(SHANGHAI) --
It's many a young girl's worst nightmare.
Her parents are trying to line her up with a
blind date. Worse, they post a sign listing her attributes and print pamphlets
to hand out to anyone interested.
"My daughter would kill me if she
knew," one chatty mother confides, refusing to give her name just in case
her offspring catches wind of the scheme. But she will readily hand over a flyer
describing her daughter, complete with picture.
A tall, spare man who will only give his family name,
Lu, told his daughter what he's up to on his days off -- and she's not happy.
"I've mentioned to my daughter that I come to the
Blind Date Corner," Lu said. "She is quite against this, but I keep
coming."
His daughter works such long hours at a foreign-owned
company that she has no time to meet anyone on her own, he says.
Lu is one of about 1,000 anxious parents who spent a
recent sunny Sunday afternoon in the leafy area of Renmin Park in central
Shanghai that is popularly known as Blind Date Corner. Up and down the pathways
they stand, their homemade signs, often with picture, clipped to the bushes:
"Gender: female; born: 1980; height: 1.68 metres;
weight: 54 kilograms; education: university degree; work: foreign company;
monthly salary: RMB 5000 ($641)."
Some parents boldly list their requirements for a
son-in-law, too, but Lu doesn't bother.
Since his daughter disapproves of his methods, he
makes his own choices among the men (or men's parents) who express interest. In
October, he lined her up with two dates, but neither turned into a romance.
"My daughter said she had no special feeling
towards the men I introduced," Lu said sadly.
The gender ratio in China is 120 men to 100 women, but
it's still mostly the anxious parents of marriage-age girls who turn up every
Saturday and Sunday, searching for a mate for their singleton.
Their offspring are the first generation to come of
age since the Chinese government implemented its single-child policy and they
are often referred to as little princesses.
In a country where "family" is
all-important, these only children have been smothered in love by two parents
and four grandparents, given good educations, dressed in the latest fashions and
encouraged to seek white-collar jobs.
But office work in a big city often doesn't offer
opportunities to meet suitable young men, and going to a singles bar or club is
not an option for a well-bred Chinese girl. The problem weighs heavily on doting
parents, who won't consider their job done until they hear wedding bells and the
pitter-patter of little feet.
They want that security for their princesses, but also
for themselves. Usually without a pension and with no son to count on for
support, their best hope for someone to look after them in their old age is a
daughter who marries well.
Pretty young office worker Ye came to Blind Date
Corner with her 57-year-old father. It's his second visit and he convinced her
to take a look, saying it offered a "free and romantic" way to meet
Mr. Right. Ye, 25, explained: "In my office, most colleagues are female and
I don't go to gatherings or parties very often, which limits the chance of
meeting a decent man."
She's tempted to try her luck at Blind Date Corner,
but says age, height, weight and income are not enough for her to go on.
"The most important element is whether our
characters match or not. If I don't have feelings towards a man, I prefer not to
waste our time."
When Blind Date Corner began in August 2005, more than
20,000 people crowded into the small park, according to Yi Fang, a member of the
local community committee.
"You couldn't find a place to stand," he
recalls.
From the beginning, he says, most of the people who
come have been parents looking for matches for their daughters -- by a ratio of
about 30 to one.
The girls advertised are "excellent," he
says. Many are doctors, professors and managers, and their expectations are
high.
"It is hard for them to find equivalent men.
Quite a number of good men of similar age have already married and some have
gone abroad. Most good men don't need to come here to find their future
wives."
He confides that many of the unmarried men with good
qualifications who do come to Blind Date Corner aren't up to scratch.
"Some would date a girl for three hours without
even buying a drink for her," Yi said.
Jiang Tiejun may well be the park's Lothario. Loud and
humorous, he's well known to many of the parents, and they gather around as he
tells his story.
A worker at the Shanghai Railway Bureau, the
38-year-old has come to Blind Date Corner every weekend since March 2006, to
look for a wife. He estimates he has dated "several hundred girls,"
but struck out each time.
"It's kind of like doing business nowadays. Girls
always ask about your solid conditions, like house, car, education,
salary," he complains. "I just talked to one parent whose daughter
wants to find a guy earning more than 10,000 ($1,280) a month!"
Jiang used to want to date women close to his age, but
experience taught him that women over 35 are "eccentric."
"They consider Levis and Nike as low taste ...
They will despise you just because you take the leftovers home after dining in a
restaurant."
Jiang said he was feeling "hopeless," until
he revised his wish-list. "I changed my original aim. Probably I will find
a young girl from the provinces now. They have fewer
requirements." - 2007 November
17 CANWEST
NEWS
Editors Note: Now
isn't this a reason for Hello! Tai Tai to make some global introductions for a
fee?! At least the kids won't be embarrased cause they
can say they met each other thru Tai Tai!
