Join us for a free one-day workshop for educators at the Japanese American National Museum, hosted by the USC U.S.-China Institute and the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. This workshop will include a guided tour of the beloved exhibition Common Ground: The Heart of Community, slated to close permanently in January 2025. Following the tour, learn strategies for engaging students in the primary source artifacts, images, and documents found in JANM’s vast collection and discover classroom-ready resources to support teaching and learning about the Japanese American experience.
The high price of marriage
With weddings being postponed worldwide, we look at what saying "I do" costs in the U.S. and China and compare the historical growth of their industries.
April 23, 2020
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With bans on social gatherings around the world, couples have been forced to change plans for the day they've spent months, or sometimes years, dreaming about. According to surveys, 7% of U.S. couples are canceling their weddings (but hopefully not their marriages) and 51% are postponing them, with the rest still undecided.
Even before the global pandemic, the number of people saying "I do" was already on the decline. The U.S. wedding industry peaked in 2016 at US$85 billion and was down to US$75 billion last year. In China, the industry has grown 4% over the same time to US$25 billion. With the current shutdowns, wedding service businesses will take a big hit this year, hopefully rebounding in 2021 when all of the postponed weddings occur.
Couples are finding out the hard way that those rings, venues, photographers, flowers, dresses, and cakes really add up. In the U.S., your special day will put the average American back 10 months salary, US$28,000, while in China the average wedding costs only US$12,000—but that's still 18 months salary for the average worker.
The Chinese Communist Party is continually discouraging lavish weddings and have indicated that ceremonies should be "simple and moderate" and "integrate socialist values and Chinese traditional culture." For New Yorkers who don't mind a simple wedding, the state is now allowing marriage licenses to be granted online and clerks can conduct ceremonies over video apps. Time will tell if these couples will want to stay together once they're allowed to leave their homes
More on Millennials in China:
- Watch our 2015 conference exploring the aspirations of young Chinese and Americans with regard to school, work, romance, and life.
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October 20, 2024
October 20, 2024
Please join us for the Grad Mixer! Hosted by USC Annenberg Office of International Affairs, Enjoy food, drink and conversation with fellow students across USC Annenberg. Graduate students from any field are welcome to join, so it is a great opportunity to meet fellow students with IR/foreign policy-related research topics and interests.
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Events
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 - 3:00pm
Hosted by USC Annenberg Office of International Affairs, enjoy food, drink and conversation with fellow international students.
Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 4:00pm
Join us for an in-person conversation on Thursday, November 7th at 4pm with author David M. Lampton as he discusses his new book, Living U.S.-China Relations: From Cold War to Cold War. The book examines the history of U.S.-China relations across eight U.S. presidential administrations.