The gateway to marital bliss in Beijing has a frosted glass door with two candy-apple red hearts and lots of computers.
Introducing the Beijing Military and Civilian Matchmaking Service, one of a growing number of Chinese companies that are wedding high technology with low-tech tradition to spawn romantic unions.
Bi Zhenxie, a 25-year-old real estate agent who has never had a girlfriend, was on his first visit, filling out a form with his details and what he wants in a mate.
"I'm so excited," Bi said. "I just work, go home, then work again. Now I'm beginning to consider having a family because I'm getting up there in years. The pressure is on."
Romance and marriage have changed drastically in China after 25 years of breakneck economic growth and looser social controls. In a country now wide open to Western influences, even Valentine's Day is making inroads, with chocolates, dinner dates, flowers and cards all becoming popular expressions of affection on the occasion.
For centuries, families relied on village matchmakers. Then came communist-era unions sanctioned -- and sometimes arranged -- by government companies for their employees.
Today, the search is fueled by personal choice, sped up by the convenience of new technology.
"China is free and transparent now. Everyone has the freedom to find their partner," said Wang Peng, a divorced 43-year-old who was making his first visit to the Beijing Military and Civilian Matchmaking Service.
"Now people can meet face-to-face, talk about their feelings, exchange ideas," said Wang, a businessman with carefully combed hair. "They can find a common language and be together."
The first state-sponsored match-making agency was set up in 1986 in the southern city of Guangzhou. Today, there are more than 20,000 registered agencies, according to Xinhua.
The fees can run to thousands of yuan -- a fortune in a country where the average person earns just US$1,000 a year.
But "it is the most convenient and fastest way to solve their marriage problems," said Wang Weiming, general secretary of the Matchmaking Industry Committee of the China Social Work Association. "The modern matchmaking industry will grow and will not die out as long as human beings exist in this world."
"Love is no longer the same as before because of the changes in society," said Ren Wen, one of the service's employees, who are called "teacher" by clients.
"People are more independent. They want to think for themselves," Ren said. "They're also more independent financially, so they have greater and higher requirements."
With her hair piled high, a pearl necklace and coral-red lipstick, Ren looks like a traditional matchmaker but navigates her desktop computer with practiced smoothness.
"It's a good deed. I like helping people to find their mate," she said as she clicked on her mouse to get more information for Tian Li, a 48-year-old widow with a husky voice.
"I think I'm fairly attractive. I want to see what options I have," Tian said.
But for some parents, a low-tech approach is easier -- and a return to the days where they had some say in their children's lives.
In Zhongshan Park, off Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, hundreds of mothers and fathers gather twice a week in a do-it-yourself hunt for a partner worthy of their offspring.
They come with glossy photos of smiling sons and daughters, and swap stories of children so busy with careers that finding a spouse has fallen by the wayside. Some camp out on the ground and set up handwritten personal ads touting the virtues of their children.
Duan Guoyi, 57, a retired construction company driver, had a photo of her 28-year-old daughter. Duan said the park has yielded one or two men, though neither got far with the daughter.
"She told me one was too fat, the other was too quiet," Duan said. "She's not worried, but I am."
"The older you get, the harder it is," she said. "The economy has changed the way that people talk about love. Now, money, cars, homes come first."
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