萧美琴大陆男友:二奶和中国繁荣的奢侈品市场

While accurate numbers are hard to come by, a 2008 estimate says that Second Wives account for a third of the country's consumption of luxury products. There is a tension between what is officially and socially accepted, however. This contentious consumer group must be viewed in light of a deep-rooted set of Chinese cultural values, including the distinction between marriage and sex and the practical rather than romantic nature of the relationship 'transaction'.

尽管拿到确切数字很难，2008年的一项评估称，这个国家奢侈品消费的三分之一来自二奶。然而，官方和社会对这个问题的接受程度迥异。考察这个消费者团体，不能脱离中国深植的文化价值观，包括婚姻和性之间的区分，以及性关系交易中大于浪漫性质的实际因素。

What are societal attitudes to Second Wives?

社会对于二奶的态度如何？

You have to start with traditional Chinese culture. In order for a man to 'fulfill his mandate to heaven' he needs to produce a son, and women have always been used as a means to an end in propagating the name of the father. So concubinage has been an institution for thousands of years and the Chinese have always had an exceptionally pragmatic attitude toward sex.

你必须从传统的中国文化出发。一个男人要“达成天命",他必须要生个儿子，因此女人最后常常被当做工具来宣扬父亲的名字。所以千百年来，纳妾早已成为体制，中国人对性也一直持有异常务实的态度。

Because China has never had a humanist revolution, sex and marriage have always been relatively divorced. That is why many Asian cultures have an immensely commercialized and categorized [sex industry]. The way they separate the two is quite stunning -- the choices are up on neon boards like a McDonald's menu.

因为中国从来没有过人文改革，性和婚姻总是被分裂开来。这就是为什么亚洲文化里有高度商业化和分类化的性行业。他们区分二者的方式非常惊人——选择被罗列在氖气广告牌上，就像麦当劳的菜单一样。

Now the caveat is that the core of the marriage is 'commitment', which is to make sure the family remains cohesive. Even today, wives are much more likely to look the other way if the husband has a happy ending at a massage than if he takes on a mistress. If he takes on a mistress, for most unwealthy people, this is a fundamental threat to the marriage. But if a husband is a man of means, and has a significant income, then he can take on a second wife without violating his obligation to his first wife. So there is a whole way of maintaining the system without it resulting in divorce.

现在的观点是，婚姻的核心是承诺，这确保家庭维持稳定。甚至在今天，妻子们宁可对丈夫去按摩院爽一把睁只眼闭只眼，也不愿意看到他找情妇。如果他找了情妇，对于大部分不富裕的人们来说，这构成了对婚姻的根本威胁。但如果这个丈夫很有手段，又有显赫收入，那他就可以在包二奶的同时，也不违反对原配老婆的义务。所以保持这个体系，不以离婚收场有一整套方法。

Er nai are not socially accepted, but they are not scandalous, either.

二奶不为社会接受，但她们也不构成什么丑闻。

When I ask people how much it costs to maintain a second wife -- a trophy concubine -- the average I'm told is 50,000RMB. This isn't just a girlfriend, this is someone who is kept. And she is displayed as somebody that's a result of this guy's power and influence, and access to funds.

我向别人询问多少钱才足以维持一个二奶，回答的平均数目是5万人民币。这不仅仅是个女朋友，这是个被包养的女人，并且被用来展示包养她男人的权力、影响力以及赚钱的本事。

The next step up from a flash car, then?

拥有豪华汽车后，迈向更高的一步？

Absolutely. Very few people have really flash cars because they're too conspicuous -- you have the Mercedes or BMW, or better yet the Audi A8 because it's understated, but [cars like] Maseratis are still highly dangerous and no one is going to drive one around that obviously. But among close friends and associates the mistress is a known commodity.

绝对的。很少有人有真正的豪华汽车，因为它们太引人注目了。你可能有梅赛德斯或宝马，或者有更好的奥迪A8，因为它们不那么夸张，但是像玛莎拉蒂这样的汽车就非常危险了，没有人会明目张胆开着它到处招摇。但是在亲密的朋友和同事之间，情妇是众人皆知的奢侈品。

And how does that tie into gift culture? In 2009, 50% of luxury purchases were gifts -- what percentage were er nai gifts?

