covered with former Imperial Residences because the capital of China has been moving around for thousands of years. But it's still like...

very, very significant. And when I'm there in that area, I noticed that most of the people that are there, and I mean like 99% are not from Beijing. They're like Chinese people from somewhere else. So my question is, do you think that most people throughout China, rural and urban, visit the capital at some point? Oh my God, absolutely. I think so. My aunties, my uncles, they've all come to Beijing and we take them to the palace museum, take them to the wall. And

If you are in Beijing, oh, it's coming up very soon. Big holidays like Labor Day holidays, which happens on the first week of May. And then, of course, the National Day holiday, which is the first week of October. And then every other holiday, public holiday in China, if you were in Beijing during that time, you will see...

So incredibly many people in Beijing and they're all from different cities of China because I'm trying to think this is like, I don't think I see the scale of human migration just to see a touristy spot in New York, in the States, maybe Times Square. It's kind of like.

I don't know. I've never been to Disneyland in the States, so I don't know how crazy it is. You know, for Americans, it's not Washington, D.C. It's not New York. It's Disneyland. And there's a couple of them. So you have Disney World in Florida and you have Disneyland in California. And most Americans have to have gone to Disneyland at least one time in their life.

That would be the proper analogy because people would come. But the only difference is coming to see the Palace Museum is probably not going to break your banks. I don't know. My impression of going to Disneyland is like if you are just kind of a working class family or

For example, if both parents work, let's say a restaurant job or a supermarket job, then it's very expensive. That's kind of a big economic financial pull for them. The price, even for me, like for as a spoiled kid living in America back then, I was like the ticket and the hotel cost is insane.

Just going there. I don't know. Coming to the Palace Museum, all of these tour agencies, they will arrange transportation. They'll arrange accommodation for you. And then because there's no accommodation inside of the Palace Museum, you have to live in a hotel and then they will take you there and you just pay 80 quid ticket, which is like what?

$14. And you go inside and you see the great palace museum and that's it. And then the Tiananmen Square. You know, I was just there. Yeah. I was there. I dressed up as an emperor at one of those costume places. Oh, did I see those videos? I think I did. It was a lot of fun. What was really surprising is there weren't a lot of men dressed up. There were a few of us, maybe 10 total that I saw that day, but there were thousands of princesses everywhere. Yeah.

I was an empress as well last year. We went to the Palace Museum. We did it. Oh, actually, we went to Bay High Park. We didn't do the Palace Museum. We went to Bay High Park and we did the photos. And it was really fun.

And it took us a lot of courage to walk on the street wearing Qing Dynasty ancient costume. But then people were like very playful, which is I was very excited and very happy to see that. There were a lot of people that were riding by us because there are a lot of people that do biking along the Palace Museum. The couple of roads that go around it. There are a lot of bikers. Yeah, that's true. And there are bikers that are, you know, kind of taking it as a serious sports and there are bikers that are just on their commutes. But of both people...

they see us and then they're like, blessings, your majesty, saying these things and screaming really loud, just make sure we hear them. And then I will just reply really loud as well. It's like, oh yes, rise. And you know, things like that. It's really fun. And I love seeing Chinese people being more open just to have this kind of interaction. And it was really fun and going into the Beihai Park as well.

We saw other princesses, concubines, empresses as well. They're not that many men, which I encourage everyone, whether you're a Chinese person or a foreigner living in China, go

Go try that. Jason can speak for that experience. It was very affordable. You know, the minimum package at the place I went was 160 RMB for the you get to dress up all day. So you show up in the morning, they dress you up, make up the whole thing. And then you get to wear that costume all day long. Actually, in our case, we arrived later in the early afternoon and they were like, oh, just keep it until tomorrow.

So we left. That night, went to see my wife's uncle. And he was like, why are you guys dressed like that?

In the costume. Oh, God, that's great. But I want to ask a few other questions because I really want to get into this. How does China and the U.S. match up in terms of life goals? I want to firstly ask, and I don't know the answer to this, when is it even legal to get a driver's license in China? I think it's 16 because that's when most people... Oh, it's also 16? Yeah, because after, which was one regret I have, mostly most people after they...

graduate from high school after they take the college entrance exam, which is, uh, uh,

very important step in their life. Most people take that long three-month summer holiday to get their driver's license. We have an SAT. I didn't. I just want to compare it. I know it's not as significant as the Gaokao. The Chinese Gaokao, for people listening, is basically the determiner for which university you're going to get to go into. The SAT is just one of many different metrics that is used to determine which university. So the pressure is not as high.

