Love Needs a Home

By JING XIAOLEI

This Valentine's Day could have been dismaying for two young lovers who decided to spend it at home. The host, 26-year-old Ye Fei, who is originally from Hubei Province and works as an editor for a newspaper in Beijing, went out to the market on Saturday morning to buy vegetables and fish for Valentine's Day dinner after doing some house chores.

When he returned with a full bag of food, the hostess, Anhui Province-born Shen Shen, discovered he had gotten the wrong kind of fish from what she had wanted. But she didn't scold him since he also handed her a bunch of fresh roses. They embraced.

It was the first Valentine's Day that the unmarried couple spent together in Beijing. The two, who come from other parts of China, met five years ago while playing Internet games. Ye has lived in Beijing for almost eight years while Shen came to the city last year after college graduation.

Like many other young lovers of a similar social background in Beijing, they are both wage workers who are struggling to buy a house of their own to be able to get married. For now they are sharing a two-bedroom apartment with another man. At 1,400 yuan ($200) per month, they can manage the rent. But the house's condition is far from adequate-an aging house, old furniture in bad repair and a claustrophobically narrow kitchen and bathroom.

The usual plan for such lovers is to buy a house on a mortgage with both parents providing the first payments and the couple paying the monthly mortgage. Things had gone well for Ye and Shen, but recently some unexpected bad news damped the two lovers' future. Ye's parents said they wouldn't help their son with the first payment, which meant the two lovers must get a house on their own. Considering the average housing price far exceeds 10,000 yuan ($1,450) per square mete-more than their combined monthly salaries-it seemed a mission impossible.

The two lovers are about to look for another apartment to rent as their current one-year contract will come to an end in March. "I will find ways out anyway," Ye said. He kept comforting his beloved girl, or comforting himself at the same time. Meanwhile, the roses Ye bought for her girlfriend still rest on their nightstand, the only bright color in the otherwise dim environment of the room.

"Renting a living place here and there makes us feel adrift and insecure," said Shen, who was continuing a one-month vacation without salary as the law firm where she works has scaled back her hours as part of the ongoing global financial crisis. "We all want to settle down at our own home; that's the right place where love can rest," said the young woman.