Parents place umbrellas, each carrying sheets of paper containing information about their unmarried children, at the matchmaking market in People's Park in downtown Shanghai last month.(Photo by GAO ERQIANG/CHINA DAILY)
People's Park in Shanghai is the setting for an extraordinary marriage bureau, as elderly parents attempt to find partners for their unattached 30-something children.
As the temperature soared higher than 36 C on a Saturday afternoon, more than 500 middle-aged people and seniors packed into a corner of People's Park in Shanghai.
They carried bottled water, folding chairs, soda water and mosquito repellent.
While the scene appeared no different to any other bustling market in China, the "commodities" were anything but ordinary. The items on offer were unmarried people, most of them older than 30, and therefore far above the optimum marriageable age, according to Chinese standards.
The seniors and middle-aged parents were there to find spouses for their unattached children. They appraised each other with sidelong glances, attempting to hide their heavy hearts and appear uncompromising, while trying to prevent their offspring from being lonely when the next Chinese Valentine's Day rolls around.
Matchmaking markets have sprung up in many large Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu, Xi'an and Fuzhou, but in the meantime the younger generation is postponing marriage.
In 2010, the average age of marriage in China was 26.7 years for men and 24.9 for women, compared with 25.3 for men and 23.4 for women in 2000, according to the national census, conducted every 10 years.
In Shanghai last year, the average age of marriage was 34.5 years for men and 32 for women, compared with 10 years ago, when it was 31.1 for men and 28.4 for women.
