Mei Guan Xi（没关系）

A couple years back, I heard about parents gathering at People’s Square (a well-known park in the center of the city) perusing for suitors, mind you via resume, for their sons/daughters when it was year of the pig – a particularly lucky year to get married.

Little did I know that the practice still goes on every Sat and Sun! I stumbled upon it making my way thru the park.

曾经听说过在人民公园父母们会帮子女寻找对象，不过我一直以为只是为了金猪年而组织的。上周末碰巧路过时发现了每周六日都有！

Check it out

No display stand? No problem :)

Even a section for shanghainese living abroad!

A rare one with a picture

Who needs matchmakers when you’ve got eager DIY parents? ：）
有了热情的父母们，媒人就免了 ：）

Ballpark figure of 200 people or so and it seemed like it went on for a few hours.
超于我的预料，两百余人

The ads were basically resume format and usually included:
-Age
-Height
-What kind of job they had
-If they owned a car and/or house
-Whether they were Shanghainese citizens (having a hukou or Shanghainese citizenship entitles them to better benefits)
-Parents’ occupations(?!?)
-Basic requirements of what they were looking for

挂在广告上的资料包括
-年龄
-身高
-单位
-有否车房
-上海户口
-父母情况
-对象需求

I was a little surprised that parental occupations made it on the ad. From the parent’s point of view, having your son/daughter marry someone with a sketchy family background isn’t ideal.

All-in-all not exactly your typical personals ad in the US, but then again personal ads aren’t usually written by your parents. Know your target audience! These are ads written up by parents to entice OTHER parents.

Reflective of the generation that grew up in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s in China, people are more practical and status oriented. I can understand the motivation because parents want their kids to have a good life (as measured by living standard) and the differences can vary drastically due to the chasm in income levels in China. Thus, a widely held stereotype in Shanghai is that an out-of-towner blue-collar man without a car/house is at the bottom of the suitor totem pole.

So my question is, how come in the Asian culture (including Korea and Japan also, AFAIK), parents are eager for their kids to get married? I don’t buy the usual argument that they want grandkids because there are lots of western parents who also want grandkids. The only thing I can think of is that in Asia, the 2 generations are a lot more intertwined, thus the parents have a lot more vested interest in their son/daughter finding the right suitor?

Or are there other better reasons?

毕竟子女介绍都是父母写的，并且是用来引起对方父母注目。但是看到描述了父母情况还是相当得惊讶。在国外，父母们大多数只会以对象本身的状况，背景，和感情来衡量是否合适，而稀少会问父母情况更何况用来评价。

最终，不同时代有不同的价值观，国外也不例外。

有一点还不是很清楚，为什么在亚洲父母们（句我说知包括日本及韩国）都会特别为子女着急婚姻大事？有些人说此来于盼望早一点抱抱孙儿女，但是难得西方人就不要吗？也不会。唯一想得通的是成年时两代关系仍然亲密（相对国外而言），因此父母自然会注重子女的对象？

还有别的更好的解释吗？