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China news tagged with: matchmaking (5)

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Tying the Knot from Harbin to Tokyo

Gender imbalance at home may have women in high demand, but that’s not stopping some would-be Chinese brides from looking online and across the sea to Japan — where men of means are in turn seeking them. In fact, as of 2005, one in 17 Japanese marriages involves a foreigner, and 80 percent of the time, that foreigner is a Chinese woman, according to The Japan Times:

In and around Harbin, Shukan Bunshun talks to Chinese women seeking Japanese husbands, and asks them why. It’s a leap into the unknown. Are they worried? Do they harbor apprehensions?

“I’ve heard living conditions in Japan are good and Japanese men have a sense of responsibility,” says a 22-year-old woman from a farming family. “I have friends and relatives who married Japanese men, so no, I’m not worried.”

“I’m ready for a change,” says a 28-year-old shop clerk who also has friends married to Japanese. “No particular worries. Japanese men are nice — aren’t they?”

Meanwhile, in 2007, the Los Angeles Times noted that “roughly 120 boys are born in China for every 100 girls. Within 15 years, the country may have 30 million men who cannot find wives.”

So why Japan, asks The Japan Times, with China’s own economy surging?

The countryside may be poor, but the cities are booming. Aren’t Chinese cities a more accessible mating ground?

No, says Kenji Doi, a China-based broker of international marriages. “The chances of an ordinary country girl making a rich match for herself in Shanghai or Beijing are very slim. International marriage is still the fastest route to prosperity.”

Earlier this year, former Tokyo reporter Yang Yi, who herself emigrated from Harbin in 1987, was nominated for the prestigious Akutagawa Award for her first novel in Japanese, “Wang-chan.” The novel chronicles the life of a “Chinese woman who moved to Japan as the bride of a Japanese factory worker and then tried to carve out a career as a marriage broker for other Chinese women seeking to marry Japanese men living out in the sticks.” She spoke with Tomoko Otake with The Japan Times Feb. 3:

“I realized that if I was to really make a living out of writing, I would have to be accepted in mainstream Japanese society… So decided to create a story that has both Japanese and Chinese characters. Where would Chinese people interact most with Japanese? Probably if a Chinese gets married to a Japanese. That’s how I came up with this story.”

Your descriptions of an “arranged-marriage tour” — in which a Chinese woman, as a marriage broker, takes Japanese men looking for brides to a Chinese village, are very vivid. Are such situations happening in real life?

“I think they are. Many people told me after I wrote the story, “I didn’t know you were doing that marriage-broker work!” Well, I have never been engaged in such work, so the story is based on my imagination and real-life inquiries from such brides to the newspapers. I don’t know what the situation is really like.”

…Both “Wang-chan” and [earlier work] “Roshojo” feature a Chinese woman living in Japan as a lead character. Do you have any observations on the social position of Chinese women today?

“Yes, that’s exactly why I wrote these novels. The sense of morals and the values that they (the Chinese characters) brought from China are no longer accepted in China. Not only I, but many Chinese women in my generation who came to Japan around the same time as I did, have certain fixed ideas about morals and about how women should behave, but they are shocked at the sense of morals Japanese people have. After living here for a long time, they get used to how Japanese feel. But when they go back to China, they see a Chinese society that has completely changed. The problem is, they haven’t lived the changes themselves. So they are shocked again and feel lost.”

Photo: YOSHIAKI MIURA
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- March 1, 2008 8:52 PM
Matchmaking Party Targets Millionaires - China Daily

From China Daily (by the way, BMW also stands for “be my wife”):

A matchmaking party aimed at pairing up millionaire men with beautiful women will be held on a ship on Shanghai’s Huangpu River on November 25. All of the male participants must have assets worth at least 2 million yuan (US$250,000), and all the women must be good-looking and desirable, said Xu Tianli, the event’s organizer and the owner of www.915915.com.cn, a matchmaking website.

“Actually, half of the men who registered for the event have more than 200 million yuan (US$25 million) worth of assets,” Xu said.

Xu said that some millionaire women had also entered the event. “But they are looking for men who are richer and more successful than they are,” he added. [Full Text]

- Also China “love boat” set for sail by Reuters

- Cinderellas Trained to Hook Rich Bachelors from Nanfang Daily
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- November 13, 2006 8:54 PM
Group dating takes off in China - BBC News

From BBC News:

The mass events, which draw hundreds of single men and women, have climbed in popularity since they were introduced in Chinese cities.

One event in Zhejiang in April attracted 12,658 participants, Xinhua news agency said, while 10,000 showed up for another in Shanghai.

The events appeal to China’s new ranks of urban educated professionals. [Full Text]
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- August 28, 2006 11:28 PM
Matchmaking Chinese Parents Seek Spouses in Parks - Reuters

From Reuters via The New York Times:

Zhang Dianwei is on a mission — to find his daughter a husband. But he’s not turning to the Internet or using a traditional matchmaker.

Instead, he goes most Thursdays and Sundays to a park nestled in the shadows of Beijing’s Forbidden City, carrying a printed sheet of paper listing his daughter’s details such as her age, height, education and job prospects.

He then tries to seek out his daughter’s perfect match by wandering around a small corner of the park set aside for parents searching for spouses for their adult children. [Full Text]
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- August 21, 2006 9:01 PM
China’s ‘asexual marriage’ matchmaking site thrives - Reuters

From Reuters via CNet.com:

Online marriage brokers are common in China, but a young Chinese Web site is thriving by turning the traditional idea of marriage on its head.

Called Marriage for Asexuals, the site claims to be the first and biggest online marriage broker for “asexual” people in China. It says it has attracted 7,000 members since it was launched last year.

Its success helps illustrates the expansion of the Internet in China, the increasingly permissive nature of Chinese society–and the way small but growing minorities of people are stepping away from traditions that have dominated culture for thousands of years. [Full Text]
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- July 24, 2006 8:30 PM