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As the Web love markets in the United States and Europe mature with slow-growth forecasts, China's increasingly upwardly mobile young people -- who still face intense parental and societal pressures to get hitched in their 20s or early 30s -- are causing U.S. Internet giants to look East. Foreign investors and companies can't help but be attracted to China's Internet masses, though so far the love has been one-sided as U.S. Internet powerhouses, from Google to Amazon, have struggled to figure out a way to woo Chinese consumers.
"The middle class is emerging in China," observed Diane Wang, co-founder of Joyo.com, which Amazon.com acquired for $75 million in 2004. "They have buying power. It's a market no one can ignore, that's the reality."
And when it comes to love, the Chinese are ardent consumers.
"The Chinese younger generation are more independent," said Aiguo Fan, general secretary of the China Marriage and Family Institute. "They don't rely on their parents as they did before."
Eager May Yao admits she's "very picky." "I want to find a boy who has as good a career as me. But I can't find too many boys like that," she said.
Yao also wants someone with whom she can communicate. She thinks she may have found her match through Baihe.com, which suggests possible dates based on personality tests and, for those willing to pay fees ranging from $480 to nearly $900 a year, offers love counselors to help with the search.
Still, her parents may need to be sold on him: His college does not match hers in prestige. And he left Hewlett-Packard to launch a start-up.
Young people grew suspicious of the first wave of dating sites -- services that offered little more than quick ways to post profiles, which led to numerous stories of sex, lies and disappointment.
By JOHN BOUDREAU
San Jose Mercury News
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