And again it’s a wild mix of left-over Christmas trees, Santa Claus posters and blinking light strings, mixed with never-ending fireworks and the visible symbols of the changing of the lunar year.

The hanging fish, Chinese knots, “bowing couple” hangers and pictures are ever-present. Not going into the details of those, today we want to focus on another interesting and very Chinese symbol, the “福”, or “Fu dao” as it is called.

The character Fu means luck, which in the Western mind would be good enough to put onto a piece of cardboard and hang up onto a wall. A glass of sparkling stuff and off we go with the holiday feeling!

Mister Li and his gang though have another level of cleverness.
When you look at the picture you might notice a slight difference to the character I wrote down earlier-yes, indeed, the sign is hanging upside down!
‘Well, Mister Li must have had one or two bottles of Baijiu’ when decorating the house you may think. But no-this is actually done on purpose and there’s some quite interesting thinking behind it.

This is where “Dao” comes into play. It means upside down, and so it very accurately describes our little sign. But as another character with the same pronunciation, it also means ‘arrive’.
So, the headstanding lucky symbol “Fu dao” means “may luck arrive here”!

Let’s just hope it works. I’m sure somebody forgot to put a Fu Dao sign onto the Mandarin Oriental hotel two years ago. And subsequently it burned down and became the BBQ building of the city.
Although, it would certainly deserve a bit of luck these days with its ripped-apart look, now that they have started to really work on it. Noone knows yet what the refurbished building will look like, but here’s a proposal: just build it the same way as before, only upside down. That should do for a prosper future.

Hoppy bunny year everyone!

They kind of tried to compensate the sudden departure of the Vantages and DB9s with putting up large full-wall posters of Aston Martin’s newest little baby – literally a little baby: The Cygnet. That one is in fact nothing but a weeny Toyota IQ under the fancy hood and the only reason to build it is the new European average fleet CO2 emission law for a car maker. But it’s not decided yet whether it will ever hit the roads. The only thing that’s decidedly clear is that its poster cannot replace the lost proximity of its breathtaking brothers.

However, the long time of  wait-and-see is over. Something’s happening behind the covers. They finally found a worthy replacement. Apparently it wasn’t easy. What could possibly follow in the rubber footsteps of a racing Brit?

The answer, mind you, directly shoots up the nose. The smoking black round’s odor is replaced by a steaming black round’s temptation: It actually looks like they are going to open up a Nespresso shop.

And it seems as if they’re stacking it up with all the same features that a European Nespresso boutique has. On top they’re even adding red doors with golden capsules, looking very much like Forbidden city. That’s quite a clever localization. So they actually switched my most favorite car brand with my most favorite coffee-at-home brand.

What a warm and comforting gesture from the green tea country towards the bean-loving foreigner!

I suppose in the future I’ll be client in my own house quite for a bit more than before.

But one thing stays to be seen: Following the Aston Martin – Lamborghini episode: when will we see a Starbucks delivery truck in front of the Swiss capsulator’s red-golden doors?

It is a bit spooky: lined up in long winding curves, small flickering lights are hanging over Beijing.

UFOs? Frozen shooting stars? Morse lightning? When you’re one or two blocks away from it, and you haven’t run into this before – you might not be able to find an explanation for it until you get closer.

Eventually though you will be standing in front of a square, usually a larger one, to which those light columns seem to be coming down on. And then you suddenly realize: Mister Li is having his leashed-up night beer.

When taking the time to sit down with him, something very rare and interesting happens: you relax.

At first the mind tries to confront the situation with logic: What on Earth is a grown-up man doing at this time of the night (9 p.m.) on the street, fiddling with kids’ toys?

And then you witness Mister Li clipping small LEDs onto the rope. And in a very skilled manner he places them almost exactly at even distance. Very seldom only does he have to get up. And then it’s usually not because he needs to correct the trajectory of his kite, but rather because he needs to help young aspirants master the first few meters into the air. And that, as it becomes apparent soon, needs quite a bit of practice.

