Discussion.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly today with Yushan and Feifei.
Coming up.
The park used to be the place parents would gather with handwritten romantic resumes, hoping to find a match for their adult children.
But now they're doing it from their sofa in their living room.
China's marriage market has gone digital.
The swiping has begun and it's our topic for Soapbox today.
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And now.
Hear ye, hear ye.
Please gather round.
It's time for the soapbox.
It is time for another edition of The Soapbox where we take a story from the recent news that has us feeling a certain kind of way, good or bad.
We give you all the details and then tell you how we feel about those details.
And Yushan, you've got it today.
So what's the story about?
Well, before the story starts, I'm going to say we, many of us, have already had experience of using an online dating app where the swiping left is for rejection of the candidate and swiping right is for.
I'd like to chat a bit more.
But here's today's story.
That's not just going on dating app anymore.
Chinese parents.
They are shifting from physical marriage markets to apps, just like our dating apps, to find their future potential son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws for their adult children.
And I spotted this piece of news from South China Morning Post just very recently.
So Traditionally, so here's the case.
For example, in Beijing, in central Beijing, not very far away from the Fibonacci City, in Zhongshan Park, every weekend is it weekday or Monday?
Sunday.
Yeah, Sundays.
If you pop up in Zhongshan Park in a designated area, you'll see a fair.
But instead of selling...
It's a fair that's full of people putting out a table and putting up a little CV.
And on that piece of paper you're going to see many parents' adult children's personal information how old they are, what they do and what's their monthly salary.
Do they own a car?
Stuff like that.
So that's the traditional Chinese matchmaking corners, they call it.
Is that still happening now?
Yeah, still do.
Fei-Fei said she was in one.
I used to pop into one because my daughter used to have like a tutoring class in the park, acquiring classes in that park on weekends.
So every weekend I'll go to that corner check things out, even though I'm not in a personal need of that information, it's just fun to participate.
What do you see when you go there?
I don't know why, I'm just imagining it.
Imagining it like Wall Street.
You know like there's stock traders on the floor, like screaming at each other.
I know that's not right.
It's a lot quieter than that.
It's mostly parents sitting there chatting with each other most of the time.
And they have a little sometimes, you know.
A4 size paper just listing all the requirements that they are looking for in an in-law and all the standards.
I wouldn't say standards.
The background,
Criteria.
Yeah, the backgrounds of their own children.
And if you're interested, you can come up and chat with them.
But mostly, I didn't really see any young people themselves going there.
Yeah, because it's the parents, or maybe the grandparents, I'm not sure that are there representing them.
Now, that's the old school way.
Now, the new school way, they've gone online.
Yeah, the uncles and aunties are moving their battlefield online on platforms that allow them to select their future son-in-law, daughter-in-laws from just apps.
What do you say?
Sitting in their sofa and just swipe, right?
So these platforms, they have several steps for you to go through.
First of all, when you try to register, you have to first define your goal.
Are you looking for a daughter-in-law or looking for a son-in-law?
That's really interesting because yeah, it's like exactly the same kind of role of the game when it comes to dating apps.
It's exactly the same.
You've got to refine things first.
And once that is settled, you'll soon be led to the profile foreground where people The parents can see the candidate's pictures, their age education occupation, income and what they're most interested in to straightforward criteria such as how many house do you own, your car ownership, the marital history and have you ever had like divorce before or expected timeline for marriage details like that.
So really it's a conversation being formed by parents and also between the parents who are really looking for the best and the most attractive partner, future partner for their adult kids.
So the parents go on the app and they see a profile right, let's say, a parents have a daughter and the daughter's parents go on the app and see a good-looking young man with an impressive resume and his, his photo and his resume is right there.
They can swipe and that message gets sent to that young man's parents And then if that young man's parents like the daughter potential daughter-in-law I suppose then the parents have a conversation with each other, right?
Yes.
So instead of the young people really hitting it off on the apps, it's the parents.
Only between the parents.
And, interestingly for the platform, they only give new platform users a limited number of free attempts.
Like you said, you can send out messages to initiate a conversation, but limited, unless you pay a membership.
Because without a membership, you have to really pay another fee to verify that you are a real person.
And with membership that comes with tiers to like different levels.
For example, a quarterly membership costs on some platform 399 yuan, that's roughly 60 US dollars.
Well, annual membership can be 699 yuan.
That's pretty expensive.
Then it's more or less similar again to dating apps, because the more you pay, there seems to be more information that you're allowed to gain access to.
For example, if you pay for a premium sincerity membership that is priced at 1999 yuan, then you get to be offered something called super exposure.
Meaning that your profile or rather your kid's profile gets to be exposed more often.
Oh, bumped to the top of the list.
Yeah, bumped to the top and recommended to more future potential in-laws in the area that you're seeking.