So in China, if you do bad on the gaokao, wow, that's it. Yeah, I mean, you could repeat your senior year if you wish to, if you think like you have. Oh, you can. Of course you can. You definitely can. So if you do bad on the gaokao, you can go back to high school and do another year? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, I didn't know that. Let's say theoretically allowed and maybe unallowed.

it's encouraged policy wise. But I think socially, a lot of people don't want to do that because they would think that other people or society will look at them as a fail. But I think, again, that's changing as well.

And if you want to repeat, it's just that the pressure for the college entrance exam is really high. A lot of people probably don't want to repeat that kind of pressure. But looking back on it, I was like, look, if I could stay in high school for another year where I already know what's going to happen for every class, every exam, and I already got it, I would do it too. I took two years of French.

And then I transferred to a different university and I was there and they were like, you need another language. And I said, I took French. This is, it doesn't count for some reason. So I just retook French from the beginning. Oh my God. But you know, what's bad about it was I was overconfident and I didn't study that much. And actually I think I did about the same as it did the first time I did it, but I want to change track. So you can get your driver's license at 16. Let me correct that. I actually just confirmed it. It's 18. It's 18. I remember, I remember

myself to be a lot younger when I graduated high school, but I graduated high school at 18 years old. And that's when you can get a driver's license. And that's the best time to get a driver's license. If you didn't in China, at least for people like me, it'll be a lot harder for you to get a driver's license after that. Well, may I ask, when do people typically get their first car? Oh,

I think that'll come around the same as when you get a house or maybe. Oh, really? You won't buy a car until you're 28. It's not. Oh, my God. It's not like at least portrayed in the Hollywood movies where the kid becomes an adult and the parents go, here's a car for you to go drive it around. I

I don't think there's an overall age that you're expected or most people get their car, but a lot of people don't drive unless they have to for their work, which means mid-20s or late 20s. Usually that's bought for commute and for family travels once they get married. You definitely won't see a lot of like 18-year-old or 16, 17-year-old drivers on the street for sure. I have...

And a very unusual story for an American. When I turned of age to get a driver's license, I didn't get one right away. I waited until I was 18, even though I could get one at 16, which is my family thought there was something wrong with me. And so I 18 that my mom forced me. She's like, you have to get your driver's license and you're moving out soon. And I was like, Oh, I don't want a driver's license. I'll just move out. And so they made me get one anyway, and I got it. And then they got me a car and I was like, I don't want this.

I don't like cars, mom. I think cars are, you know, I'll just take a bus or ride a bicycle. They were like flabbergasted and angry even. They were so frustrated with me. They were like, Jason, you have to have a car. You don't understand. Grow up, Jason. So I moved to a bigger city and I didn't need a car and I was happy. And, you know, I didn't really have a car that much my whole life. And so my parents, eventually they came to terms with it. But for an American, it's like, I don't know. I'm going to cut my left foot off or something. So it was really...

bizarre for them to come to grips with that. It's definitely a very different idea of what a car means to a Chinese teenager. Like, let's say a young Chinese, someone in their early 20s to someone in America to have a car in their early 20s. Because America, as we learn in history textbooks, is a country on the wheels. Everybody drives. But...

In China, it's more of a public transportation kind of place. So in bigger cities, you will just take subway, you will ride the bike, and if you go to senior high school, junior high school, most likely there will be school buses taking you home.

And then if you're in smaller cities, there's just all different kinds of ways that you can do it. Like, I remember when I was in junior high school, we were taking a couple of families put down money together to hire a car to take us to school every morning and bring us back every night. So we're just not driving to everywhere. But now people want to because they want to travel. They can drive to the city next door during the weekend. Oh, yeah.

You're listening to The Bridge.

