I remember watching an opera known as "Tianxian Pei" (A Heavenly Marriage) when I was a boy, which told the story of Dong Yong, a poor young man who had to sell himself into indentured servitude to raise money for his father's burial.

Qi Xiannu, a fairy maiden and seventh daughter of the Jade Emperor, saw the humiliating wretchedness of Dong Yong's life as a slave. Her sympathy was awakened. In defiance of the stern laws and rules of heaven she descended into the world and became Dong Yong's wife.

But when the Jade Emperor learned that his seventh daughter had surreptitiously left heaven for earth, he was wrathful and he contrived to snatch her away from her husband. Dong Yong and Qi Xiannu never saw one another again.

As I grew up I came to realize that this was only a legend and could never happen in real life. As for those stories of romance between scholars in poverty and beautiful girls from rich and illustrious families, they could not be real in the sense of actually happening.

Even the dowager Lady Jia in the "Dream of Red Mansions" responded with jeers and mockery to this kind of romantic fantasy: "Among the writers of these stories, there are some, who begrudge people's wealth and honours, or possibly those, who having solicited a favour (of the wealthy and honourable), and not obtained the object, upon which their wishes were set, have fabricated lies in order to disparage people.

There is, moreover, a certain class of persons who become so corrupted by the perusal of such tales that they are not satisfied until they themselves pounce upon some nice pretty girl. Hence is it that, for fun's sake, they devise all these yarns."

I had thought that everyone was as pragmatic and realistic as Lady Jia but actually such is not the case. Even now, there are people who are dreaming of meeting a fairy in the same way as Dong Yong.

For example, few months ago a junior at a university in Chengdu known by the alias of "Wang Jun" said he wanted to be married to a rich women if she would help him pay his way through school. Take another example. Chen Cheng, a university student in Beijing put an ad in the paper for a wife, in which he said his wife-to-be would have to pay for his studies abroad. Chen said that he didn't want his child to live a desperate life on the bottom rung of society as he had done for he knew how hard it could be to seek a livelihood.

We have to say that these men have the right to make their own choice. The question is whether marriage should be turned into an auction item to be sold to the highest bidder.

Furthermore, even if there are some people who want to put their marriages up for auction, there have to be buyers. Even if there are buyers, the success of this kind of deal depends much on the qualities of the goods on sale. If the auction item is not so good, it won't be sold at a decent price, for commodities are exchanged at equal prices.

Frankly speaking, there is nothing wrong with the idea of marrying a rich person. If it's natural for Cinderella to marry her prince, then a poor boy who wants to marry a rich woman should not be accused of behaving like a mangy dog bent upon eating the flesh of a heavenly goose. If fate lets a poor lad and a rich lady chance upon each other, make each other's acquaintance and recognize that they are right for each other before they get married, that would indeed make for a happy ending.

(Shanghai Star  June 28, 2004)