'Money for love' a growing trend
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It's often said that "money can't buy you love" but university students around China are finding that it certainly helps.
Parents in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, are increasingly turning over cash to fund their children's college romance, the Wuhan Evening News reports.
Yang Lin, a sophomore at a university in Wuhan's Hongshan District, said before the new semester started his parents had given him an extra allowance on top of his living expenses.
"I happened to tell my parents during the summer vacation that I had a girlfriend. To my surprise, they remembered it and even prepared 'love expenses' for me," he said.
The main reason for his parents' generosity, he said, was because his cousin had focused on his studies and didn't have a girlfriend while at university. When he started to work in mechanics after graduating, he found even harder to make girlfriend because so few females worked in that field.
The whole family had become worried about his cousin's plight and feared the same would happen to Yang Lin, so his parents encouraged him to find a college romance.
"There are more and more single people in society now," said Yang Lin's father. "My son studies engineering which few girls study, so the chances of him meeting a female are slim and we think if he can find the right girl at university we should encourage him."
Another important reason for parents encouraging their children to find a partner while at university is that many companies forbid romances in the workplace.
The "money for love" phenomenon is clearly becoming more popular - three of Yang's roommates have also been given extra cash by their parents to find a partner.
One of them, Tang Qiang, said he was a reluctant recipient. "I am not from a rich family and I tried to refuse the love expenses but my parents insisted," he said. "They persuaded me to be generous to my girlfriend and buy her a birthday present."
Female students also receive money to help fund their romances, the report says.
Such parental assistance is not universally supported, however.
Peng Lu, a senior psychological counselor at Hubei Communications Technical College, says while it's understandable for university students to have romances, they should earn it themselves and not sit back and take handouts from their parents. After all, Peng says, love should be about feelings, not money.
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