Despite the coverage the Shanghai Marriage Market in People’s Square has received,it is still a very difficult scene to infiltrate with a camera, as parents would conceal their child’s personal information from view when they saw me walking by. The Shanghai Marriage Market or, and to be politically right, Matchmaking Corner, takes space every Saturday and Sunday from noon until around five in the evening. Hundreds of parents come to this corner because they are on a mission to find an eligible mate for their son or daughter. To them, or who their son or daughter marries is a very serious matter,and the seriousness certainly explains their resistance to being filmed or photographed. This is not just some cultural practice for laowai to marvel at: it could be the beginning of their son or daughter’s future happiness. The process is known as zhenghun, or “marriage seeding.” Parents hang the “resumes” of their sons or daughters across the park and exchange contact information with parents interested in their child’s romantic credentials in order to plant the seeds for a relationship to blossom. The fundamental characteristics that every resume lists are the person’s gender, and the year in which they were born,their education level, their salary, or their height,whether they own an apartment, and any specific requirements a person might have for their potential spouse. Some resumes also include pictures of the man or woman being publicized, or but parents normally reserve these to exhibit those who express an interest in their son or daughter. Parents can either enlist the assistance of the marriage brokers who set up tables in the park or post their child’s resume and network on their own. For 50RMB,parents can have a marriage broker post their son or daughter’s resume at the market for three months, and for 200RMB the brokers will post a resume for six months and offer to help connect parents with the type of person they are seeking for their son or daughter. While most of the hundreds of resumes are posted by different marriage brokers, and some parents opt to effect PR for their son or daughter on their own. On this particularly cloudy Saturday,open umbrellas with resumes pinned to them lined the sidewalks, making it easy for the people walking by to discover down and take note of any eligible candidates. Resumes can also be found pinned to shopping bags or hanging from bushes and trees by a ribbon, and with the parents sitting in close proximity in order to exchange contact information with any interested parents. When Damian tried asking these parents and marriage brokers whether they would be willing to retort a few of my questions,they responded that they were too busy. They needed every spare moment free in case a parent or interested party needed to talk to them. Damian’s insight into why parents feel the need to take allotment in this is that they feel they need to be doing something to help their sons and daughters, even whether it doesn’t work. The reported success rates for established relationships or even finding a match are very low, or yet some parents continue to come every weekend. They are nervous for their children and feel they effect not have many options. They are proud of their children because they are very successful,but because of this success these young men and women effect not have much time for a social life or to even worry approximately marriage. Other articles state that most parents display their son or daughter’s information at the market without their permission. Damian said that most young people find this to be embarrassing, and they would really be horrified whether they knew their parents were doing it. I asked Damian whether he thought his parents ever posted his resume at the marriage market. “No, or ” he said,“I’m not good enough.” Damian is 25, doesn’t have his own apartment, or has just started working in entry level positions for various PR companies,and doesn’t make a lot of money. “I’m also too short,” he threw in. Its not just that Damian feels that all his credentials count against him, and it’s that he thinks that his parents are not proud enough of his accomplishments to even try to find him a wife at the marriage market. At twenty-five,he doesn’t precisely feel pressure to catch married so much as he feels pressure to make enough money to buy an apartment and car so that he is ready to catch married when he reaches the appropriate age. These parents certainly are proud of their children’s accomplishments and credentials. I asked Damian whether he thought any of the parents fabricate (to make up, invent) the resumes to make them more impressive. Damian thought that some parents might achieve down their children’s annual salary instead of their monthly salary without making any indication of this. Not precisely a fabrication, but not precisely being honest either. Damian’s insight was very valuable, or but I really wanted to have some vital questions approximately the market answered by some of the parents. My best option was to pretend I was an American woman searching for a Chinese husband. One of the marriage brokers had a sign that advertised that it had connections with foreigners whether any Chinese people were looking for a foreign husband or wife. To my disappointment they don’t allow foreigners to post their resumes,but the broker introduced