Advertising Myself at Shanghai's Marriage Market

Go to People's Park 人民公园 during the weekends and you'll see hordes of middle-aged people, chatting with each other. The noise, excitement and crowd makes you wonder if you've stepped into an outdoor market...but there aren't any veggies or meat or fruits in sight. Instead, these guys are trying to advertise people.

Yes, you read that right. PEOPLE.

Hundreds of posters are displayed by worried parents, in hopes that their children might have an opportunity to find a good partner in the Market. The crazy thing is, many of these candidates do not know that they're being advertised here - nosy parents sneakily try to match-make them and set up blind dates for them. You can even pay an agent to help you suss out potentials. Each poster displays the profile of the candidate in simple phrases. 

The photo above shows some typical posters in the Market, with the one in the middle stating,

"Male. born 1972. 1.72m tall. Works for Shangqi Group. Earns 12-15k yuan a month. Owns a car. Owns a house. Requirements: Around 5 years younger. Willing to have kids."

You may already be gawking in disbelief by now, but there are some other pretty ridiculous ones like, 'must have perfect eye-sight', 'must be around 1.65m tall', 'must be born in the year of the dog', 'must earn more than 10k yuan per month', 'must have big eyes'.

And I thought I was picky!

My grand-aunties occasionally nag that I should find time to get a partner soon, so I thought I'd show them that I have actually been putting effort into my love life (which is non-existent btw. Good men! Where are you!?!?), so I advertised myself! While a typical girls' poster would mention stuff like, 'polite', 'makes good wife and daughter-in-law', 'can cook' etc...here's what mine wrote:

'Female. Born 1986. High-school grad (i mistook 大专for masters grad). Loves to eat. Very lazy. Requirements: Must look like Wang Lee Hom. Must be able to sing like Jay Chou.'


Subsequently I added my phone number (which many candidates have included too):
'123 456 7890'


Ha. This should be able to teach these ShanghaiNING weirdos a lesson for being so serious about something so ridiculous!



So I held up my poster, walked around, fully expecting that whoever read it would throw dirty glances at me,disgusted by my incompetency at being a good wife and by how shallow I am. Instead, what happened next traumatised me.



Men started following me around, asking for my REAL number, and whether I really was interested! At first, I responded by proudly declaring (with hand on hip), "I'm super lazy! I can only cook instant noodles! I hate cleaning!" but these Shanghainese men responded by saying, "No problem - I can do ALL of those!"

OMG. My little prank was an EPIC FAIL. How could I forget that Shanghainese men are known to be super submissive, handbag-toting, and can MA DA SAO (meaning 'wash clean cook')?!?!?!

So I spent the rest of my time in the park trying to get some photos taken (thanks Joel!) while running away from many men.

I found a spot by a pond, and Joel and I laughed about this mad experience. Out of nowhere, this man came over, expressed his interest, and just as I was about to take flight, he dabbed some wax onto my leather shoes.

"If you don't want me, it's okay, I help you clean shoes. Only 10 yuan."

He seemed like he had a good heart. I could have dated him, but he was no Wang Lee Hom!

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If you want to go:

The "Marriage Market" takes place every Saturday and Sunday afternoon from noon till about 5 p.m. at the north end of People’s Park (人民公园, 75 Nanjing Lu, near Huangpi Bei Lu 南京西路75号, 近黄陂北路) The closest metro station is Metro Line 1, 2 and 8 People’s Square Station.
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To read more, go to this article at CNNGO.com.