和送礼文化有何种关系呢？2009年，50%的奢侈品消费是礼品——送给二奶的礼品占多大比例？

Well, no one has the exact statistics, of course. The majority of luxury brand gift culture is man to man -- you could call it trust facilitation in a business environment. That's one of the things that makes the luxury market in China absolutely unique; men buy even more luxury products than women do, and this is often to smooth business transactions.

当然了，没人有精确的数据。奢侈品牌送礼文化的主流是男人送男人。你可以称之为商业环境中的信任投资。这是令中国奢侈品市场绝对独特的因素。男人甚至比女人买奢侈品还要多，这通常是为了促进商业交易。

Sometimes those payouts are ill-gotten, and a way of siphoning profit into non-measurable ways, and sometimes it's just a way of currying favor. But the fact is that the majority of gifting in China is men to men. That said, in my casual but extended observation, another big source of volume is men to women for the second wife. And those brands tend to be much more flashy.

有时候这些支出源自腐败所得，并且是一种无法量化的利益输送方式，有时还是溜须拍马的办法。但事实是中国主要的送礼都发生在男人之间。根据我随意但广泛的观察，另外一大类型源于男人送礼给二奶。而这些品牌倾向于更加豪华。

Second Wives [like flashy brands] because they have to display that their man is dedicated to them. They lead very insecure lives. They are not independent and need to advertise the fact they have a sponsor.

二奶喜爱豪华品牌，因为她们必须显示她们的男人对其很上心。她们过着很没安全感的日子。她们无法独立，需要宣告自己有赞助人这个事实。

What impact have er nai had on Tier 2 economies?

二奶对于二线城市经济有何影响？

Of course you will see it more in Tier 1 cities because that's where the wealth is. But any city that has a middle class is going to have Second Wives. I asked people what percentage of upper middle class guys [had mistresses] -- and this might not be accurate but it gives you an idea of how widespread the perception is -- and was told 85-95%. It's certainly become accepted as a perk of power. Even Jiang Zemin, the former President, had a very high profile mistress -- a singer who appears on the Chinese New Year program every year. And it's not a scandal.

当然你会在一线城市看到更多这种现象，因为这里是财富聚集地。但是任何一个有中产阶级的城市都打算包二奶。我问过人上层阶级人士中包养情妇的占多大比例——这还不一定是准确的数字，但起码让你了解社会上对二奶的认知有多广泛——回答是85%—95%。这显然已成为权势的附带收益。（***）并且这也不是什么丑闻。

However, the reason the government has policy for officials not to have mistresses is not about morals, it's about corruption. The mistress is often thought to be sustained based on ill-gotten gains and it's a trigger for corruption accusations, because the actual salary of an official is not high enough to support a mistress.

但是，政府规定官员不准包养情妇的理由无关乎道德，却关乎腐败。情妇常常被认为要靠腐败所得来维持，而这成了引起腐败案的动因，因为一个官员的实际收入不足以高到可以包二奶。

Given that er nai have such a large amount of buying power, are there any brands or businesses targeting them directly?

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Certainly not directly -- you'd never say something like this directly. But any flash luxury brand is going to be embraced by these women.

当然没有直接的——你永远不能直截了当这么说。但是任何得豪华奢侈品牌都会被这些女人追捧。

Is there any evidence that distaste towards er nai from first wives is impacting their luxury buying habits?

是否有证据表明，原配老婆对于二奶的憎恶会影响到她们奢侈品购买习惯？

Well there hasn't been a shift, it's always been the case that Chinese women want to be both elegant and conspicuous. That's what accounts for the appeal of a diamond -- it sparkles not shines -- or Bottega Veneta with its elegant crossweave that's still very noticeable. A Chinese woman wants to reinforce her understated, gentle femininity as well as her desire to move forward and stand up. So those inconspicuously conspicuous brands have always been popular among Chinese women. What you're seeing instead, though, are the growth of the more niche, flashier brands.

并没有什么转变。中国女人常常都想既优雅又引人注目。这就是为什么珠宝这么有吸引力——它自己发光而不是反射别人的光——或者又如宝缇嘉有着优雅的十字编织却也十分夺目。一个中国女人既想强调她朴实温柔的女人味，也想强调其对于向前进和站起来的欲望。所以那些低调却引人注目的品牌在中国女人里总是很流行。虽然你看到的却是市场定位更加高端的牌子在保持增长。

Is there's a risk of something like the unfortunate Burberry 'chav effect' happening in China because of certain brands' association with Second Wives?

