Shengnü means 'leftover woman'. It is a label in the Chinese press and in family talk for an urban woman who is still unmarried after her mid-to-late twenties, and it is widely criticised as demeaning. The word is a fixture of debates about pressure to marry. Ode to Joy and Nothing But Thirty both touch on it.
Dramas
Where it comes up
Neon & Nine-to-Five
Ode to Joy: The Shanghai Drama That Put Five Women on One Floor and Made Class the Plot
A guide to the 2016 first season of Ode to Joy: five women from very different backgrounds on one Shanghai floor, why class is the real subject, the Fan Shengmei family debate, the novel-to-screen production, and the template it set for later city dramas.