I have another question. You know, you're younger. You're in your 30s. And I wanted to ask because I think that's a fairly young age for current Chinese culture. So I wanted to ask you about the idea that we have in America of Chinese families all living together, you know, many generations in one household. But not just you specifically, all the people you know and stuff. How accurate is that? Do people do that? It really depends on whether the parents could get down with the lifestyle of their kids.

Life is so different. Like, I only know one friend who lives in Beijing that lives with his parents, but his parents are so chill. Like, they don't care when he goes home. They don't care what he does. Of course, he doesn't do crazy things, but he does do. He's in the wine business. So he has to go for wine tastings and parties that go until much later. And then if he comes out to hang out with us, he stays out.

much later. And his parents never have any, like zero problem with any of this. They have zero curiosity and 100% trust on their kid. So he could live with his parents. But most people...

Even if they live in the same city, they would either be renting their own place or if they get married, they would have a separate house from their parents. And the more often nowadays people work in different cities and of course they don't, they don't live in the same apartment or the same house with their parents. Maybe when they have kids, the parents would come out to come over to help taking care of the baby because they both have to work.

It's not like the old movies where there's a giant courtyard with like six different rooms.

three different houses and then your great great great parents are also there you know and it's not like that anymore my people it's not it's very much an urbanized life here in China even in the countryside I could speak from experience as well like usually the only family that stays behind is the family that take care of the aging parents you know this is fascinating they should say this because

One of the places I lived in San Francisco for about one year, I lived in a duplex on the second story. And the people who owned this duplex and they lived on the first story were a Chinese family. They've been in the United States for 100 years, but they were a Chinese family and they were a four generation living in the same house. Wow, that's impressive. So for me...

I would sometimes, we shared the laundry room. That was the only room we shared. I would sometimes come down and I would just see, you know, like the baby and grandma and grandpa and like everyone would be there or just be like, you know, for me, I was like, how do all of these people live together? So I think- It is very cute. Maybe some Chinese American families, they hung on to that tradition better than actual Chinese Chinese people. I actually think if they moved to the United States-

I want to say this is true. Let's guess about this family. The earlier the generations are, for example, your grandparents' generation have to convert to how their kids are living their life in the United States because they're in a foreign culture.

So they have to listen to who knows the culture, the country better. Rock and roll, grandpa. So people have to listen to their kids. And then the kids probably also at the same time try to hold on to what makes them Chinese as the Chinese community living in the United States and being with their roots, being with their parents, their grandparents that come from their hometowns.

They probably want to hold on to that as part of their identity as well. That's what I think the mentality is. But here in China, like it's Chinese people in China and young generations like I want to live my life this way. Parents are like, I want to live my life the way I've lived my life for the past 40 years. And then they go, you know what? Bye bye. I don't live in your house anymore. I don't think like one group is appreciating the roots better than the other. It's the fact that they live in China.

One live in their own culture. The other live in a foreign culture. And that makes you feel different about your culture. That's how I felt when I was in the States. It's the same thing. But it is very precious if like generations of a household could stay together. I want to know what that feels like as well. Actually, I'm looking forward to that, even though my wife's parents have bought their own place in the town that my wife and I have decided to move in.

a whole different story. We're actually looking forward to when they get older, they're just going to live with us. I mean, I think it's kind of cool. Like I grew up in a big home. I have three brothers, my parents, we all stayed together and, you know, we had relatives coming over. I like the sound of like trying to go to sleep and there's people in the next room watching TV and talking, you know, I want that. So I'm actually looking forward to her parents moving in with us someday. I prefer a house that's full than to a quiet house.

That's true, but it depends on who's the person doing the talking, watching TV, who's trying to go to bed. As long as they're not smoking something, I don't care. Whatever. Okay, let's move on. So what about in America? And I know about you already because you're a very specific person. We've been talking for years. But moving from job to job, because in America, you typically do move around a lot during your career, maybe even your whole career. You might not really get stable until your 30s or 40s where you...

kind of pin something down that's going to be yours. But you definitely, most Americans work like several service jobs and then several internships and then several entry level positions. And then finally, at some point they may find one or two things that are their thing. What about in China? Do people just enter into the job and they stay that job their whole life or? I think generally speaking, people will have jobs that last for a long time, maybe not their whole life. I mean, both my parents have

changed jobs because of family, because of whatever. And whether you work for a private enterprise or if you work public service job,