So these platforms.
One other thing that they offer that I found really interesting are the courses online courses for the parents.
From the same platform.
From the same platforms, such as courses like how to build better conversations with your kids and three steps to get your child talking about marriage.
That's a classic.
Yeah, each price at about 300 yuan.
So they're monetizing pretty much every step of, you know, getting your children.
This goes above and beyond, though.
What did you say?
Three steps to get your child talking about marriage.
Yeah, you know a lot of young people.
They just shook their head or they just turn around and walk away when the parents try to force a conversation with them about oh, it's really time for you to get married.
But yeah, there are three steps, you know.
How much is that class?
299 yuan.
It's a paid class?
Paid class.
It's about 45 bucks.
Here is what the platform do.
So it's basically like you said feifei, monetize parental worries, because they really utilize the parents anxiety by putting forward the different material assets, like property and income, over other qualities such as personal traits, because traditionally that's really not considered as important as financial stability.
So that's the... sort of the winning trick out in the market nowadays.
Instead of trying to persuade single young adults who resist matchmaking, they're now directly targeting a different demographic the anxious parents with strong purchasing power.
Who teaches these classes? experts and i don't know relationships i don't i don't mean to be dismissive if they are experts about you know whatever qualifications they are whatever qualifications they might have but just that get your child talking about marriage it's not cheap right this is 300 almost 300 yuan 45 bucks this is Does it really work?
Well, that's my point.
Can I get a refund if the three steps didn't get my daughter talking?
Yeah, right.
I tried all three steps and they didn't want to talk about it.
This has to be controversial.
Not with you, Yushan.
We're going to get to your soapbox in a little while.
But it has to be at least a little bit.
And I'm not even talking about with the...
The young men and young women who are being represented by their parents here.
Because am I wrong when I say this is kind of at least a tiny little bit woven into Chinese society a little bit?
Because at the park, it's already been... I mean, how long has that been going on at the park?
It's been decades and decades.
That's a good point that I didn't really put thoughts into.
But now that you mention it, back in the feudal society from a hundred years ago, hundreds of years ago, that's a ritual.
Like the parents, they select in-laws for their child based on how well balanced the two families are.
Because because and again correct me if I'm wrong a marriage is not not always, but often between the two families, not just the two individuals.
It's kind of a different.
I've seen that in, I saw that in Korea, I saw that now here in China, and I think it's a little bit of a culture difference between marriage culture in the West and in Asia.
When we are talking about marriages, especially in the Chinese culture, it's not as simple as two people fell in love and they decide to get married and form a family.
It's more of about two family who has most of the time has no idea what the other family is, and now they are having to sort of trying to find a way to deal with each other and live peacefully together in one way or another.
But i have like a different understanding about what's happening behind these parents minds is basically what they can do.
You said Yushan, that they are pretty anxious about possibly their children are not getting married, as they have the timeline set for them.
The parents set the timeline for their planned age when you are appropriate for your marriages, or the children just refuse to talk to them about their future plans.
That's the best they can do.
Let's come back to that.
Let's do this.
I want to hear how Yushan feels about this.
I think I can predict how Yushan feels about this.
Really, be honest.
But when we come back from that, I want to talk about how there seems to be a little bit of a difference between the West and Asia when it comes to the pressure parents for their children to get married.
And I don't know if that's still true or not, but maybe we can discuss that a little bit.
Yushan, tell us how you feel about this parental online dating app along with the classes.
Oh, wow.
Here is my soapbox.
So yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this new trend and honestly, I am not on board with it.
Because, when you strip it down, what's really happening is that parents are uploading their children's personal details, like things like income education, family background all of that into these platforms and letting strangers evaluate them.
Trust me, I know how it feels.
I've been.
My information have been uploaded like that by my own mother without me knowing any of it and yeah, I've been price tagged and put on shelf before.
So sometimes it really feels like people are being assigned an invisible price tag, just like that.
So it turns something deeply human into something transactional, if I may call it.
So now let's be really honest with ourselves.
Marriage has always had a practical side.
There's always been trade-offs calculations, even negotiations before, during and even after in marriage.
So that's not new.
But what feels different now is who's actually in control.
Because, if you think about it, choosing a spouse might be the only moment in our lives when we actually get to choose a family member.
We don't get to choose the families that we're born into.
We don't choose our parents or grandparents.
In some ways, not even our children.
But when it comes to choosing a partner, that's theoretically supposed to be our own decision to make.
So shouldn't that choice at the very least belong to the person getting married?
At the same time, I do understand when parents are coming just complaining that oh, my children don't listen to me.
I understand where they're coming from.
Their generation grew up in a completely different environment.
And back then there were There was less emphasis on emotional compatibility, shared hobbies or whether you could have a three-hour conversation that just flows like we do.
