The park for potential partners

There’s an old Chinese saying: “Nothing is as touching as a parent’s love”. My visit to Shanghai’s matchmakers’ market, a phenomenon probably only seen in China, convinced me that these silver-haired parents were giving the saying its full play.

In China, family and offspring are regarded as crucial sources of happiness. That means many parents are willing to endure struggles and cast dignity aside to arrange blind dates for their adult children. Attending the market can be embarrassing, though, so many wear hats and sunglasses in case they bump into acquaintances.

Regular participants said the market is crowded on Saturdays because if the parent finds a suitable candidate it gives the children a chance to meet the following day. If they come on Sunday, the children have to wait a week to meet.

The cultural background that brought such markets into existence is one where the boundary between parents and children is uncertain. One of the market’s founders, who only gave her surname as Jiang, said one of the motives for setting up the venue was that they found the practice of parents scouting suitable candidates for their children, who are busy with work and timid on blind dates, is very popular.

Some parents feel deeply guilty if they fail to buy their son a marriage apartment, many women’s key requirement for a wedding, and thus weaken his chances of winning an outstanding future spouse.

Another reason these parents pay so much attention to their children is the country’s former one-child policy, which led people to focus all the care and attention that was once distributed among three or four children on their only child.

After retirement, many parents switch all their attention to their child. As most of them can’t help their children in the employment field, they assist them in relationships, preparations for marriage and then lend an important hand in bringing up the grandchildren.