You will stay at the post for quite a long time because that's just how, as a country, Chinese people kind of long for stability better than anything else. That's the thing that gives them a sense of security that makes them feel like they could focus on one company or one type of work they do to be an expert at the field and

And then psychologically, I think that also makes them feel like their life is going at an easier pace because this is a job that they've been doing for a long time. But for younger generation that is challenging,

changing both from subjective point of view and the surroundings of their, the world they live in. Young people are definitely more up for challenge. And then if they don't, they're more outspoken. They're not so bound by social pressure or living pressure. They like to change jobs.

if they're not happy with what their job is. Does that reflect negatively on them in China if they've changed jobs every year? It really depends. For potential future employers? The subjective part is they're up for challenge. They want to speak up. They want to do things that make them feel fulfilled.

But also like the economy of today and the working culture of today, for example, if you work for one of these big tech companies, they're constantly doing restructuring and you might lose your job. Like that's not up to you. I didn't really want to change job within the company, but my department got restructured. So I have to change. And if you change a couple of times, I know people that in my old company,

That got forced to change teams for four times within two years. If I were like him, I would be like, you know what? I can't stay at this company anymore as well. So it's not really up to him. But usually, older generations, they want you to stay at a job for much longer because...

You have to think about your career's advancement, how you could get paid more and you can get promotions and that comes with better benefits. And also for them, it's just a better way of working. But the younger generation...

They will do everything they can, but if it doesn't live up to what they wanted out of the job, then they'll up and leave. And I mean, if you change jobs like every six to seven months, that's definitely a bad sign. If it's like, okay, two years here, three years there. If you talk to the right employer, they don't really think that. As long as you come up with a very reasonable explanation, then you're mostly okay, I think. Oh yeah.

You're listening to The Bridge. I want to kind of switch gears here. This is from Pew Research, March 19th, 2025. What age do people around the world think it is best to reach major life milestones? We're going to compare these. I'll do the American side. You can do the Chinese side. Sure. Get married.

This is ideal ages for major life events, according to people in 18 nations. It's the first chart. Get married 25.9 years. I can say I think I got married when I was 35 or 36. So what about in China? And I think most Americans actually get married younger than me, like in their late 20s, early 30s, depending on their financial situation. So what about in China? What do you think the average age for like, you know, your friends to get married has been?

my friends is not a good group. Your friends are not a good group. For,

For this specific, my friend group is not a good sample group. A lot of my friends are still unmarried or single at the age of, I'm turning 36 this year. I have friends that are in their 40s that are still not married or dating. Wow. Yes, we're a bad sample group, but. But do they want to get married someday? Is this just like, I prefer to be single kind of situation? It's not preferred. We're the ones that people despise, you know, jokingly despise.

You have too many requirements, too many unfinished desires of your life you want to do. And you want basically what we all want to marry Brad Pitt without the drama, you know, that kind of stuff. You're like, you're not going to be able to find that. So would you say that you and your friends are indicative of a new younger generation emerging in China? I do think we're going to be the leading spending force when we're in our like late 40s because we have no families to support. But then like even if we did, we would be at a much higher

much more comfortable financial place to spend even more money on our family. But also the single, what we call the single economy in China is really booming. There's so many people that are not dating yet because, for example, work puts a lot of pressure on their back. I see, yeah. You know, so they're not in the mood to just like find a girlfriend or boyfriend and you have to deal with the relationship difficulties

I mean, I'm happy for people that are in a very sweet and harmonious relationships, but I'm one where I'm like, I don't want to deal with any extra problems.

in a relationship. And there are a lot of people that feel that way from living the pressure to live in the bigger cities. And they just want to be alone. Like after working for a whole day, they just want to be alone. And then there are more restaurants designed to cater to this crowd. Like there's one noodle shop, it's called 23 Seats or whatever. And you sit by yourself. Like you're completely separated from the next person. Like you hear them, but you don't see them. And there's no talking. You don't even talk to the waiter. Okay.

