Marriage Market in Shanghai ? Want To Try ?

Liu Jian Le was pleased to see the number of potential applicants for a nephew who just got divorced

  

Pencil in hand, he jots down the man's details -- 33 years old, 1.7 meters tall (5 feet 7 inches), 140 pounds, a property owner, divorced but no kids.

Man with a 1.7 meter high divorce, but not children.

He has a high criterion, only one thing needs to consider his salary is $ 800 a month, not high for Shanghai Standard.

Welcome to Shanghai's marriage market.

Matchmaking: Chinese style

Every Sunday Liu family come to a sun-Dappled corner of Shanghai's People's Park to find the right Mrs for their son (Liu).

Some write posters by hand listing their offsprings' vital statistics -- height, age, income, education and their hukou or registered hometown -- and pin them to umbrellas or shopping bags. Others come with a notebook to see what is available.

Liu is a veteran  and he got his wife in Marriage Market.

"She's 1.69 meters tall (5 feet 6 inches) and beautiful like a movie star," he says. "He was happy to get the introduction."

young Chinese told to put education and work before finding love, many struggle to find boyfriends or girlfriends, a source of deep concern for their parents in a society which emphasizes the survival of the family line.

The city even organizes an "annual love and marriage expo" to help young people find love that attracts 18,000.

"Too many children are born in the 1980, they do not have siblings, so they are difficult to find their opposite sex partner, because the environment is difficult"

Market than has been built since 2004, when it was mostly women who find a mate than men, so it is very difficult to find the right partner for them.
Therefore men can register for free, while the women had to pay $ 500 to register.

She also has an age limit; men born after 1970 can sign up, but women must be under 33.

It's a similar story at Fan Dongfang's booth. He says he matches 20 to 30 people a year and brandishes a clutch of wedding invitations as if to prove it.

"There are too many leftover women in Shanghai," he says, using a popular term to describe an educated, single, urban women over the age of 27.

While the numbers stack up in favor of Chinese women -- according to the China Statistics Bureau, there are now 34 million more men than women in China -- this doesn't mean they will pair up easily.