Modern Day Matchmaking

On the northern edge of People’s Park not far from the always bustling Nanjing Lu, a uniquely Chinese social phenomenon takes place every Saturday and Sunday afternoon. A large group made up of middle-aged parents and elderly grandparents assemble to trade basic information on their offspring in hopes of finding a potential spouse for their son or daughter. Thousands of slapdash personal advertisements, revealing things like year of birth, height, education level, job, salary, property owned, hukou and occasionally a picture, hang from bushes, a tent covered clothesline or lay strewn on the ground battened down by a rock or clump of mud. Welcome to the Shanghai Marriage Market.

Although the idea of parental involvement in the search for a husband or wife may seem foreign to many modern Western cultures, this matchmaking tradition has been a central tenet of Chinese society for thousands of years. Mr Zeng, an affable father in his 50s, explains, “In China, it is the parents’ responsibility to find a suitable suitor for their children.” Whether their children agree with their approach is a different matter, with some unaware their parents are touting them behind their backs.

In Zeng’s case, his daughter is well aware, having already accommodated her father by going on a series of dates with his prospective husband choices. “I have been coming here for two years now, twice a week,” he admits. “My daughter has gone on over 20 dates – mostly Chinese men, but also Italian, French, even an American – but so far she hasn’t found a match.”

For her it is a simple case of not enough time, her busy work schedule precludes her from having an active dating life on her own. She seems like a good catch for any man lucky enough to pique her interest, having studied abroad in Australia and holding a good job with a foreign education company. The picture Zeng triumphantly holds up shows a very pretty young woman in her mid-20s. “She has no time to find a husband, so I am looking for someone who will make her happy,” he says.  

In China, the pressure to get married increases as a child ages through their 20s. It is commonly accepted that marriage, and most importantly the beginning of a family, should happen before the age of 30. For women especially, this familial and societal pressure can be heavy, lest she be negatively thought of as a shengnü, or leftover woman. It’s a term of shame without a male equivalent, and one that can add to a parent’s desperation.

As if to prove the point, matchmakers who set up shop amidst the distressed parents are willing to supply potential brides with copies of a hand-written list of 300 potentially suitable male candidates for RMB 30. Grooms-to-be can get an equivalent list of females for just RMB 5. Matchmaker Qian, whose painstakingly scrawled pages could easily fill a three-ring binder, has been earning his spending money finding suitable companions since he retired five years ago. According to Qian, lists of grooms cost more because of simple supply and demand; more women are looking for husbands, despite the fact that Shanghai’s sex ratio skews male.

Not all matchmakers are looking to make a buck from the desperate in-laws-to-be. Matchmaker Ma took up the trade after retiring from a cushy civil service engineering job. Every weekend, she sits beside her cohort Ms Cheng as the two play Cupid for free. Both practicing Buddhists, they declare they are just volunteering to help facilitate a couple’s yuanfen, loosely translated as “fate that brings people together”, an oft-repeated phrase at the market. All Ma and Cheng expect in return for their services is a seat at the wedding banquet, but they won’t work for just anyone.

“We used to help strangers, but they would often cheat us. For example, they would claim to have a Shanghai hukou, but they would be waidiren,” Ma says. “Matchmakers also cheat people. They’ll claim they found a good match, but demand RMB 1,000 before handing over the personal details, which aren’t always accurate. Now we only help friends.”

Despite their exclusivity, Ma and Cheng have found suitable matches for over 50 couples, and they have the pictures to prove it. Cheng eagerly passes around a small photo album showing happy couples exchanging vows, celebrating anniversaries and holding newborns. She had so much faith in their matchmaking skills that she found her daughter a husband in just a few months using their network. Despite her daughter’s initial hesitation and admitted distrust of the situation, the couple is still happily married, Cheng notes with a smile as she points to their wedding photo in her album.

While one-on-one matchmaking seems to be the traditional norm, some entrepreneurial matchmakers are adding modern elements to the scene. Organised hiking trips and karaoke parties allow singles to mingle at their own pace, without the prying eyes of parents but still under the supervision of a matchmaker.

It’s not just the parents of young Chinese 20-somethings with busy jobs and no time for a normal social life who are looking for a little matchmaking help. Signs posted by children of widowed parents hang on a few bushes, and even more are hung up by the lonely elderly themselves. Some of the shengnü even come in person to look for their partner, but Cheng and Ma dismiss them out of hand. The attractive 35 year old woman who sits behind her own sign that tells of her career successes is wasting her time, according to the two seasoned pros. “How long it takes to find a husband or wife depends on destiny, but once a woman turns 35, it is almost impossible to find a good match,” says Cheng.

In addition to youth, Ma notes that the perfect match is much easier to attain if the boy or girl in question is attractive, healthy and traditional, the last of which appeals most to the parents who are hunting for their own son or daughter. Also important to the grandparents-to-be is the promise of extending their lineage, and with more than one grandchild if possible. Single child homes are a lucrative property in Shanghai’s marriage market, since the kids grow up with the promise of producing two offspring – if they marry another only child.

Curiously, the marriage market does not simply cater to locals. Westerners are becoming a more common presence on the scene, and not just the ones who accidentally stumble upon the phenomenon while sightseeing. Last March, Aaron Kreuscher, the founder of local blog shlaowai, headed down to the marriage market on a dare, but ended up with a date.

New in town, Kreuscher had never heard of the marriage market, so he allowed his friend to experiment with cultural relativism for the sake of a good blog post. With the help of a native speaker, they drafted up a personal ad, complete with picture, job title and financial status. A student at the time, Kreuscher proudly stated he didn’t own a home or a car, a double whammy for most Shanghainese boys, but the picture of the tall Caucasian American soon drew crowds of giggling spectators who snapped pictures of his ad.

Despite the hullabaloo, the event only yielded one phone call, which resulted in a half hour interrogation session from the girl’s father and a quick email back and forth with the potential object of his affections before dinner was set, but the date ended practically before it began.

“It was absolutely brutal. She was embarrassed and upset about the whole situation of being set by her father,” he says. “It was clear that she was only there to satisfy her parents and that neither of us had any expectation for there to be a second date.”

While Kreuscher’s experience was light-hearted jest for internet fodder, a handful of interested foreign men can be found intensely reading posts and chatting to prospective in-laws at the market, but they shied away from media inquiries. Encouragingly, matchmakers were intrigued by any foreign faces that passed by, and offers of “making friends” were shouted in the direction of any laowai who walked past. 

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