Canton Singles’ Network Looks Abroad for Match
Marrying a foreigner used to be taboo, but now a Chinese city has set up a computer matchmaking service to help Chinese find foreign spouses.
The month-old service in Canton has registered more than 300 Chinese singles, according to the Saturday edition of the Xinmin Evening News of Shanghai, seen in Beijing on Sunday.
The newspaper said the service is setting up links with foreign marriage services. Most of the Chinese who have contacted the service presumably are looking for a foreign spouse as a means to get abroad.
Chinese-foreign marriages, like other contacts, have gradually increased over the last decade, but not without frequent resistance from Chinese families and officials.
An average of more than 2,000 Chinese marry foreigners--many ethnic Chinese--every year, the government said last year. In addition, about 8,000 Chinese-Hong Kong marriages take place every year.
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