Two hours later the total kite count above Beijing is substantially larger. It’s a windy night and Mister Li and his line-gang are well prepared. With their professional-looking reels they appear more like open sea fishermen than guys with toys.

Those very smooth-running wheels have nothing in common with the rope-around-a-piece-of-cardboard memories of Western childhoods. By the way – the line itself doesn’t either: An ultra thin, remarkably tough synthetic fibre piece which weighs almost nothing. This allows the kite to go up into the air much higher than it would be allowed in London or Berlin. But Beijing has no helicopters and therefore it’s no problem to fly a kite a few hundred meters above ground.

Being asked for the reason of sitting here, Mister Li says that this kind of evening requires kiting. A dragon night so-to-speak. And then he nods very meaningfully. Without context this sounds a little strange.

What Mister Li wants to say, is that you can play Xiang Qi (a Chinese form of chess) at any given evening. But when it has wind and it’s warm and – on top of it – a night without much smog, you just have to to go and fly a kite! How shameful to let an opportunity like this pass by.

As I gather my things to return home, Mister Li is still comfy on his folding chair, directing the kite traffic with his mates as if there were no tomorrow.

For the same time I was sitting next to him, I could have watched a movie at home on the couch. But somehow you’re not half as relaxed after a Hollywood flick as you are after flying kites with Mister Li. And it’s not the Chinese beer that’s responsible for this. Rather, it’s the down-to-earth and calm atmosphere. Sometimes even in Li country less is more

It’s a nasty thing. And no posh new age term like “street art” can hide the fact that most of it is not only ugly, which would be arguable, but it’s more often than not plain illegal and damages somebody else’s property or life quality.

We have become acquainted to everyday life’s painted mumblings and so it’s almost a disturbing sight to stand in front of long walls without the usual drippings of wackiness.
And in Beijing the walls are as clean as the first day. Or so I thought.

It took me another while, just as long as the first one, to discover things aren’t as un-sprayed upon as I thought. Only, around here you’d have to look out for something different.

They are small, usually black or red, and they contain long numbers. They are on walls, on the floor and on side curbs. What people put there is not a helpless outburst of hello-world-I-am-here-please-notice-my-existence-please-please, it is rather a sense of making business. We’re in China after all.

Need a new ID card? A Hukou (registration) or some other official form of identification? Let a brother help you out. ‘Lost’ your driver’s license? Sob no further. Whatever it is you are having trouble with getting the official way-the spraying powers can provide you. Certainly though, you won’t be given a receipt or find a customer service department on the other end of that phone number. But you probably guessed that by now.

Interestingly, most of the phone numbers are painted over. There’s obviously a substantial number of people responsible for crossing them out. Funny enough though, they really only paint over the numbers. You’d think they should cover it all (why take away the number and keep people be interested in the luring offer of a shiny new driver’s license?) and sometimes they do that, but often they don’t bother. And sometimes the paint is so thin that the number below easily shines through. But hey – we covered it, so don’t tell us we didn’t do our job!

So in a strange poetic way the city is filled with thousands of proposals to change the person you are.

Once in a while you also see people riding a bike and dropping little papers onto the sidewalk. With the most innocent facial expression in the world they look the other way, but the trail of cards behind them unmistakably originate from their pockets. It’s another layer of shady offers, much more temporary in existence, but no less illegal.

Luckily all my papers and documents are in order at the moment, so I have no need for any such services. However, I’m still waiting for an offer for more leisure time and tranquility. That would certainly be a remarkably valuable offer.

The alphabet is great. Not only does it allow us the verbal and written communication – it also gives us the possibility to create completely new word-creations.
However, one talent of the alphabet is completely under-rated until you arrive on the other side of this planet: it’s ability to bring order.

