At 1pm every Sunday, Mrs. Shen goes hunting for a husband. Equipped with photos, a resume and oodles of charm and enthusiasm, the 50-something spends the entire afternoon looking for Mr. Right among the cypress and ginkgo trees of Sun Yat-sen Park in Beijing.
She is not alone. During the past six months, several thousand other like-minded Beijingers of similar age have pursued love and marriage on the leafy south bank of the Hou river, in giant ad hoc matchmaking events that highlight the strains placed on traditional family life by China's spectacular rate of development.
Everyone at the weekly gatherings has their own technique. Some pin up personal ads on tree trunks with vital statistics (age, income, height and star sign); one or two set up promotional stalls on the pavement. Most just mill around chatting and swapping personal information.
For Shen, it is an act of parental love. Like the vast majority of those who attend these matchmaking events, she is searching for a spouse not for herself, but for her child.
"I'm anxious about my daughter. She is 32, well-educated and has a good job, but no husband," Shen said.
"There are many excellent men in Beijing, but the problem is that half of them go overseas to work or study so there aren't enough left to go round," she said.
Although this is her third visit, Shen is disappointed that she has yet to find a candidate who meets her requirements: a man who is taller, older, better-educated and richer than her daughter.
"Our children work and study so hard that they have no time to meet a good partner," said Mrs Li, whose 27-year-old daughter is a beautiful, multilingual cabin crew attendant.
By traditional reckoning, Li has every reason to be concerned. Her daughter is two years above the age when being single is seen as a social minus (25 for women, 35 for men). But attitudes are changing along with China's rapid development.
"My daughter is just focused on her career," Shen said. "I'm more worried about her lack of a boyfriend than she is."
The matchmaking events are a response to such concerns among the older generation, who fear their children worry too much about work and not enough about continuing the family line.
Adding to their anxiety has been the demise of the state-run system in which danwei (work units) used to arrange matchmaking events for their employees.
The park meetings were started last autumn by a group of middle-aged men and women who first met during their morning taichi exercises in the park.
"We got chatting, and we realized that many of us shared concerns about our children's failure to marry, so we thought we'd try to help each other," said Mrs Zhang, one of the organizers. "At the first event, there were fewer than 20 of us. But at the peak, we attracted about 3,000."
Official statistics explain why there is so much interest in using them now for matchmaking. People are marrying later and divorcing more often. The average age of a bride has risen from 20 in 1990 to over 24. The number of divorces shot up by 21 percent last year. Demographers warn that the one-child policy, which has contributed to a gender imbalance of 117 boys born for every 100 girls, will also make it harder for men to find wives.
Among the few hopeful spouses at park was Tom Pan, who has not had a girlfriend for several years.
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