In a nation where young people have traditionally relied on parents, friends and even professional matchmakers to help find a mate, the Internet is emerging as a great leap forward in the search for Mr. and Ms. Right. Dating sites are blossoming in what could become the greatest matchmaking market known to humankind: China's 130 million (and growing) online users.
"Society is changing very fast," observed Gong Hai Yan, founder and chief executive of love21cn.com, one of China's early dating Web sites. "Young people are moving to the big cities, but they don't have friends and family living there."
The Internet dating and "friend-making" industry in China is forecast to be an $80 million industry by next year, according to Shanghai-based iResearch.
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.
Today's leading sites are focused on providing some sort of filters to help people find long-term partners, observed Yun Ma. He is chief executive of eFriendsNet, which includes casual dating service Yeeyoo.com and Meetic.com.cn, aimed at marriage-minded searchers.
Yeeyoo.com borrowed a page from Palo Alto, Calif.-based social networking site Facebook.com -- what Ma jokingly calls his "C to C" business model, or "Copy to China." But then he and other founders worked China Internet hours -- 7 a.m. to midnight, and weekends, too -- devising a relationships Web site that is culturally relevant to China's don't-trust-a-stranger culture. It now has 11 million registered users, garnered $4 million in revenue last year and is profitable. Users of his site, which generates money through ads and by billing customers through their monthly mobile bills, can verify the accuracy of people they meet online through their online web of friends and associates.
His site offers a feature in which members receive a mobile phone text message when someone is interested in their profile, a key service in a culture that is not as e-mail centric as the United States.
Baihe.com, which has $11 million in backing from a handful of Silicon Valley venture capitalists, is relying on its love counselors to attract paying customers. Baihe (pronounced "buy-huh") uses an online banking system to process payments, though co-founder Jason Tian admits it's not ideal because many people don't have access to the system.
Baihe, which means flower lily, the symbol for 100 years of a good marriage, has about 8 million registered users. The Web site markets itself particularly to women, who are more apt to pay for the additional matchmaking help.
In rural China, for every 100 females, there are 117 males, a skewed ratio caused in part by China's one-child policy and the desire of couples to have a boy over a girl. But those female advantages don't play out in the large cities. One reason is that even as women become more educated and professionally successful, tradition still dictates they marry up -- ideal husbands need to have more prestigious resumes and heftier bank accounts -- making their selection even more selective.
And while it is becoming more acceptable for women in cities like Beijing and Shanghai to wait longer to marry (from an average marrying age of 23 during the 1980s to 27 now) they still stampede to get hitched before 30.
"I'm already 26," said Isabel Wang, a fashion magazine editor in Beijing. "In China, 26 means the girl is not young."
Shanghai marketing manager Natalie He, 28, avoids family visits: "I feel lots of pressure from my hometown, my parents and my parents' friends. I went back for the spring festival, and they all said, `When will you bring a boy back to show us?'"
Tian uses this social phenomenon to drive business, showing women a survey of his users in which 65 percent of men want to marry a woman who is 25, while only 26 percent believe age 30 is an acceptable age for a lifelong mate. Likewise, women reject younger men.
Baihe's love counselors help the women hone online profiles, as well as act as dating coaches. The advice can be as simple as telling the guy to send roses. "A lot of our users are shy," Tian said.
China's one-child policy has resulted in a generation of young people who grew up being the center of attention of six adoring adults -- parents and grandparents. So the counselors also help them grapple with basic relationship skills. "They have to learn they can't get everything they want," Tian said.
By JOHN BOUDREAU
San Jose Mercury News
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