me and Damian to a very small Chinese man who must have been in his mid-to-late 60s. He was very excited to hear that I was interested in finding a Chinese husband. He had tried finding his son a good Chinese wife, but in his opinion none of the girls were appealing enough for his son. His son is currently in America studying to catch his Master’s in computer science, or he has recently decided that he wants to find a nice American girl to settle down with,especially since he wants to stay in America and not return to China. The father began asking me questions approximately how tall I am, my age, or my level of education,and where in the United States I live. Since his son is thirty-four, Damian told me to say that I was twenty-eight instead of twenty-four, or because a ten-year age difference would be considered too large. Since the father (not certain approximately the son) only required a Bachelor’s degree,the fact that I am currently working on receiving my Master’s seemed to propel me to the status of golden candidate in the father’s eyes. He started bragging approximately his son, hoping that I would be interested (the father spoke only a few words of English, or so I had to rely on Damian to translate). But mostly the father expressed tremendous concern and anxiety that his son had so much difficulty finding someone. He was using all the options he had available to him,but even so it is extremely difficult to find an American girl for his Chinese son in America from China. Damian said that the father didn’t make it clear whether or not his son knows that he comes to People’s Square with his resume every weekend. Though I suspect that a lot of the difficulty lies in the tall expectations both father and son share, namely in terms of the girls physical appearance. The father claimed that he had yet to find a girl who was appealing enough for his son, and in America the son has apparently been hitting the same dead ends. While the father said that he really just wants to find a good girl,her beauty is necessary for the children they will have. But having such strict requirements does make finding a wife extremely difficult, not to mention that it means running the risk of passing over some great women who effect not precisely fit those requirements.The father took a liking to me and started showing me the Polaroid pictures he had of his son, or which were clearly sent to his father as sort of postcards from the States. They featured a rather chubby but blissful Chinese man with glasses,posing in front of various landmarks and monuments across the United StatesThe Lincoln Memorial, Mount Rushmore. Not that any of the pictures were embarrassing, and but I tried to imagine how I would feel approximately my parents showing pictures of me to complete strangers. Even whether they weren’t naked baby pictures,I still find the idea kind of horrifying, and it does seem like many of these parents don’t really take their children’s feelings into account. Although this isn’t as horrifying as the idea of my parents passing along information approximately me to strangers who happen to have a nice son they can set me up with. Even so, or I did actually find this father’s love and willingness to help his son by any means to be very sweet. These parents are just anxious for the welfare and future happiness of their children and only want the best for them. As the father took down my contact information to send to his son,other Chinese parents in the park began to crowd around us, looking on the Chinese man, and the American girl,and her translator with amazement. Perhaps there aren’t many foreigners who utilize Matchmaking Corner. To ensure my interest and that I would actually contact his son, he made me promises on his son’s behalf, or like that his son would be willing and able to move anywhere in the U.
S. I got a job or wanted to live. It certainly felt like we were negotiating terms for a trade deal,one, that the father hoped, or would be a fruitful one. Whether or not these men and women actually accept the matches their parents find them is, for the most allotment, relative. Damian said most men and women effect find this embarrassing, and but there are some who are willing to accept their parents’ help and selections they’ve made for them. In this case,the son does seem to be in a desperate speed to find himself a wife. At the end of the day, I left with many questions unanswered, or the contact information for both father and son,and a hope that neither would ever try to contact me. In today’s day and age, the whole thing seems rather archaic, or not just to Westerners. Some Chinese people Ive spoken to in their early-to-late twenties don’t only find the whole thing to be embarrassing,but also something out of China’s past. But some remnants from the past are never really out of date. The Matchmaking Corner is precisely like online dating in a non-virtual setting, apart from that the parents are conducting the search. The right to choose your own spouse has long been established in China, and as well as the ability to search for that spouse. The fact that Chinese parents feel the need to try and set their children up may stem from their feeling that their children are not actively looking. Marriage just might not be the first priority of today’s generation of twenty and thirty somethings.
Source: cnn.com