Parents find a marriage partner for you: The blind date corner in Lianhuashan Park.
Maybe you’ve heard that dating apps or dating websites can help you find your partner. Have you heard that Lianhuashan Park in Shenzhen can also find one for you?
When you come to Lianhuashan Park, you can see vast green lawns everywhere. On the lawn, accompanied by the breeze, some are having picnics, some are playing, and some are flying kites. Among the green lawns, people walk or jog along straight or winding trails. Also, large stretches of colourful flowers are interspersed among the lawns to decorate the green. The first impression of Lianhuashan Park is a green ecological park with a beautiful environment and fresh air, which sounds no different from other parks. But when you walk about 50 meters along with the south gate of Lianhuashan Park, you will see a different kind of scenery-a lively blind date corner.
The blind date corner is located in a circular square among the trees, and there is a circular trail that surrounds it. There is a circle of white cover top above the path, except for cylinders spaced ten meters apart for each. The iron wires between cylinders also support the cover top. On these iron wires, thousands of written profiles of marriage seekers hang.
Looking around these marriage seekers’ written profiles, you will find that these thousands of papers are divided into two colours, which are distinguished by gender. The paper of male-written profiles are blue, and the paper of female written profiles are pink. They are hung on both sides of the blind date corner, and it is evident that pink paper occupies a third more area than blue paper.
Not only that, when you look at the written profiles of these marriage seekers, you will find that they are hung on the iron line in an orderly way. Firstly, they are divided into different areas according to their age, and every decade is taken as an interval, which includes 1970–1979, 1980–1989, 1990 and later, and the middle-aged and old-aged areas (1969 and above). Secondly, these marriage seekers’ written profile information is also written clearly, covering the personal information of the marriage seeker, such as age, job, educational background, economic conditions, family situation, personality, hobbies. Also, it contains the mate selection criteria of the marriage seeker, such as age, personality, job, etc. The contact information of parents or themselves is also attached at the end of the written profile.
Apart from the written profiles of these marriage seekers, the others you see most are people. Whether it is a holiday or a working day, from 8: 00 a.m. to 6: 00 p.m., you will find that the blind date corner is full of people. Some are looking carefully at the written profile, some are looking around the blind date corner who seem to look for someone, some are sitting in the chairs who seem to be waiting for something, and some are getting together to talk who seem to be sharing some information. People gathered at this blind date corner, especially those who stayed for a long time, are primarily middle-aged people or older people. Occasionally, you can also see several young people suddenly appear, looking around curiously and looking at the marriage seeker’s written profile on the iron wires, and then leaving inadvertently. At the blind date corner, the expressions on young people’s faces and non-young people are pretty different. Young people are mostly happy and energetic, while non-young people’s faces are primarily sad or helpless.
What kind of magical blind date corner is this? And why do young people and non-young people have different moods here? The blind date corner in China mainly refers to the blind date corner in the park, which has become a popular blind date place for Chinese people in recent two years. One characteristic of blind date corner is different from other blind date or marriage websites and apps. The primary audiences of blind date corner are middle-aged or older people. Although they are not marriage seekers, they come to blind date corner as parents or family members to find suitable marriage partners for unmarried young people. The way they find partners for young people is to communicate with the parents or family members of other marriage seekers by telephone or face to face, and to determine whether each other’s children have the possibility of getting married through the communication of both parents, and then choose whether to let young people have further contact.
The formation of blind date corner is related to the primary audience of Chinese parks: the middle-aged or the older people. In the past, middle-aged people or older people gathered in the park would reveal their children’s situation in communication. Gradually, they discovered that they might find suitable partners for their children by communicating with other parents. They exchanged children’s information in the park, hoping to provide some help for their children’s happiness. However, some people took advantage of this situation, obtained the information of marriage seekers through communication with their parents, and committed illegal acts of cheating marriage or cheating money. Because of these criminal acts, many families were persecuted. Therefore, in 2020, the government set up a free service platform in Lianhuashan Park to provide people with blind dates and find marriage partners. Thus, the blind date corner of Lianhuashan Park was born.
