{"id":173848,"date":"2026-05-29T10:00:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=173848"},"modified":"2026-05-28T17:46:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T21:46:41","slug":"love-in-a-fallen-city-shanghais-marriage-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2026\/05\/29\/love-in-a-fallen-city-shanghais-marriage-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Love in a Fallen City: Shanghai\u2019s Marriage Market"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

The market, May 2015. Photograph by Reinhold M\u00f6ller,\u00a0via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

On a low-pollution Sunday last December, the weekend before Christmas, I headed to People\u2019s Park on Shanghai\u2019s Nanjing Road to visit the city\u2019s so-called marriage market:<\/span> a cluster of footpaths and lawns in the park\u2019s northwest corner, where hundreds of parents gather each weekend to matchmake their unmarried adult children. It was the winter solstice: a particularly auspicious occasion this year, as an aunt had written to our family\u2019s thirty-one-person WeChat group\u2014a day on which it was said that heaven and earth would reunite.<\/span><\/p>\n

It had rained that morning, so the air was damp and cool. I\u2019d come here before as a child, glimpsing the idling marriage brokers\u2014the \u201caunties\u201d and \u201cuncles\u201d\u2014as my parents and I crossed the park to the city center. Though I was now of marriageable age, I doubted I\u2019d find a husband here, a city from which I felt largely estranged. I\u2019d grown up in Hong Kong and visited family in Shanghai every year until moving abroad over a decade ago. The cultural differences alone between any potential Shanghainese suitors and me foreclosed the possibility, I figured, of a real bond.<\/span><\/p>\n

But perhaps there was something to learn from the stand-in courtship practiced here, so radically different from the flirting and swiping I was predisposed to. What <\/span>were<\/span><\/i> the right conditions under which to find a life partner? Long a romantic, I had lately come to learn that love might instead be something worked toward, an earned outcome rather than a projection sustained until its inevitable end. The idea of courting prospective in-laws before spouses therefore seemed reasonable. This market was pragmatic: it conceded that familial compatibility could only help a relationship. It was to the point, with no beating around the bush about your finances or genetic ailments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d always enjoyed meeting the parents of friends and boyfriends\u2014particularly the Chinese ones, who often seemed like strange permutations of my own: religiously preoccupied with their kids\u2019 well-being and success, offbeat and quaintly crude, their politesse at odds with an inborn urge to voice their sometimes inflammatory convictions. Like the rule-abiding child I\u2019d been, I was known to succumb to the flattery of my Chinese elders, who softened at my <\/span>xiaoshun <\/span><\/i>deference and fluent Mandarin\u2014I\u2019d spent months on the mainland as a child. I caved to cajoling missionaries at the supermarket in New York\u2019s Chinatown, to the Mandarin-speaking Bank of America employee who convinced me to sign up for another credit card when all I\u2019d wanted was to update my address.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I entered the park through a western gate, next to which a Starbucks played Mariah Carey and Willie Nelson. The market emerged suddenly: crops of middle-aged Chinese huddled around laminated advertisements that littered the ground or were clipped to trolley bags and music stands. The otherwise quiet grounds, within these few thousand square feet, were beginning to teem with brokers and visitors alike. Fleece-clad aunties lined the shrubbery; raincoated uncles smoked under the wutong trees. I slipped into the sparse flow of people that circled the gardens and moved through sheltered walkways.<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

The first uncle I saw stood on the outskirts of the market, a few yards before a long archway that drove deeper into its heart. Bald and stocky, he wore sweatpants and hiking boots. One hand was tucked into his pocket. He used the other to nurse a cigarette.<\/span><\/p>\n