中国是否因为一些牌子和二奶的联系，存在着发生类似于巴宝莉不幸的“愤青效应”的风险？

Well, I think Burberry went downmarket, and it was reborn -- it's extremely aspirational here. The brands that go out are not the ones that become too flashy because they're born flashy, that's their niche from the very beginning. The ones that die are the ones that grow old and don't innovate. But again that's another subject -- Chinese want big brands but they also want to know they're ahead of the trend curve.

我认为巴宝莉走低端市场并重获新生。它在这里是非常有抱负的。走出去的牌子并非因为一诞生就是豪华品牌而变得非常豪华，而是因为最初的市场定位。死掉的是那些变老且固步自封的牌子。但是又出现另外一个话题——中国人渴望大品牌，但他们也想知道自己是领先于潮流的。

How does the question of love tie into all of this?

爱情和所有这些有着怎样的联系？

Second Wife culture is just one part of a much bigger and more interesting area which is the difference between love and marriage in China and the West. Marriage in the west is rooted in romantic passion, and although that passion evolves over time we basically assume that if it's is gone from marriage it's a shallow marriage. Yes, there are other concerns that surround it -- children, money -- but it's not the core of the relationship.

在中西爱情与婚姻差异这块更大、更有意思的领域，二奶文化只是其中一部分。婚姻在西方植根于浪漫的激情，虽然激情随时间而渐变，但我们仍基本上认为，激情如果离开了婚姻，这婚姻便是浅薄的。是的，围绕它也有其他考虑，比如孩子和金钱，但是这些并不是性关系的核心。

In China it's fundamentally true that a marriage is not between two individuals, it's between two clans. Marriage is a way that people connect into a broader society in which the individual is not the basic productive unit. This has always been the case.

在中国，基本上可以说婚姻不是两个人的事，而是两个家庭的事。婚姻是人们与更广阔社会发生联系的方式，这个社会里个人并不是基本的生产单位。情况一直都是这样。

In China, a romance is not ideal unless it is also accompanied by commitment. In Chinese, when we translate "a diamond is forever", we don't mean that passion lasts forever. It translates as "he will do anything for you, forever". And that's why people buy a lot of things for their mistresses -- that affection needs to be demonstrated, too.

在中国，仅有浪漫并不理想，除非有承诺相伴。在中文里，当我们翻译“一颗钻石代表永恒”时，我们不是说激情会永远持续。它应该被翻译成“他会永远为你做任何事情”。这就是为什么人们给他们的情妇买很多东西——感情也是需要被表达的。

There's a TV show about dating whose title translates as "Don't bother me if you're not serious" [where women list the material things they expect from a man]. One of the more infamous contestants, Ma Nuo, caused an outcry after stressing material benefit as the most important thing she was looking for. (Choice quote: "If I am dumped, I would rather cry on the back seat of a BMW than on a bicycle.") People accused her of lacking 'morality.' But she hit on a truth: where matters of the heart are concerned, society forces people to look for tangible return for the sake of future stability. As it becomes more difficult to make ends meet, particularly with the skyrocketing cost of houses, the imperative of a practical marriage becomes even more pronounced.

有个名为“非诚勿扰”的电视节目（节目中女人们列出她们希望从男士那里得到的物质条件）。臭名昭著的女嘉宾马诺，声称物质上的利益于她是正在寻找的最为重要的事情。此观点发表后引发巨大争议。（例如她说：“如果我被抛弃了，我宁可坐在宝马而不是自行车后座上哭。”）人们谴责她缺乏道德感。但她触碰到了这样一个真相：在心灵所倚重的因素被考虑的同时，社会也强迫人们为了未来的稳定寻找看得见的回报。随着收支相抵越来越难，特别在房价飙升的情况下，达成一桩现实婚姻的迫切性变得越来越显著。

Of course, this does not mean that the Chinese are incapable of love, or do not want to fall in love. It means that romantic love competes with that transactional element in a society where people are insecure because their individual interests are not institutionally protected.

当然，这并不意味着中国人没能力爱，或者不想坠入爱河。这意味着在一个个人利益无法得到制度保障而令人们得不到安全感的社会，浪漫的爱情不得不与交易的元素抗争。

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