China’s Civil Affairs University announced a new undergraduate marriage program to develop marriage-related industries and culture, drawing the scorn of social media users, who questioned the need for such a course as marriage rates decline.
With the program due to start next month, the Beijing-based institution aims to “cultivate professionals to develop marriage related industries and culture,” state media reported last week.
Policymakers are struggling to reverse the decline in new births, which is closely linked to marriage rates, after China’s population last year fell for a second consecutive year.
Photo: reuters
Marriage is seen as a prerequisite for having children due to widespread policies, including one that requires parents to present a marriage certificate to register the baby and receive benefits. Single women and LGBTQ couples are not entitled to the same rights.
Called Marriage Services and Management, the new degree program is to focus on the development of the marriage industry, “aiming to highlight China’s positive marriage and family culture to students and the public and advancing reform of China’s marriage customs,” the Global Times reported.
The university would enroll 70 undergraduates from 12 provinces this year to field sectors including “family counseling, high-end wedding planning and the development of matchmaking products,” it reported.
Some Sina Weibo users ridiculed the announcement, with one writing: “It’s time to start a state-owned marriage agency.”
Others questioned the need for such a degree.
“This industry is not just a sunset, it’s doomsday,” one wrote.
“Learning this major is really unemployment after graduation,” another said.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
RSS