A dozen listings were spread at his feet. These were bare-text summations of vital information: gender; education level; age, via birth year; height, and sometimes weight; employment status and occupation; income; <\/span>hukou<\/span><\/i> status, which granted residence and access to health care, education, and housing within a given region; property holdings (owned or rented? number of bedrooms? car?); parent profiles (pensioned? healthy or ill?); debt, or lack thereof; vices (smoking, drinking), or lack thereof. A few listed hobbies or a Chinese zodiac sign.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The faceless prospects on offer were probably playing video games at home or hanging out with their friends. It was common knowledge that the matches themselves were generally uninvolved and uninterested in their parents\u2019 schemes, that young people in Shanghai were dating on their own in all sorts of ways, both online and in person.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou looking?\u201d The uncle lifted his chin at me. \u201cBirth year? Education level?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cNinety-nine,\u201d I said. \u201cI have a bachelor\u2019s degree.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cPlenty for a woman.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This uncle charged a hundred yuan per month per listing and another fifty yuan for each date.<\/span><\/p>\n

Women, he told me, ought to choose a husband with a higher education and income level than their own. He should also own an apartment. Most of the men advertised here at People\u2019s Park had at least a master\u2019s degree. \u201cBachelors with just a bachelor\u2019s don\u2019t bother coming here,\u201d he said punlessly in Chinese.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are thirty million more unmarried men than women in China, a result of the many girls aborted or discarded during the one-child policy. But the criteria for marriageable men have long been more stringent, so that there are many more women on the market than men. Many otherwise eligible young men\u2014uneducated, rural, poor\u2014simply don\u2019t make the cut.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Matchmaking in China dates to imperial times, when marriage was a more explicit economic arrangement administered by and for the sake of one\u2019s family. A bride-price or <\/span>caili<\/span><\/i> remains standard today, while able parents are expected to house their children until they are wed, to finance their nuptials, and then to purchase property for the newlyweds. The Shanghai Marriage Market has reportedly been around since 2004, when retirees congregating in the park found common cause in setting up their children, but this uncle said he\u2019d known it to exist since the nineties. Though Shanghai\u2019s is the largest, similar markets exist in major cities across the country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These markets, the uncle told me, mostly serve older parents\u2014those desperate for their children to settle down before it\u2019s too late. Students in their twenties are largely dating online\u2014which requires less up-front commitment\u2014on apps like Tantan, China\u2019s Tinder equivalent; Momo, a more socially oriented platform, featuring livestreams and local interest groups; and Jiayuan, which requires users to have a university degree. More popular than dating websites are multiplayer role-playing games such as <\/span>Tencent\u2019s Honor of Kings<\/i>, which counts more than a hundred million players daily, and the more abstruse Dota 2, <\/i>through which a cousin of mine met her husband. But there\u2019d been a rise in fake online profiles (Zhenai, one of the older dating platforms, was fined 1.7 million yuan last year for displaying false listings), not to mention the perennial risk of what was called jianguangsi<\/i>, or \u201cdying in the light\u201d: breaking up upon seeing a partner\u2019s appearance for the first time in person.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easier to find the right person under these conditions,\u201d the uncle said, pointing to the flyers in front of him. Still, the marriage market\u2019s success rate was low. Everyone\u2019s standards were too high.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of the singles, I noticed, were in their thirties or forties. There was a PE teacher, a military veteran, a civil servant, a technician at a foreign-owned company. Annual salaries ranged from fifty thousand to one million yuan. In place of names, epithets abounded: \u201cpale complexion, cleanly\u201d; \u201cslim, graceful\u201d; \u201cpolite, excellent physique.\u201d Women sought men with a sense of responsibility; all sought a spouse with Shanghai <\/span>hukou<\/span><\/i>. One man desired a spouse with no dating history. In the event that she had been married previously, he would prefer that any child of hers be a girl.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I asked the uncle if he had children, he flinched. His only son was thirty and single.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not worried,\u201d he assured me, though I sensed he\u2019d turned morose. \u201cI won\u2019t pester him. He\u2019ll find his way. He\u2019s already dated many girls. I always tell him to take a break\u00a0. . . dating can cost you thousands of yuan!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Our conversation was intercepted by a woman looking on her daughter\u2019s behalf. They didn\u2019t mind that I lingered like a buzzard to eavesdrop. When I waved goodbye minutes later, he was recounting: \u201cI bought him a car. He drove for Didi [China\u2019s Uber]. Then I told him, You\u2019d better <\/span>date<\/span><\/i>, not <\/span>drive<\/span><\/i>. There\u2019s no business there anyway!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d rewatched Disney\u2019s animated version of <\/span>Mulan <\/span><\/i>on the flight over. Pressing further into the market, a series of women who brought to mind the movie\u2019s formidable matchmaker\u2014with whom Mulan fumbles her first meeting, all but ruining her family\u2019s honor\u2014flanked the park lawns like infantry. These aunties bore a similarly fiendish Chinese aspect: powder-white complexions, sheepskin hats, leopard-print coats. Honeyed words dripped from their cherry-red lips. \u201cBeauty, beauty!\u201d they called out to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first auntie wore plum lipstick and drank fruit tea from a ribbed glass jar. What was I looking for?<\/span><\/p>\n