Therefore, the blind date corner is a platform for your parents to find a marriage partner for you. Even if the marriage seeker is absent, as long as your parents are here to sign up and hang your marriage-seeking profile on the iron wires, your parents can find it for you. This new blind date is popular in China in the last two years. According to the administrator of the blind date corner, since the establishment of the blind date corner, there has been an endless stream of parents who want to find marriage partners for their children. Until April 2021, there are still about 5,000 people waiting in line for their marriage-seeking profiles to be hung on the blind date corner. Therefore, they have set a hanging period of three months for each profile. Once it expires, even if the marriage seeker has not found a suitable marriage partner, he/she can only queue up again.
When I heard the administrator’s introduction to the blind date corner, I was shocked by its massive number of marriage seekers. Why did the official blind date corner be born in these two years and suddenly become a popular blind date place for Chinese people? Why did your parents’ new way of blind date to find partners for you suddenly become popular? With doubts, I began to know from the people in the blind date corner.
Mrs Ding, a 56-year-old woman, said, ‘I signed up for my 28-year old daughter at a blind date corner without telling her because she told me that she was not going to get married. But how can it be? Everyone should get married. Therefore, I can only find someone for her by myself.’
Mrs Qiu, a 60-year-old woman, said, ‘I prefer to find a partner for my daughter because I really can’t understand what my daughter is thinking, and her mate selection conditions are always strange. Here, I can communicate directly with the parents of the marriage seeker. This kind of blind date can let me know other’s family and conditions. I think it’s more reliable.’
By knowing from the parents of marriage seekers, I found two main reasons for the popularity of blind date corner. The first is that most young people are unwilling to get married. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the marriage rate in 2018 was only 7.2 per thousand nationwide. Since 2013, the number of marriage registrations in China has dropped continuously for seven years. In 2020, there were only 8.131 million marriage registrations nationwide, and the number reached a new low. In this case, parents who think marriage is necessary for life can only find partners for their children.
The second is that parents think they will be more reliable in finding someone for their children by themselves. According to the blind date corner administrator, the blind date corner is a platform for cooperation with the police, and all the information provided here about the marriage seeker is accurate. This method is more effective than other dating websites and social apps that directly contact young people. According to the survey of social apps, many young people now communicate with people on social apps under the banner of falling in love and getting married, and finally, they want to enjoy sex and have no plans to get married. ‘
Besides, nearly 50 couples have successfully entered marriage since the establishment of the blind date corner. The news of successfully helping marriage seekers spread widely among these middle-aged and older people eventually brought more heat and flow to the blind date corner. But why did these two reasons quickly become factors considered by Chinese people in the recent two years and directly make blind date corner become a popular blind date place? I continue to explore this question.
The first question is why most young people don’t get married now, but parents think they need to get married.
Che, a 25-year-old girl from Shenzhen, said that the pressure and busyness made her too busy to take care of her personal life. Although she wanted to get married, she didn’t have the opportunity to broaden her social circle to meet people who might be suitable for marriage. In 2021, the term “Shenzhen girl” became popular on the Internet. It describes a girl who only wants to make money all the time. This word applies to girls in Shenzhen and to any young people who work in economically developed cities because these young people are under more significant economic pressure in economically developed cities, such as housing prices, which makes them have to focus more on making money.
Chang, a 24-year-old girl, said, ‘I am a celibate. Being single is comfortable, and I don’t want to change.’ There are many single people like Chang in China. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China’s statistics, the single adult population in China reached 240 million in 2018, of which 77 million lived alone. It is estimated that by 2021, the number of people living alone will rise to 92 million.
