Parents step up role in dating game to help adult children
The parents strolling through Shanghai's People's Park most weekends are interested in more than just fresh air and flowerbeds.
These moms and dads, most of them in their 50s or 60s, do seem interested in gardening insofar as it allows them to weed out undesirable elements. However, their goal is not to produce the perfect bud. Rather, they are seeking the perfect life mate for their adult children.
Eager to see their children married, Shanghai parents have been gathering at the park over the last three years to exchange information about their sons and daughters.
No, this is not a return to the days of arranged marriages. They think of it as more of a spontaneous matchmaking gathering, and the practice seems to be catching on.
Clad in their Sunday best, these parents hunt down potential partners for their children. They select a few candidates, and then let their kids decide if they are interested in pursuing a relationship.
The "late marriage club" has been growing across the country. As young people sacrifice more of their personal time to develop their careers, many parents also see their duties evolving to suit the times.
Ma Yingdi is a mother who has been frequenting the park to help her 25-year-old daughter find the perfect man. Her daughter, who has never had a boyfriend, graduated from college three years ago. Ma says she has been so busy with work that she has had no time for dating. So, like many parents in China, Ma grew worried and decided she should do something for her daughter.
"She didn't want me to come here at first," Ma said. "But I persuaded her. After all, I'm her mother and can do a better job than matchmakers."
Ma, who chatted with the other parents who were looking over the profile she had written of her daughter, said she first asks the other parents about their children's age, education, occupation and salary. If Ma thinks there could be a suitable match, she will exchange photos and phone numbers with the potential parents-in-law.
"There is a generation gap when it comes to how parents and children view potential spouses," Ma said after selecting five candidates in three hours. "So, what I'm doing is just selecting a few candidates by setting the basic requirements and leaving the decision to my daughter."
But not everyone has had the same success with recruiting.
Ye Huizhu, who has been frequenting the matchmaking gatherings for the past four months, said it had been difficult to find a satisfactory candidate. She said her son does not know she visits the park because he would not be happy about the idea of being peddled.
Parental screening became a hit in Beijing over two years ago, and the trend has quickly spread to other cities, including Nanjing, Hangzhou and Shenzhen. But Shanghai is the first to turn such casual matchmaking gatherings into organized events by marriage agencies.
Jinguo Marriage Agency is one such organization. It began organizing monthly parental matchmaking events two years ago. General manager Zhou Jueming said several hundred parents had registered. The numbers fluctuate, but Zhou said there have been as many as 1,000 parents registered at one time.
"Most of the young people on our list have good educational backgrounds, decent salaries and respectable jobs," he said. "But they have difficulty in finding a suitable spouse. Single women, in particular, outnumber men by an amazing ratio of 20 percent."
While experts are concerned about males outnumbering females in China, single women in Shanghai are finding it difficult to find a perfect mate. According to statistics from the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, women married at an average age of 26 in 2007. A decade ago, women married at 21.
Xu Anqi, director of the family research center of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, attributed the delay to the fact that well-educated young women play an increasingly important role in their professions and are more financially independent these days.
However, while parents may want to extend goodwill to their children, parental matchmaking may not be the best approach to marriage, Xu said.
"I won't say it has a greater success rate," he said. "Young people usually don't like being manipulated by their parents, and there is a substantial gap between their standards."
Twenty-six year old Yao Yun, who works at a telecommunications company in Pudong, said she was in no hurry to find a boyfriend.
"My parents talked to me about match-making, but I refused," she said. "Single life is much more comfortable for me, for the time being."
(China Daily 04/11/2008 page6)