I told her I was visiting from America.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is fine,\u201d she said, rummaging her files. \u201cI have someone looking specifically for a foreign girl.\u201d The local girls had done him over, strung him along for his money.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cConditions are not good here.\u201d She gestured at an invisible economy. \u201cForeign girls are more carefree.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Why didn\u2019t they include photos with the listings? Out of respect to the singles, she said. There were, of course, photos. Brokers offered them to me like presents once I\u2019d shown sufficient interest. (A man in a suit, arms folded, under studio lighting. \u201cNot to say he\u2019s dashing, but he\u2019s got a warm look about him,\u201d the broker narrated. Another, pouting at the camera. \u201cIs he handsome? What do you think?\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

The second auntie sat on a folding stool, behind which a clothesline hung r\u00e9sum\u00e9s like blouses out to dry. She\u2019d found her daughter a husband on this very corner\u2014he had a Ph.D, she said, and was a professor. Both his and her families owned property. Would I like to see their wedding photos?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have too many girls,\u201d the auntie grouched, crossing the arms of her long pink puffer. Of her listings, thirty were men and more than fifty women. \u201cThe men here are shy. They always stop through, but they\u2019re absolutely <\/span>meek<\/span><\/i> . . .\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A third auntie had moved to Shanghai from Anhui Province when she was sixteen. At one point she\u2019d worked at a factory in the city making plastic bags; now she\u2019d been advertising at the market for a decade.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAre you on TikTok? The young people here are all on TikTok. It\u2019s skewing their perceptions of love.\u201d A TikTok had gone viral, she explained, about a man who\u2019d committed suicide before his arranged marriage. \u201cWhat is wrong with these kids? How could a parent live after that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In lieu of individual r\u00e9sum\u00e9s, she had printed spiral-bound booklets with abridged candidate profiles. I passed over WOMEN\u2014NEWEST INFORMATION<\/small> and flipped through NEW & UPDATED OUTSTANDING WHITE-COLLAR MALES \u201987\u2013\u201997<\/small>, taking out my phone to capture one of the dozens of pages of information: name, age, occupation, and contact number, tabulated row after row after row.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo photos!\u201d she exclaimed, wresting the book from me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone fathers napped upright on benches, hugging their daughters\u2019 credentials to their chests. The more resolute lapped the grounds with r\u00e9sum\u00e9s clipped to their lapels or hung from lanyards around their necks, like dogs seeking owners. <\/span>At the most populous square, by the park\u2019s northern gate, parents and brokers ogled me as I passed through their line of sight, trailing and then abandoning me upon overhearing my unsuitable credentials.<\/span><\/p>\n

