"Dating here is more like a negotiation," Song said. "You know this person not by who they are but by what they have," such as their own apartment and a Beijing hukou.
"If those criteria fit, then they start to talk about whether they should be boyfriend and girlfriend, and then they talk about if they have some intimacy or not," she said.
This rather clinical approach is buoyed by family and social pressure. When friends set Song up on a blind date, they will tell her whether the man owns an apartment and about his financial status and educational background rather than what he is like as a person, she said.
Sometimes, when you first meet your boyfriend's parents or grandparents, they will "ask about your family background rather than yourself," said Wang, the 23-year-old. She says often worries she may not be "good enough" to meet their expectations.
Liu Chang, a 27-year-old engineer, says his friends would never consider a woman without a Beijing hukou as a long-term prospect, mainly because of pressure from their parents. They worry that while she would receive the same benefits as her Beijing husband, her parents wouldn't and are a potential burden, Liu said.
Many people are looking to get ahead by marriage, such as tying the knot with someone who is richer, said Liu, whose monologue is about his gradual realization that love is a selfless thing and not as transactional as society would have many believe.
For many people, "love is not a determinant factor," he said.
The pressure on women in particular has grown as the phrase "leftover woman," or "shengnu" in Chinese, gets flung around.
The term was defined in 2007 by the All-China Women's Federation, an organization that promotes government policies on women, as an unmarried urban professional woman over the age of 27.
This came on the heels of a government policy goal of "upgrading population quality," suggesting it wants smart women to pass on their genes to children, said Leta Hong Fincher, who has written a book called "Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China." The subsequent promotion in state media of the "leftover" label is intended to put pressure on women to hurry up and get married and bear children, she said.
Ironically, that phrase is statistically inaccurate because there are more men than women in China, Hong Fincher points out. "The fact that this campaign is stigmatizing and insulting women on one level illustrates the widespread sexism in Chinese society," she said.
Che Xiao, a postdoctoral fellow at a theater academy, will deliver a monologue in which she calls for the derogatory phrase to disappear. She says it helps preserve the staunchly patriarchal nature of Chinese society and discrimination against women.
Song said she didn't want to get married simply to get rid of the "leftover" label.
"I'm just trying to find someone who I really adore."
