Bengfort.com

A couple weeks ago, my friend Lauren and I decided to take advantage of the cold and go ice skating. We went to Zhongshan park near the Forbidden City, only to find the ice cracking and no skating allowed. I guess it was warmer than we thought! Disappointed, we decided not to waste our three kuai (42 cents) entrance fee, and decided to walk around the park, which was rather nice, full of pagodas and frozen fountains. While walking, we encountered an area teaming with middle age to elderly Chinese people, just idly mingling like church just got out and they were waiting for the coffee and donuts.

Curious about what was going on we walk through the crowd, and I notice white paper signs propped up against bags on the ground, and even pinned to the shirts of some. I begin to read one sign: “Male, 28 years old, Beijing residence, Masters Degree in Science.” I read this first part to Lauren, incredulously saying, “I think this is a dating gathering!” Lauren, who has been studying Chinese determinedly for the past 6 months turns to face a Chinese woman who has come up beside her and asks “Nimen zuo shenme? Nin zhao nanren ma? A blunt way to ask “What are you doing? Are you looking for a man?” I reword the sentence a bit, and the lady responds that she is looking for a girlfriend for her son. Everyone there were parents trying to find a match for their son or daughter (mostly sons)! Then she asks us, “do you have boyfriends?” We respond that yes we both do, but the answer isn’t important, the fact that we speak Chinese, are foreign, relatively beautiful and just happen to show up at a matchmaking gathering are what catches the parents attention. Those who had been eying us with curiosity now surround us desperately. “It doesn’t matter if you have a boyfriend, look for another! How old are you? Where are you from? Where did you study Chinese? Do you like Chinese boys?”

We were literally engulfed by a swarm of desperate parents. I know the gender disparity in China is bad, and that the government is going to have a huge social crisis in a decade or two when millions of men can’t find wives, but experiencing the gender gap first-hand was an interesting experience. Lauren and I were able to escape (and I did feel very overwhelmed by the parental pushiness) when we told them our ages. Apparently 22, according to Lauren, is ” just too young for their aging, soon-to-be-spinster-types sons.”