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ON Nov 25, some 50 millionaire men and beautiful women gathered on a ship on Shanghai's Huangpu River for matchmaking. Chen, a man who owns a business in health care and was one of the male participants, is looking for a mature woman in her thirties. Chen is around 50 and once-divorced, with children.
``People might be wondering why people like me cannot find someone to marry, but it is true,'' he said. ``My networking is very limited,'' Chen said his children all supported his participation in the party. ``They even want to come to cheer me up.''
Xu Tianli, the brains behind the party and CEO of a matchmaking website for ``diamond bachelors'', or successful single men, said that rich men had problems finding wives too. ``Rich men are normally very busy, and most of the women they meet are there for work or business, which these men consider to be unsuitable for relationships,''he said. And they want a little bit more.
``Every man has certain criteria for his future wife. What these rich men want is a woman who is a bit more than normal,'' he said. ``Matching criteria could be a good start for love.'' Xu set up the websiteto pair up successful men and beautiful women last year.The threshold requirement for a man to register on this website was two million yuan (US$250,000) in assets or a promising future, and women should be both outstanding and beautiful. So far, they have attracted more than 20,000 members. More than 17 per cent of all the members, 35 per cent of whom are men, have assets above 2 million yuan. According to Xu, they have successfully brought together 40 couples of rich men and beautiful women. A woman surnamed Lu appeared at a press conference before the party and claimed she had found a millionaire boyfriend from the site two months after registration. She is 37 and owns a business in manufacturing. ``Wealth is not the most important thing, but it can serve as a stepping stone to love,'' she said.
Xu's website marks each member according to their social status, age, wealth and education. Those who reach the top of the list have a better chance to choose better women. ``The threshold requirements will screen out those who come here only for fun and ensure most effective matchmaking,''he said
Sun, 34, a party participant who has more than four million yuan (US$500,000) and owned a logistics business, told Shanghai Star in a previous interview that he was looking for a woman who is good looking and has a nice personality. ``I often find pretty women on the street, but many of the women I meet in person are not the kind to win husbands,'' he said. ``Good looks are most important to me.'' But Sun said he did care if girls came to him only for money. ``Surely there are women who are here just for the money, but I think I can see through that. I don't want a woman who only wants to marry me for my money.''
Xu Tianli said their 20-some marriage consultants, eight of whom hold a doctorate degree, listen to the members' needs, give suggestions and act as go-betweens at the beginning phase of the relationships. ``We provide services from consultation, matchmaking to wedding arrangement,'' Xu said.
He was also planning to expand his elite dating empire by publishing magazines and writing a book, titled: How beautiful women can marry rich men. ``I found last year that an online dating and matchmaking website in the United States made US$70 million in 2004, and in China there is still a huge market to explore,'' he said. Currently there is no government department taking charge of the online matchmaking business, according to Lin Kewu, a director with the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau. Xu has not obtained a certificate for the website to operate matchmaking. Early this year, Xu started planning this party to let the millionaire men and beautiful women meet in person and seek dates, at an entrance cost of 28,800 yuan (US$3,600) each.
It is required that each male participant have at least two million yuan, but half of them have more than 100 million yuan (US$12.5 million). And femal
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