Howdy, and thanks for coming back for more meaningful dialogue here at the YRC.   This week features a special bonus round of TWO YRC columns.  This column will feature the usual snappy dialogue and piercing commentary you sometimes are surprised by here at the YRC.  The other is an update on our now famous "Scams" column with an update by the American Consulate in Shanghai and a special "Find the Fake Scam" opportunity.  So be sure to check it out.

Train 4, Moscow-Beijing.  Photo from The Man in Seat 61.

Before we go on,  You will be pleased to know that there will be no YRC on Friday, September 9.  Yes, we am slacking off, but for good reason.  On that particular Friday, the staff of the YRC will be on the Trans-Siberian train number 4 from Moscow to Beijing.  Expect a full report in a future YRC.

Shanghai Tunnel of Love

Last week's column got lots of good press for its gritty analysis on Counterfeit China, so thanks for your comments and good luck spotting the Fake Fake in this week's bonus column.

This week, we continue our sanguine analysis of Chinese culture as we blow past the Fake Market and head to a key stop on the "Getting Lost in Shanghai tour", the Shanghai Marriage Market.  I've attached a great article on the marriage market from CNNgo at the end of the blog so you can get some real reporting and coherent information, not really hallmarks of the YRC style.

Romantic Resumes

To get there, you fight your way through the vast People's Square metro station, the busiest in all of China with 400,000 people rolling through it's 20 entrances/exits daily.  The huge underground complex including shopping malls, restaurants, a replica of a Shanghai street in the 1930's, three subway lines, vendorsYou cut through the underground Wedding market to arrive at exit 9, which leads to People's Park entrance number 5 and there you are.



EP and spent a long time actually looking for the Marriage Market. For some reason, it eluded us. We would read the information, head out at the proper time of 12-5 on Saturdays and Sundays, and...no marriage market. We might find a large group of Chinese bus package tour people idly blocking the sidewalks, or the mysterious kite vendors who haunt Peoples Park, or groups of parents playing the fountains with their kids right next to the "Stay Out of the Fountains With Your Kids" signs displayed prominently. No, today we are going to use the marriage market as a springboard, or foil, or stalking horse, or ..well, you get the idea.   The staff here at YRC have a hypothesis that  we have been testing that the Westernization of the Chinese romantic system will eventually bring the entire civilization to ruin.




 “My daughter studied in an Australian program for university,” says Chen Liande, holding out a photo for the small crowd to view. Someone compliments him. “She’s been to London, too. Now I’m helping her find a husband,” he adds.

With a large park, walking paths, greenery and two museums, People’s Square is the beating heart of a modern city. And on weekend afternoons that heart flutters and palpitates as doting parents hope to marry off their kids. Next to the modern art museum in People's Square Park, crowds of them jostle and chatter, the bushes around filled with papers advertising height and weight, salary and education. “28. Good job. Local resident. Have house have car. Contact for a meeting,” says one. 

Matchmaker Mr Fu site with his clients' profiles at the weekend People's Square marriage market.

This nuptial gathering is the famous Shanghai marriage market. It is match.com meets farmers’ market, and it is the last resort for many of Shanghai's young people, and their parents.

The parent trap

At the marriage market, parents, with or without their children’s consent, arrange meetings, dates and potential matches for their kids. Some children, often too busy working to devote time to meeting a soul mate, accept their parents' help. But its not easy even for a parent, and many also employ matchmakers.

Matchmakers broker meetings for numerous clients usually charging RMB 10-20 per pairing. “I’ve been a matchmaker for three years,” says Mr Zheng “There’s no large payment up front. If you get married, I expect a nice gift and maybe an invitation to attend the wedding. I already represent two American men. Interested?”

Even then, matching people long term, especially with the (in)famously strong-willed Shanghainese women, can be difficult.

“I’ve been here a long time,” muses Mr Fu, a local matchmaker. “Girls in Shanghai are strong these days. Although they don’t have as much trouble finding a man, there are still lots of unmarried girls’ names on my lists.”

But that could soon flip the other way, if a recent report is to be believed.

24 million unmarried men

28. Good job. Local resident. Have house have car. Contact for a meeting.

— Sign at the People's Square marriage market

According to a study from the University of Kent, in ten years China will have approximately 24 million unmarried Chinese men who cannot find wives. That's more than the current female populations of Taiwan and South Korea combined, to give it some context. 

“Sustained abnormal sex ratio at birth in China for nearly three decades, following China's launch of its one-child policy, clearly has a major impact on the Chinese marriage market,” explains Professor Wang Feng, Chair of the sociology department at University of California, Irvine and an expert in Chinese population demographics. 

But while that sounds like China's men will be running over themselves to find a wife come 2020, the news is not so bad for those in Shanghai. “Involuntary bachelorhood so far is largely confined to the poor," explains Professor Wang. "For men, especially those in Shanghai, finding a wife is still possible and marriage is still one of the primary markers of success in life.”

Hence the continued existence of the seemingly anachronistic Shanghai marriage market.

Read more: Shanghai's marriage market: Bridal bliss or marital mayhem? | CNNGo.com http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/play/sausage-fest-2020-future-shanghai-marriage-market-086672#ixzz1Wl8QY2sq