Nowadays, as Gen Z, Practical factors matter more.
And of course, in many cases, those were enough back then.
But times have changed.
What used to be seen trivial, like the chemistry that sparks between the two people mutual understanding, shared interests.
These matter deeply to young people today.
They shape whether a relationship can actually last, not just function on paper or fulfilling some sort of assignment assigned to you by your parents.
So maybe, instead of focusing only on practical matters such as salary or property ownership, parents could also also start considering these modern standards and elements too, in a marriage.
And even more importantly, stay open with the children.
Stop hiding things away from them.
Have real conversations and build trust.
Because at the end of the day, those matchmaking apps, they aren't really invested in your child's happiness at all.
They're just investing in subscriptions and your money in your pocket, the premium membership we talk about.
So there's the Chinese phrase that I'm afraid, a lot of our Chinese listeners are all too familiar with.
都是为了你好。 I'm doing this all for you, for your own good, for your benefits.
It's something many parents genuinely believe, and it often comes from love, of course we can't deny that but also from anxiety.
But here I'm going to say this.
Maybe the answer isn't to push back against that statement, but to respond to it.
So as kids, as adult children, we kind of need to help our parents to acknowledge their anxiety, that worry that they're having, and gently guide it in a better direction, because love shouldn't be negotiated like a contract, and family, especially the one you choose, should always start with your own voice.
Yeah, I would have guessed that you would not be in support.
May I ask, because I only ask because you mentioned it, your mom did this.
Yeah, it's not really an online app.
It's a group chat on WeChat.
And she's in a group and they've got like 300 people in it all.
Parents sending messages, posting CVs in a message form and posting pictures inside.
And if you're interested, you can add each other's WeChat.
So that way, cheaper.
Did you pay for it?
Sorry, we both have like 25 questions.
You go first.
Feifei yeah, i'm wondering if like, it's like a paid service like this one.
Not really, i think it's part of the services or recommendation from her colleagues.
Did you get matched up with anybody?
Oh yeah, like two, three times.
And they were even even encouraging me to add that young, poor young lads wechat, who Turned out eventually, didn't really want to get involved in any of these either.
Neither of you were interested in this.
Exactly.
Just the parents.
Yeah.
Who went to the meeting?
Like, was it just the two of you?
We didn't even end up in a meeting.
We just chatted and we agree with each other and we just tell, oh, you know what?
Let's just both tell our parents that we're not happy with each other.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
All right.
So the question I wanted to ask and maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like it's taken a little bit more seriously on the parents' side in Asia.
My sister got married when she was 44, I think, or 43.
It was never a family discussion, never talked about one time.
Parents never said anything to her.
Hey, when are you going to get married?
Never.
My parents and I never discussed it.
Oh, when do you think your sister's going to?
Never.
Not once.
Not once.
Nobody cares.
Nobody cared.
But here it's taken a lot more seriously.
Why that difference, do you think?
Well, i think it's the responsibility or obligations that parents often feel that they have for their children, like it's their job.
Yeah yeah, it's my job, even though i'm a parent now, and i totally get that anxiety coming from a parent.
Is that when when, when their child is still a kid, You're in charge of everything surrounding them their food, their health, their study?
And then that mindset continues as the children enter their adulthood.
You know, when it comes to their career, what kind of job or what kind of industry are they going to be working in?
Or if that my child is not going to be able to land a job, there must be something I need to do to help them.
Is there anything because I could again, I could be totally wrong, but it seems like.
The parents are oftentimes maybe more interested in the security of marriage than the actual happiness of their child, because the dream, of course, is that you have both.
Obviously, nobody wants their kid to be unhappy, but.
But you can't control the happiness side.
Right.
So you're just looking for the security first.
And hoping that the happiness side will emerge and grow as time goes by.
Because that's the way they did it.
Yeah.
True yeah, and so i think that this kind of anxiety, this kind of practice activities coming from their parents is totally understandable.
I'm not saying it's okay for them to uploading their parents, their children's profile without telling them thank you, but it's understandable to the point is that they've always, always been the safety net for the children, So that translates to marriage.
It's so natural for me to see this kind of thing happening right now.
Are you going to do this for your daughter?
I don't think so.
Save yourself some trouble.
Yeah.
Why are you popping by that park every weekend, Fei Fei?
But...
You're taking business cards for the future.
But I'm not sure, you know, my daughter is not in their 20s or 30s.
I'm not sure how I'm going to react.
That's true.
After they enter 30s, I might change.
You'll be promoting your own platform on Roundtable one day in the future.
Interesting topic, that's for sure.
All right, we've run out of time on today's Roundtable.
Thanks for being with us today.
I'm Steve for Yushan and Fei-Fei.
We all thank you kindly and ask you to join us again next time.