I approached a fiftysomething woman in a red vest who\u2019d been noticeably staring at me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a foreigner, aren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What was the giveaway?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got that glint in your eye,\u201d she said, \u201cOf independence, critical thinking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She and the man next to her were here to advertise their and their friends\u2019 children. The group rotated shifts every weekend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want them to find someone they like,\u201d she said. His son was twenty-seven, her daughter thirty-five.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe persevere,\u201d he said. They had been coming here for three years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Did their kids have any prospects? I asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf they did, we wouldn\u2019t be here!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Xinku<\/span><\/i>,\u201d I said: \u201cIt\u2019s not easy,\u201d or more literally, \u201chow bitter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMingku!\u201d<\/span><\/i> her friend corrected me: \u201c<\/span>Life<\/span><\/i> is bitter!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, China had just reached a record low of 5.6 annual births for every 1,000 members of its population, nearly on par with South Korea and Taiwan. Marriage had been on the decline for a decade now, and divorce on the rise, while recent state incentives (a handout of up to the equivalent of $1,500 per infant, a 13 percent sales tax on contraceptives, a ramp-up to a two-child and then a three-child limit) had hardly made a difference. The country\u2019s one-child generation, born between 1980 and 2015, was coming of age, singularly burdened with the onus of continuing the family line.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this man\u2019s son had recently turned down a woman with a Ph.D, as he himself had only a master\u2019s. This was too threatening, he explained. A mismatch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

The market, December 2015. Photograph by Another Believer, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

The energy picked up at three. I passed parents on benches, legs crossed and leaning toward each other, speed dating as proxies for their unwilling or unaware children. \u201cA 1.69-meter woman should look for a 1.79-meter man,\u201d mused a mother to two fathers. \u201cIt\u2019s the educated countrywomen you want,\u201d said another. \u201cWell-off in-laws can be their own problem.\u201d \u201cInferior doctors have only master\u2019s degrees.\u201d \u201cEighty-five kilos? My daughter\u2019s hardly seventy-five.\u201d \u201cGirlorboy?\u201d they chirped. \u201cGirlorboy?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My elders laughed and spat. Two mothers discussed the odds of pregnancy at thirty-five. An uncle loudly recited his phone number to anyone who would listen. Another stood pontificating from his square foot of the park as though it were a podium.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I approached, he leaned over and lowered his voice. \u201cAny requirements, just let me know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I caveated that I lived abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is the best country in the world. You shouldn\u2019t be looking here\u2014that would be beneath you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The woman next to him buckled in laughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would emigrate immediately if I could.\u201d He was yelling now. \u201cYou ought to back Trump, get involved with the greatest people. Get out of here while you can.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOtherwise you weren\u2019t raised right!\u201d quipped the woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is the most civilized, democratic country there is. All the growth in China over the past few decades has been thanks to its example. Without the U.S., we wouldn\u2019t have half this innovation. There\u2019s no freedom of speech here. Ever since the Cultural Revolution\u00a0. . .\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He seemed to remember why we were here. \u201cLook,\u201d he told me, \u201cyou can find someone here if you want, but best to bring them back to the States. If you stay here, you\u2019ll regret it for a lifetime.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The woman was cackling. \u201cIf we could leave, we would.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I thanked the pair for their advice and was wandering toward the next column of brokers when a man caught up with me and tapped my shoulder: \u201cYou\u2019re not from here?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I turned around. \u201cYou?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He paused, shuffling a black crossbody across his chest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWho are you looking for?\u201d I asked. He was maybe forty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGuess,\u201d he said, smiling.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d I deflected. \u201cHa ha. Are you from Shanghai?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJiangxi. Do you think we could, you know?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I made a conciliatory face.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a generation above you\u00a0. . .\u201d he sighed.<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