I love it. It's a beautiful place. So how does your food arrive? There's a little curtain that just like when you get there, the curtain rises. You just see a hand? You see the hands. I know they copy this from Japan, but you see the hands and then they... I've been to ramen noodle place in Tokyo that was just like what you're describing. Yeah. I'm going there in October. I'm very curious. I'll go with my friend, but we'll sit separate just to try it out. How was it? Oh, it was very calm and quiet. Yeah. Didn't have to talk to you for 20 minutes. Exactly.

Oh, what's the best part of your trip? That 20 minutes where we're just eating our noodles separate. I love that. My best part of Japan. Exactly. But most people, not people that are in my friends group, a lot of people nowadays, it's very similar to the United States. I think this is something common for city life, for people that live in bigger cities. 28, 29 or early 30s, that just seems to be a very reasonable age to get married or you will want to get married because you're already at a comfortable place to

in your career and you know, you feel like you can have a family. Well, you know, I think there are new restrictions in the United States in terms of being able to buy a first home. I have this article CNBC average age of first time home buyers is 38. So we already discussed that most Americans want to get married in their late twenties and buy their first home in their early thirties, but they're not actually able to buy their first home until 38 years old on average.

So I think the ideals and the realities are not matching up. So even though I'm guessing in my parents' generation, grandparents' generation in the United States, they wanted to buy their home in like 22 years old, right? And get married and everything early. But now, you know, even with the ideal being later, maybe 31, they want to buy a home. They still can't buy a home until 38 because-

Let's just face it, U.S. homes are extremely expensive. Yeah. So my question is this for China. If you wanted to buy a home in China and say you're around 30 years old, would you be able to afford one in today's economy? I think for a lot of people, they do need assistance from their parents to put down the down payment and then they will pay for the mortgage.

Of course, there are if you work quite a comfortable job, like salary wise in bigger cities, you could probably pay put down the down payment in a couple of years if you and your partner collaborate, let's say, on the down payment. But it's such a tradition, like it's like a generational wealth that's being passed down. Like your parents are saving our parents generation. They worked really hard for

And then they accumulated all of this wealth well into their 60s. And what are they going to use this help the wealth for? They just gave it to their kids, even if they're not like wealthy, but they will help with putting down the payment up front for their kids to buy a house. I don't think that exists in the United States. I don't think parents are going to be like, here's $20,000 or whatever. I don't know. What do you need for a home in America? $50,000. Here's $50,000.

I don't think that's going to happen. So this is something I think is very interesting and more unique to China. Maybe there are other countries. I don't know. Probably. In terms of in the U.S., no. Yeah. You're not going to get them forking over tens of thousands of dollars for their kids to buy their first home. Yeah. But.

I think it's very fascinating that in China that this happens. May I ask, because people are going to want to know, does this typically come from the wife's parents, the husband's parents, a combination of both grandparents? Where does the money actually come from? Mostly it's both families. Like it's not going to be... Yeah, both families will pitch in on this. Unless one family is like, you know what? We will pay for this. But then like your name is not going on the property certificate or something. No, but most of the time it's both sides of the family.

Because the idea of getting married is such a, it's a union. And I know that's the same everywhere else in the world. But in China, it's looked as the union of two families. Like you will be very much entangled in each other's family matter. And for both sides to feel like, okay, our children, our, you know, respective child is really going to be part of the other kid's life, other person's life. Money is going to be an important part of it.

It's almost like, okay, let's go 50-50 on this so that you know we're not trying to be, okay, this is our house or... No, this has to be my house. We're trying to show our kids that we support them. We support this union. So let's go. And then, of course, if...

If the two families have a disparity in terms of income or, you know, how much disposable income they have, they work out deals as well. Like, for example, the wife's family is going to pay for the down payment and then the husband's family is going to help with, you know, redecorating and everything. Or if one side puts in more labor, the other side puts in more money, something. But like at the end of the day, it's kind of a very evenly distributed efforts from both sides. That's amazing.

It makes me think of some movies like Arthur, where this super rich guy falls in love with a regular common American and just wonder about what would happen with a super rich Chinese family. Would they approve of their super wealthy daughter or son marrying someone who is completely, you know, regular? Yeah.

