For single people, dating fatigue is a universal phenomenon. Hours of swiping left can lead to despair at potential matches in your area. A city in Jiangxi, a province in eastern China, reckons it has found a solution for those in love or tired of love: a state-sponsored matchmaking service.
Guixi, a city of about 640,000 people, has launched an app that uses data from single residents to build a matchmaking platform. The app is known as “Palm Guixi” and includes a platform for setting up blind dates, according to China Youth Daily, a state-run newspaper.
The app is part of a province-wide initiative to increase the marriage rate, which has been falling across the country for the past decade. In 2021 there were 5.4 marriages per 1,000 people, compared to six in the US.
In other parts of Jiangxi, local governments are hosting in-person events for people to mingle. In the city of Gao’an, around 100 young singles attended an event at Ruizhou Fuya Park where they could dress up in traditional clothing, play games and “get closer” to each other while feeling “the depth of Chinese culture.”
One of the main pillars of the Jiangxi pilot is a campaign against high “bride prices”. In recent years, the government has discouraged the traditional practice of a prospective groom offering cash to the bride’s family before marriage. The country’s civil code prohibits “the exaction of money or gifts in connection with marriage.” But in practice the tradition is still common, especially in rural areas. In 2022, Jiangxi topped an unofficial national bride price ranking, averaging 380,000 yuan (£45,000).
Through a combination of public awareness campaigns and limits on extravagant wedding ceremonies and banquets, Shicheng County claims to have virtually eliminated “engagement gifts.”
Online reactions to the state-sponsored matchmaking service have been mixed. Many commenters on Weibo linked it to the government’s push to boost China’s rapidly falling birth rate. The Chinese are expected to “breed like pigs,” wrote one user.