Turning a corner, I came face-to-face with a man in a baseball cap, a surgical mask, and sunglasses. A morbid fear of darkening, even in the winter, meant that many at the market wore full sun coverage, lending them an ominous and all-knowing mystique.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOi,\u201d he whispered. I caught the whites of his eyes above his frames. \u201cI\u2019ve got a \u201995 man. Want to see? Most of my clients are at least 1.85 meters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He pulled up a sepia-toned photo of a guy smiling in what looked like a gift shop, a shelf full of stuffed capybaras behind him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t trust them,\u201d he said, pointing to a pair of brokers I\u2019d spoken with down the path. \u201cDon\u2019t share your WeChat either. They\u2019ll sell your information in bulk for six thousand or eight thousand <\/span>yuan<\/span>, then vanish once you pay them<\/span> to set you up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a veteran here,\u201d he said. He\u2019d found a husband for his sister here in the aughts. \u201cI can tell you\u2019re a rookie. I won\u2019t charge you for any information.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I told him I lived in America. \u201cWe Shanghainese don\u2019t revere Westerners. We don\u2019t care for them. But foreigners from the outer provinces, they\u2019d love nothing but to marry them!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Had I been to North Korea before? He had visited a few years back and enjoyed it so much he didn\u2019t want to return. \u201cAll the bad things they say about the DPRK are bullshit. Housing is free, health care is free, there\u2019s job security. Whatever you want to eat, you can eat!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A gaunt, wizened lady in aviators and a black mask nodded beside him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no job security in Shanghai,\u201d said the vet. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to see a doctor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Koreans love Chinese people. They treat us with respect; they know that we fought for every inch of their land.\u201d I was reminded that during the Korean War, the CCP had assumed a staunchly pronatalist stance: mothers of more than five children were feted by the state as \u201cglorious,\u201d and those with more than ten \u201cheroic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShanghai\u2019s elderly homes put you to death,\u201d the vet continued. The caregivers they employed were individualists, capitalists. A new health aide might be okay the first month\u2014then she took on additional clients to make more money, started asking for more and more red pockets.<\/span><\/p>\n

The wizened woman added, her voice like sand: \u201cBecause you can\u2019t walk, can\u2019t move, and don\u2019t have offspring to hold them accountable, they bully you. They eat your food.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The vet shrugged. \u201cThis is just how an individualist society works.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A woman with permed, maroon-dyed hair asked my age. I\u2019d thought, nearing my late twenties, that here I\u2019d be a borderline <\/span>shengn\u00fc<\/span><\/i>, a woman left over (a term popularized in 2007 by China\u2019s Women\u2019s Federation denigrating the country\u2019s growing population of unmarried and highly educated women), but all she said was, \u201cYou\u2019re a child!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWesterners, they\u2019re not like us,\u201d said the woman. \u201cI ask what kind of person they want to date, a Beijinger or a Shanghainese, and they say they don\u2019t care: I don\u2019t need a house or a car\u2014I want someone pretty!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

The market contained several submarkets. At the seniors\u2019 corner, a woman my mother\u2019s age was being set up with an older man. Adjacent to it was the divorced zone, where those who, according to listings, had secured a \u201cclean break\u201d from their marriage sought to remarry \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d Passing the Muslim corner and the old-Shanghai corner, for the children of families who went back generations in the city, I at last reached where I belonged: the foreigners\u2019 corner, for those Chinese based outside Shanghai.<\/span><\/p>\n

A posse of male exchange students from Oxford dictated their dating credentials to a pair of aunties who diligently transcribed them onto their phones. A herd of small Australian children walked past them, led by a chaperone. \u201cYou\u2019re so pr-etty,\u201d one uncle enounced cheerily in English at one of the girls.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Further off, a woman in a green raincoat stood browsing the flyers intently. Though she looked about my age, she was in fact in her late thirties, visiting from Chongqing. Her <\/span>guimi <\/span><\/i>(best friend) had brought her here. It was her first time at a market like this.<\/span><\/p>\n