You take international vacations in Cuba. You think that you're poor? Yeah, how many times do stories like that happen in real life? Oh my God, I wish it could happen to me. Let's manifest this. I'm not a billionaire, you know, and if I need to meet the billionaire, I need to at least have the money to travel there.

to Cuba and other parts of the world to meet them, you know? Sure, sure, sure. See, this is what Americans listening to this. I don't know if they can understand that you are some sort of like normal average Chinese person. And yet you get to take these multi-week vacations on the other side of the planet because the average American cannot afford to take like a week off. So, OK, so real quick, there's another article, Pew Trust's waiting to wed. I just thought this is an interesting statistic because

And this is for Americans. In 1969, the median age for a first marriage was for men, 23, and for women, 21.

So that, you know, just like we kind of said very early, very young about the age you'd be finishing college. Yeah. And so now in 2020, so this is not even updated for right now, men 31, women 28. So it looks like society's change. Maybe this is owing to wealth or cultural transformations. And it looks like the same transformation is happening now.

in uh china as well based on your answers but i have one more article i want to discuss this one yeah and i think this is interesting because the cost of housing in the united states is a major political issue for us so this is from china daily.com home buyers getting younger share of women buyers rising

So women are going out and buying homes. And apparently in Changsha, 28.9 were the youngest. I guess both men and women are buying homes, but also women are just going buying homes on their own. So what do you think about this, Alex? I think this particular data has a lot of contribution from people like me and my friends. I'm definitely not going to buy homes.

a property with a partner anytime soon, but I picture myself getting a property of some sort in the next couple of years because my mom really wants me to buy and she's helping me. She's helping me with, based on the style I travel, Jason, you know that I don't have savings. So my mom- I don't, I just learned this. I really don't. Okay, very quickly. I just read the data that last year was the first year that there was an average of

100,000 RMB savings for an average Chinese person every year. What? Wow. And I felt like I'm pulling down that data for sure. So wait, let's translate this for our American listeners. So what's that? It's about 17 or $18,000 saved annually by every single person in China. That's amazing. Yeah. Go on. But I was like, I'm definitely not part of that data group, but

But my mom does want me to buy a house. And then my other female friends that I have similar of age, also single, let's say I'm married. I don't know if they're single or not, but they've bought properties, not in the big cities, even though they're from there.

But they've bought properties in smaller, much, much smaller cities, more remotes, but very beautiful, very affordable. They've bought like houses for less than 1 million kuai, but like big houses, big apartments, new apartments. 1 million kuai, that's the same thing, right?

That's 170, 130 US dollars for like a really big apartment. And then my other friends that are now living in Europe, they're also considering buying houses in Europe because it's apparently easier to own than to rent.

There will be more friends of mine, female friends. We want to have places of our own as well. And we don't need to wait for marriage. We don't need to wait for any. But I'm not surprised that the share of female buyers is rising in the property market. And I think, again, this is a big potential customer group that real estate developers should cater to. Also, I was just thinking, if you're a ridiculously handsome Chinese guy, you need to be looking for these women. Yeah.

I don't know if you heard the new special from Ali Wong. She talked about her life after she got a divorce and where she was single. And she's like, I meet this really beautiful young man. And then I tell them I have this apartment in this really fancy neighborhood in LA. And she's like, but when I go home, we better be there. Like, you better be in the apartment all day. Didn't she marry a Harvard guy? I remember her skit. Maybe I'm mixing her up with someone else. No, you are correct. She did marry a Harvard guy, but. She's like, I'm going to trap him.

She did. She trapped him for quite a few years, but they got a divorce. I think two, three years ago, three years ago, maybe. She lost her Harvard boy. That's so sad. I think she let him go more like that because nobody's going to know exactly what happened, but they're not together anymore. And she's dating Tom Hader. And I think they had, they're having a kid together. Wow. Yeah. There's one of my new jokes in my recent set. I said, look, I, I recently become single as well. Um, I'm available again, like tick tock in America. Um,

Like female woman doing comedy in Asia, I feel like I could be the next Ali Wong and I just need to be funny. And that's it. I've been watching your routine on YouTube and you have a lot of YouTube shorts popping up and my YouTube algorithm feeds them to me constantly. So I think I'm seeing all of them. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your viewership. It's not me. It's not up to me. It's up to the YouTube algorithm. It's like, hey, you want to see Alex? Sure. Sure, I do.