Luo, a 29-year-old graphic designer, said that the essential condition for marriage is love, but love is hard to meet, so she will remain single until she meets love. Li Yinhe, the sociologist who first researched sex in China, said: ‘love become more important as the reasons for marriage to people nowadays.’ Therefore, if young people can’t meet their emotional needs in marriage, they will choose to be single. But for the previous generation, every middle-aged and older-aged interviewees told me that marriage is necessary for life.
Xiao, a 46-year-old housewife, said that it would be lonely for being single, and the terrifying thing is being alone at home when you are old, and no one can save you when you in danger. But the expression of modern young people on the Internet is different. ‘When we are old, they said, we could go to a nursing home with my friends or ask someone to take care of me in my house. I will not be lonely when staying with friends. I can continue to have fun with my friends when I am old.’
Exploring why the older generation and the young generation have different ideas is essentially related to the changes in men and women’s status. Yinhe Li expressed that in the past, when women’s status was lower than that of men, men provided women with all their sources of livelihood, and women stayed at home to do the housework and take good care of children, so women’s only source of survival was marriage. Now that men and women are equal, and women have their independent earning power and income, they have more choices, and women have no fundamental reason to get married now. Also, Yinhe Li said, ‘Chinese people, especially those living in an environment with a high degree of urbanization and modernization, have more choices and freedom to decide their marriage and love.’ It is related to the current economic and social development in China. Society gives people more options and provides different conveniences for different people, whether single or married.
Ming Chen, the host and university teacher, expressed that modern women are unwilling to get married because marriage means having children and having children involves who will take them. Women naturally think that women should take care of child more, and men naturally believe that they should earn more money. Why do we feel so? Because pushing forward for a hundred years, older generations think so. But now women are the same as men who also can work. The whole productivity has changed dramatically, but the love relationship and marriage relationship corresponding to the production relationship has not improved. In essence, we reject the old system rules, we do not reject love, we reject the way the world looks at young people’s love, and we reject the pressure that this new identity puts on us once love appears. Therefore, nowadays young people choose to be single more and more.
The second question is why parents think the blind date corner is more reliable. What are the different ideas between them and the young people today?
Mu, a 31-year-old male, married for free love. He said, ‘compared with free love, blind date is more purposeful, which is easy to lose the feeling of love, and free love can bring contingency, which can produce love.’
Mrs Qiu said:’ Our generation didn’t consider love, only thought whether this person is suitable for living together and whether there is enough economic foundation to form a family. Nowadays, young people, like my daughter, consider each other’s looks and the so-called love. This marriage that only thinks love will soon fail. Marriage without money will lead to the separation of the two, but it can solve many problems with money.’
Mr Li, a 65-year-old retired teacher, said that young people do not understand the essence of marriage, blindly pursue love and looks. These will change over time. Only the economic foundation and more tough conditions will not change. Young people’s marriage still depends on the older generation’s experience, and a blind date corner is a place where we can use our experience to find happiness for our children.
According to the research of above two reasons, I found that there are different marriage views between the older generation and the younger generation, which directly led to the popularity of blind date corner which parents find a partner for you. It also leads to why when you go to the blind date corner, you will find that the older generation is depressed and the young people are still happy.
The older generation regarded the blind date corner as the last lifeline for their children to get married. Many parents came to the blind date corner every day without fear of wind and rain, just because they were afraid that if they didn’t come, they might miss the only chance for their children to meet the right people in this life. Mrs Qiu said, ‘It won’t be happy without love. I will leave one day. I hope to find a suitable person to take care of my daughter instead of me.’
However, young people who can’t understand their parents’ feelings only regard the blind date corner as a playground. Because of its prevailing situation, some young people come to the blind date corner to shoot videos and even pretend that they are trying to get married for video gimmicks.
The younger generation is still pursuing love while the older generation continues to look for a partner for their child with their experience in blind date corner. Ming Chen expresses that we are still waiting for corresponding new love ethics to appear and waiting for a new system allocation to tell everyone how to deal with love and marriage. Perhaps until the appearance of this day, the concept of marriage and love between the two generations will tend to compromise, and the blind date corner can play its role.
