My First Marriage Proposal

Yunnan, China. I sat next to a young man who was from Hunnan on the bus from Lijiang to Shangri-La. He came from a farming family and set out to Lijiang to start an air conditioning and heating company. He's doing pretty well and recently started a second office in Shangri-La. He told me his first real paycheck was for $1,100 RMB (US$160) and with that he went a bought a suit for $600 RMB (US$90 ish). He was afflicted, like many villager-cum-business owner, with an inferiority complex to the city people. With this sense of unworthiness comes a prejudice against his own origins. He pointed to the log cabins of the local Naxi farmers and said with an air of superiority "look how destitute those farmers are." I said I don't think they're destitute, I think they need less. He scoffs at me and reiterates that they are so poor that even the richest Naxi farmer only makes $40 RMB (US$0.55) a week. To him, words like "poor" and "wealthy" are always quantitative and never qualitative. My over-privileged guilt complex wonders if only people who need nothing can glorify and romanticize the people who can afford nothing. He then asked me to marry him. I think my mom would have a hard time receiving 8 cows from my potential in-laws so I politely declined.