Okay. So this is fascinating that women are buying homes on their own now. And this is an interesting transformation. I guess this is not true of everyone because most of the people I know in China are couples and a lot of them now have like one kid at least. Yeah. You're listening to The Bridge.

I want to point out something interesting for Americans, because if you go to the countryside in America now, homes are expensive. You go to the city, homes are expensive. You go to a small city, homes are expensive. Wherever you go, homes are expensive. But in China, there's a really big difference between different cities. So you said a million RMB for a home. In Beijing, you couldn't get...

home for a million RMB. Unless it's like in Sixth Ring South or something where like no one's ever even heard of where you're living. You might be able to find something for like 1.2 million, maybe, maybe. And it'll be small. If you take a million RMB and you go to a second tier city, you can have like a

fortress, you know, with like balconies and four bedrooms, three bathrooms. Amazing. Just a, just mansion of an apartment. So it matters a lot where you live in China. So I think that's really fascinating for me because it's very different from the United States because wherever you go, homes are expensive.

But in China, if you're willing to live in a city that most Americans have never heard the name of that city, then you can afford a really grand place. There are places in, let's say, southern China where the weather is nicer because it's warm all year round, you know, snow that much and it's pretty humid. In Fujian province, where it's known to produce really high quality tea, my friend, my dear, dear friend,

Qing is living there. She moved there, I think, three, four years ago. She has a three-bedroom apartment that's two floors. It's not a flyover, but it's just two floors all to herself, and she's paying $2,000 per month. I lived in Wuhan in a place where I think it was $1,200. I don't remember.

We did have two balconies. It was three bedrooms, two bathrooms, huge living room, massive separate kitchen. It was amazing. Like we didn't even know what to do with all the space. In China, the deal is as long as you're willing to travel a little bit, even if you're living in Beijing, my friends paying $3,500 for a three bedroom. They just live in Shunyi. That's it. But so it's far and they're changing to another apartment in their building that has a yard, which is ridiculous to me.

It's also 3,500 kuat. There's steam coming out of my nose, you know, just hearing and thinking about how small their rent is. What's their commute like? The thing is, so my friend is a social media person. She's a huge influencer for vegan food. That's her full-time job. And she's very famous in the food industry for her channel. And then her husband is a musician that kind of stays in the city a lot of the times. And then her

His workplace arranges his accommodation for free. So when he works in the middle of the week, he just stays in the city. And then they go back to Xuanyi. They do their stuff. And Xuanyi is also kind of an interestingly wealthy neighborhood, but the rent is low because of the commute. So if you're willing to give up Sanlitun, if you're willing to give up parties and stuff, you can just live in Xuanyi.

in a very affordable place and you're living you can't have a party in shuny it's against the rules you just party with your fellow shunyi people you're not part of our sanitum people just open a club there alex it sounds like you've got the solution you need to open your own club in shunyi you know what that's an amazing idea because they're already not spending money on rent they have more money to spend on other things

Okay, let's talk about the last thing because we're talking about milestones. I think we have to get to retirement. So I think older generations than you basically are when they think about retirement, they think about stopping working and then they go to the park because in China they have

retiree universities where you go take classes and they have local, they have local places, which are community centers where you can do calligraphy with your friends. That's the kind of retirement for people who were like in their late forties and older. That's what they imagine. I think in China, based on my perceptions, it's an American living here, but you're a bit younger for you. What does retirement mean? And when does that happen? Retirement means when I've made enough money and I'm just going to go travel the world. That's my retirement. No,

Seriously speaking, if we're talking about people that have a stable career, the retirement really just means they don't have to. First off, age wise, I think the age of retirement is definitely being pushed back.

I think the new policy just came out last year. Most people, like people my generation, we will retire at the age of 65, which is not too late, actually. We will still be, I think, very physically and socially active at that age. I think it's 63 because I looked that up. And for men, it's 63. I think for women, it's 58. But I could be mistaken. There's a difference between the type of job you do. For example, my mom right now, she's still not retired because she works at managerial level. Like she's a manager.

