When the newspaper Nanfang Zhoumo, or Southern Weekend, ran a report recently about billionaires seeking brides, online discussion groups were flooded with commentary from readers, often focusing on the matter-of-fact comments of one woman who applied but was passed over by a billionaire.

    "Isn't the purpose of saving our virginity to get a good price?" she asked.

    Many readers deplored the woman's response, condemning people like her as little better than prostitutes. "I'm also a well-educated woman with a good figure, too, but I hate this kind of thing," one reader wrote. "People's beauty derives from their inner qualities, not their virginity. Those girls have sold themselves like cheap merchandise."

    Others ridiculed the billionaires. "If they think they can get a pure-hearted girl this way, they are really mistaken," wrote another commentator. "To me, the way people are taking virginity as a commodity these days is such a sad thing."

    In an interview, however, another young woman, who had replied to a billionaire's ad but was passed over, offered a stout defense of her choice, one that amounted to a brief for personal and sexual freedom.

    "Things are different from before because everyone has a right to choose," said the applicant, Wang Yue, who said that in a physical relationship feelings can always be developed later.

    "It's very easy for me to support myself. Without men, my life wouldn't be hard. But if I'm standing on a giant's shoulder, I can see further."

    The confusion over love, sex and marriage is probably a passing phase, one expert says.

    "China is a society in transition, and for the last 20 years, people have been basically going after material things," said Yang Xiong, an expert of youth culture at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. "Give it another 20 years, and I would say very few people would pursue billionaires just for their money. Right now this seems like a fresh topic for discussion, but in 10 years nobody will give a damn."

    Even in a China that is becoming more money-driven by the day, Shanghai, with its glitter and flash, has a very special reputation. The women of the city, in particular, are often spoken of as being driven consumers and the most demanding of wives.

    In several days of interviews among young women here, though, it became evident that the billionaires out to buy love have their work cut out for them. One after another, young women said the verdict of their hearts was more important than the cost of their wardrobe or the weight of their purse.

    "I have to take time to see if a man is quite suitable for me or not, because life is a long course," said Su Jie, 23, an airline stewardess as she ate a Korean barbecue with a friend.

    "I can make money for myself, maybe not so much, but enough," she said. "It's more important to me that we understand each other."

    (Source: China Daily/The New York Times)