Yes, a marriage market. I first stumbled on it a couple months ago when Eric was away on a business trip. I was walking through Renmin Park and suddenly I was in the middle of a huge crowd of people, all looking at these pieces of paper hanging up and showing photographs to each other. I was curious but couldn't figure out what was going on. Then a couple weeks later, we stumbled across a website listing interesting things about Shanghai and suddenly there it was! A picture of crowds of people looking at photographs and papers hung up. It turned out to be the Shanghai marriage market. So, of course, now we had to go back and really see it.
It is a very interesting place. Everyday, a very large amount of parents and grandparents gather to 'sell' their single son/daughter. The papers are basically like a resume with age, height, weight, job, salary, --all of the really important things :) -- listed. Sometimes there is a picture with it. I wish we had talked to some of the people there. I am curious to know whether this is all done with the permission and knowledge of the son/daughter. Is it like parents matching their kids up on blind dates? I'm guessing they aren't really making actual marriage matches. I would sure hope not, at least!
In any case, I thought it was fascinating. A nice Chinese man (followed us around forever trying to get us to let him draw a picture of us, for a small fee, of course) told us that there is an English marriage market on Sundays. Hmmm. Don't think that is where I'd want to find a husband!
2 comments:
Yes, quite the place. It is important to note, though, that the youngest postings we saw were at least 20 years old. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but don't go spreading rumors that setting up infants is a common thing in China.
Ha! Wow. That's awesome.
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