Love deferred for the good life

As Chinese parents ask their children, "Don't you think it's about time you got married? " more and more are replying, "I don't think so."

Zhang Zixuan has decided to paint herself out of the corner that society had painted her into. In that corner stand many of her peers, single women in their late 20s and early 30s anxious about being unable to marry before it is "too late".

The anxiety they feel is so palpable that they are willing to subject themselves to blind dates that well-meaning parents or other relatives or friends arrange for them, eager to spare them of the supposed ignominy of being tagged "left on the shelf".