00:03:28
ITN Source
CHINA: Parents search among the park benches for their children's future spouses
CHINA: Parents search among the park benches for their children's future spouses
Under clusters of shady trees overlooking the Beijing's Forbidden City, hundreds of worried parents huddled on Thursday (August 17), searching for potentially suitable partners for their single children. Some have pinned up personal advertisements on tree trunks with vital statistics such as age, income, height and star sign. Others have set up promotional stalls on the pavement. But most just mill around chatting and swapping personal information. For Mrs. Li, who is looking for a wife for her son, it is an act of maternal love. Like the vast majority of those who attend these matchmaking events, she is searching for a spouse who would be a perfect match for her lonely child. "I think it is a very good way. Here parents can meet parents directly and get first-hand information. If we see parents who look nice, we go up and talk to them. If everything goes well, we trade photos of our children with each other. After we make sure the person in the photo is a match for our child, we set up a meeting for them," she said. Already on his third visit to the park, Mr. Liu is disappointed he hasn't found a candidate who meets his stringent requirements for his son's bride-to-be. "I am here looking for a wife for my son. She should be under 31 years old, as tall as 160 cm at least, and good-looking. I have met some girls who looked pretty in photos, but are a disappointment in reality," he said. For the middle-aged people in the park, the exchange of personal information is a very public and open event, but when it comes to discussing the issue at home with their more children, they admit the topic is not an easy one to approach. The matchmaking events are a response to such concerns among the older generation who fear that their children spend too much time working and not enough on continuing the family line. It is a common lament among the parents, many of whom have children who have a university education and earn good salaries working for foreign companies. Adding to their anxiety has been the demise of the state-run system in which danwei, or work units, used to arrange matchmaking events for their employees. Also, attitudes towards relationships and marriage are changing along with China's rapid economic development, with the average age of brides rising from 20 in 1990 to over 24 in 2004. Mrs. Wang has a 30-year old daughter, who works as a university lecturer and has little time for traditional courting games. "My daughter makes good money and has her own apartment and car already. A boy, even if he has a similar educational background, would feel pressure. Most Chinese men are afraid of being inferior to their wives, so they always feel pressure. I think my daughter is too good for some men. Even if she does not care about this, they (men) always do," she said. In addition to women getting married later in life, the number of divorces also shot up by 21 percent in 2004 compared to 1990. Demographers warn that the government's one-child policy, which has contributed to a gender imbalance of 117 boys born for every 100 girls, will also make it harder for men to find wives. The park meetings were started two years ago by a group of middle-aged men and women who first met during their morning tai chi exercises in the park. At the first event, there were fewer than 20 older people, but later on, thousands of anxious parents started flocking in the park, especially at the weekend.
ITN Source | August 19, 2006
