Introduction

During the Christmas holiday of 2016, when I went back to Shenyang, my parents were busy with matchmaking for several single adult children of their colleagues and friends. While they sometimes joked that “Luckily we don't need to worry about you”, both of them were still drawn into the ‘parental matchmaking system’ in their personal networks. Taking my parents as an example, the system operates as follows: each parent is either seeking a potential partner for their own child, or holds the personal details of other young adults from their close contacts, whom they usually know very well. Subsequently, parents within the system frequently exchange such information as well as broadcasting whose daughter or son is looking for matchmaking. The system therefore gradually evolves to become wider and more diverse, which means that sometimes my parents may introduce a young woman they have never met to a colleague's son. One day, my mother showed me a new message from one of her friends introducing a female newcomer: BA from Luxun Academy of Fine Arts and MA from Australia; currently working as an art teacher in a high school in Shenyang; height 1.65 metres; fairly well-off family background. My mother immediately sent a message back: How old is she? Does she hold institutional staff status (shiye bianzhi) in her danwei? My mother introduced the young woman to a friend whose 30-year-old son was a single dentist. Later, she updated me on the result of this matchmaking: the man's family was not satisfied because the woman turned out to be a contracted teacher in the school without permanent institutional staff status.

I was initially surprised, because there was not a single word in the message about the personality of the young woman herself, but only the educational and economic resources she possessed. However, according to my mother and some of my single girlfriends, such a style is very common in matchmaking. This episode reflects the present-day trend in the urban marriage market, at least in a large, north-eastern city. First and foremost, a single man or woman is evaluated based on educational level, stability of employment, family background, age and probably height.