If you're a labor worker, most people, like if you're just, let's say an office worker, like you don't hold any positions, you don't manage the team or the company, you get to retire earlier. If you are a manager of some sort, then I mean, you can, I think if you want to, you can retire early, but-

You don't have to retire until you're like 65. So my mom still has like one year left, I think. Oh no, a couple of years left. But for us, it's going to be later. I think from now until the time we're expected to retire, there will be more policy changes because again, people's health situation is getting better and they want to be active. Like you see so many...

people in their 60s and they still look like they're in their 40s or move like they're in their 40s or 30s. What are you going to ask these people to do? But again, like you said, there are so many activities designed for retirees.

There's so many things to do, whatever city you're in, big or small. Like, there's too many choices you could have. And you could still live a very busy life after you retire if you choose to. So you want to wait until you're retired and then you want to travel the world? Like, right now I still have to come back, you know? Like, once I retire, I just...

I'm going to be like, okay, I'm going to go to travel for like four or five months. I don't know. I think that's what I want to do. And maybe I want to retire to Southeast Asia. Wow. You know, my question about this is because in the United States, we have a perception that we put away our old people into homes, which is true. We typically, you know, like shuffle them off to some kind of retirement home where the state or their retirement or a combination of savings and whatnot, take care of them. And then they play checkers with other old people.

The perception that I have as someone who vaguely understands China is that once you retire, you basically move in with your children and bother them. Is that not accurate? In the old days, you can, but...

But I think this is a very hot topic in China. And I think there's going to be a policy drive to address this problem, which is we are having an aging population. And because of the one child policy, most of people that are my generation, if they get married, they have to support four parents.

And while they have income and if the parents retire too early or whatever, you know, the it's just impossible for them to take care of four parents. It's I have my mom's friends who are taking care of like their own parents and their parents in law. It's a lot. It's a lot to put on one person. So somehow there has to be ways to help these people and help people, my generation to really work out the situation because our parents generation are more vulnerable.

financially aware, say responsible, they will have savings. They'll have like insurance that help them with paying for our services, paying for hospital bills and stuff. Our generation, I don't know what we're going to have when we reach that age, like where we have to take care of both of our parents and we don't have like a lot of life savings. I don't know what's going to really happen. And there, but there are already a lot of like,

community houses. It's not like you sent your parents off to somewhere that's far. Basically, the senior center is in the compound. Like you don't have to take care of them day and night. But during the day, they're like they get fed their activities designed for them, I think. And if they choose to stay, they can. But if not, like maybe you can go home. But like my friend's grandmother is living in one of those facilities that's right across the street from

their building. And so her children and her grandchildren just go see her whenever they want. It's basically them having their own apartment, except for this apartment comes with help and supervision and all kinds of assistance that they need. This is a bit out there. I've been following the humanoid development, you know, like in terms of Unitree is a robotic company, but there's many other robot companies.

And it seems like there will be a lot of help coming soon because Unitree is already making thousands, if not tens of thousands of humanoid robots, which people are buying. You can buy them on their website right now. But I think in a few years, we'll be in the third or fourth generation.

And those will probably be lifesavers in terms of helping mom and dad because they can pick up mom, carry her to the sofa, carry her to the bathroom, or they can go wash the dishes. And that's, I think, going to be just a transformative thing for human civilization. Exactly. That's what AI should be doing. Stop with this whole generative stuff. Generate pictures and videos. Nobody needs to see more human beings in a Barbie doll box. Yes.

What are you doing online, Alex? No. Okay. After we talk about this, you will see it for sure, Jason. There are so many people. This is a new tool, new sort of like image-generative AI. Party box?

that puts a picture of you and makes you into like a Barbie doll or like whatever, a doll thing that comes with like a costume and some sort of tools that you hold and everybody's posting about it. We don't need that stuff. We need AI to solve our living problem. That sounds amazing. I'm going to do this right away, Alex. No, Jason, don't be a culprit. Oh my God.

All right. That's all the time we have. If you guys want to add to this conversation, tell us why we're wrong. Tell us why we're right or just participate in the conversation in any way whatsoever. We would be delighted to read your comments on the air. Please email us at welovethebridge at gmail.com. Thank you so much for your time, listeners. Thank you so much for your time, Alex. Thank you, Jason. It's good to be back. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.