Shopping for a mate
(eastday.com)
Updated: 2004-03-30 09:02

Why spend your life looking for love when you can hire someone to conduct the search for you?

That, apparently, is the thinking of one 28-year-old woman in Shanghai who has signed a contract to pay 22,000 yuan (US$2,650) to a local match-making Website if it can help her find Mr Right.

The woman, who refused to reveal her name or discuss her background, signed the contract with 51friend.com, which will search through its list of clients from around the world to find five suitable suitors.

The local woman, who goes by the pseudonym Wang Xing, has already paid a 2,000-yuan deposit, and has agreed to pay the remaining 20,000 yuan if she agrees that any of the five candidates offered are suitable.

Neither the Website nor Wang would say what characteristics she is looking for in a man other than an annual income of at least 500,000 yuan.

"I would pay as much as 100,000 yuan if the candidates are really satisfactory," said Wang, who works for a local media outlet.

"The 100,000-yuan reward equals to five months of my salary, but I'm not sure whether I can find a lover even if I left work to search for five months."

The deal has been in the works since February when Wang discovered the Website's new love hunter service and decided to hire a professional to help her find the right man.

"All our sub-branches throughout the country, as well as agencies in the United States and Canada, are now trying their best to search for possible candidates," said Jin Xiaoming, the Website's CEO. "This is not a small case for us as the client has high demands."

Wang is also the first person to sign up for the service since the company launched it around Valentine's Day. Finding the right man could go a long way toward attracting more customers, but Jin said the hunt could take a while.

"The whole process may take one to two years, or even longer, but we are prepared for that."

Yu hai, a sociologist at Fudan University, said that increasing incomes have made it possible for some people to simply pay for anything they need.

"This has turned the original personal affair into a booming business in the country's developing market economy," Yu said.

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