She had dated just once before, but it hadn\u2019t worked out. It wasn\u2019t easy to find someone these days, she said. What was she looking for? She wasn\u2019t sure, exactly, but \u201csomeone taller than me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t tried dating online,\u201d she admitted. \u201cI\u2019m just not up to it.\u201d She was pretty and seemed kind; I wanted to talk to her more, to encourage her, but our conversation was interrupted by Huawan, a mother who had been hanging around the foreigners\u2019 corner waiting for the right woman to pass through\u2014someone willing to move for her son, who ran a business in Tokyo. Anyone from Shanghai, or Zhejiang, where she was from, would do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Huawan affixed herself to my side and led me forth along the path. \u201cIf you share your photo with others,\u201d she primed me, \u201ctake it sideways so your face isn\u2019t clear. Don\u2019t tell anyone where you live.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She roped in a roaming father to help me survey my prospects. \u201cCheck out this guy,\u201d he said, showing me the r\u00e9sum\u00e9 of a man from New York. He was born in \u201987. Too big an age gap, Huawan and I agreed. The uncle argued it was doable, but offered other options: Melbourne? Auckland? Frankfurt? Tianjin? How about this one, in San Francisco? (\u201cIs that far from New York?\u201d the uncle asked.) He was a solutions engineer at Google, and his father was here today at the park\u2014Huawan pointed out a man in a top hat seated under a distant gazebo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another option, in Connecticut, was within a decade of me, but only 1.70 meters tall.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShorter than you,\u201d Huawan observed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was too tall, I conceded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot in the north, not abroad, not in Dongbei!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When it seemed unlikely I would find someone suitable even abroad (\u201cIf it\u2019s not a fit, it\u2019s not a fit,\u201d mused Huawan), I exchanged WeChats with her (\u201cPerhaps you and my son could have a call?\u201d) and peeled off toward a small pond, next to which, beneath a lopping willow, a pair of French Canadians stood atop a rock advertising four of their male friends. They\u2019d ChatGPTed their friends\u2019 Hinge profiles into marriage-market-style r\u00e9sum\u00e9s and printed them out that morning. Now their WeChats were blowing up, they told me. The blond one had recently gotten engaged, at twenty-two. The other was single.<\/span><\/p>\n

I translated for the mob. Yes, those being advertised were medical students. No, they weren\u2019t doctors yet. Yes, they were living in China for the next year. No, they weren\u2019t the same guys standing here. Yes, they were looking for Chinese girls. No, they didn\u2019t speak Chinese. Yes, this one was taken. No, I was not his fianc\u00e9e.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Canadians asked me to tell the crowd they were leaving soon. They were to go to Wuhan that night; their train was leaving in two hours. This didn\u2019t stop a pair of local girls from clinging to their sleeves, asking if they were free that evening. \u201cI\u2019m from Wuhan!\u201d one of them cried.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

Around five, the brokers closed up shop, and a gray pallor blanketed the park, mirroring the skyscrapers that encircled it. On the southern fringe of the market, I locked eyes with my last parent. His son had a newly renovated apartment, he said, right in the city center. Would I like to see a video?<\/span><\/p>\n

I asked how the search had gone for him today. \u201cYou have to make compromises if you yourself are not perfect,\u201d he said. \u201cWe used to stumble blindly into relationships, and it worked fine!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cSingle kids, for now they\u2019re all right. Once they\u2019re old, they\u2019ll be abused by everyone. Their neighbors will look down on them, hobbling around like this\u201d\u2014he mimicked walking with a cane.<\/span><\/p>\n

I sympathized with these mothers and fathers, galvanized by a fear that their children would age without a companion nor children of their own to take care of them in their final days. The rural poverty that so many of them had grown up in had long been replaced by an unrecognizable urbanism that had yet to deliver the economic security promised alongside it. Now the city\u2019s youth unemployment was soaring, peaking at 19 percent a few months prior, as costs of living continued to mount. Where social services fell short, filial piety, these elders hoped, would fill the gaps.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo one could find a job this year. Without a paycheck, how can they afford to date? By the time the economy is better\u00a0. . . maybe in five years\u00a0. . . they\u2019ll be in their forties.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a final bid he presented me with a selfie, taken in natural lighting, of a man with wire-rimmed glasses and a strong jaw, his hair swept loosely across his forehead. Not bad, I thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Becky Zhang is an associate editor at\u00a0<\/em>Harper\u2019s Magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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