With over 100 million single citizens, China’s Communist Party now focuses on ‘matchmaking’
With major concern over the negative affects single citizens pose towards the maintenance of ‘societal harmony and stability’, the Chinese Communists are now in zeal to organize blind dates across the country. With about 100 million single citizens of marriageable age, the Communists Youth League has recently issued notice directing its members to organize blind date events.
As reported by Global Times, one Youth League cadre in Zhejiang has further established a separate department for matchmaking and has also organized a blind date event where at least 5,000 people participated.
Stressing on the need of “a civilized, healthy and rational concept of love and marriage”, the notice issued by the Youth League mentioned, “Helping young people find the right partner has a direct impact on their further development, which affects societal harmony and stability.”
Moreover, the Youth League’s strong focus on matchmaking has attracted other government bodies like labor unions and women’s federations. An Women’s Federation employee in Pizhou of East China’s Jiangsu Province was quoted by the Global Times, saying, “Family is society’s basic unit. Without a family, people will lose their motivation to work diligently, and too many single people will eventually affect social stability.”
However, the government’ initiative towards organized blind dates had mixed reactions among the people of the country. A 28-year-old man named Zeng, working at a state-owned company in Beijing told Global Times, “My boss believes that a man will only be committed to work after he has a family.” And while Zeng was allowed to take a day off to attend the blind date event, many others believe such events are useless. A Chinese women employ was quoted by The Global Times, saying, “It’s too short a time to get to know each other. And the men who attend are usually younger than the women.”
As reported by China News Service, official data shows there are at least 100 million single Chinese of marriageable age and the sixth census in 2010 revealed that 2.47 percent women above the age of 30, in China, are single.