Whether it’s sorting the file cabinet, the CD- or the book shelf – lot’s of people would have a hard time without that alphabet. It eases the checking of the attendance list in class and provides for a clear structure in the mobile phone’s address book.

Want to sort according to the first or the last name? One click and you know where to look for – and find – your friend’s numbers.

But what if you’re not about to sort Tamara and Aaron into some list, but need to deal with 静 and 建国? (let’s ignore for the moment that in China you wouldn’t sort by the first name, but rather by the last name – well, if we can call it “last name” anyway)

Looking for answers we firstly run into the usual Chinese traps: one asks a direct question like, let’s say: “how do you sort things in China?” and wakes up about an hour later, being stuck in an exhausting and hot tempered discussion. A discussion without any foreseeable end or a definite answer.

Still, I’ll give it a try to summarize it from a European point of view:

Luckily, the old times (about 50 years or so ago) are over. Back then pretty much anyone had their own way of sorting. And you don’t want to try and put logic to that. Nowadays two main systems have survived: sorting by pronunciation and by the number of line strokes.

The former is easy to understand: 静 will be sorted under J, because it’s pronounced “Jing”. 建国 will also be found under J, because he he will hear his name being called “Jian Guo”. Unfortunately though, my research was not able to uncover whether Jian Guo would be sorted IN FRONT of Jing, just like we would do it according to our alphabetical understanding. You never know – after the first letter everything could be Chinese-like chaotic…
By the way – most computer systems also sort files this way and therefore, surprisingly, they follow the alphabet. At least phonetically. Except when they don’t, which also happens sometimes. And you guessed it – nobody knows why that is.

Stacking variation #2 refers to the line-count of the Chinese characters. By this system we will find 静 under 14 and 建国 under 8. From a European point of view this is quite weird. Chinese, however, are used to the proximity of letters and numbers. It’s how they look up unknown characters in the dictionary.

China developed a counting system, because of the fact that naturally nobody is able to pronounce a character they have never seen before in their life: So they count the line strokes in the main part of the character (somehow Mister Li and his bunch are able to determine this). And with this information they quite quickly can find the character in the dictionary, which has a look-up table for this purpose. That’s quite a handy thing.

Only our structure-loving Mister Meyer is wondering about two different systems existing in parallel: “But that would mean having to always first check which kind of system is used!” Exactly, Mister Meyer, you got it! And Mister Li casually adds “….so?” and keeps chewing his chicken foot.

If your last name is “Li”, order and regulation are not exactly the main purpose of life. And it doesn’t matter either, people still survive. Our bureaucratic Mister Meyer on the other hand is still startled and orders another beer.
By the way: just like in the West, beer in China is sorted into the belly. Ah, we’re not so different after all. Ganbei!

Mister Meyer raises his head from the menu. His wife however is terribly busy talking with Miss Johnson about the pros and cons of buying fake handbags. “Oh, right”, he remembers, ” we definitely need this potato mountain. You know, the dwarfy fries if you will. Those are just to die for”.

The waiter, a distant brother-in-lawish cousin of second degree to Mister Li’s aunt in the mother side of the family, is duly noting down the order and then returns to look at Mister Meyer with great attention. Mister Meyer, being done with his order, just sits there and looks back at him, not showing any signs of adding something. The waiter is obviously confused. But the reply he gives not only confuses Mister Meyer. It has the same effect on Mister Johnson and would even confuse the ladies, if only they were less busy with their topic.

“And for main course”?

Mister Meyer is slightly helpless. Well aware that an uncomfortable pause is beginning to build up, he quickly tries to find a solution for a problem he doesn’t even understand.

“Ehm, well, so we’d also like the lamb with coriander.” It almost rather sounded like a question than another order. As Mister Meyer looks at the waiter again, his confusion is quite tangible. How many dishes would he need to order until it’s acknowledged as a valid meal?

The waiter on the other hand is just as helpless. But he eventually heads off to the kitchen. Another one of these weird foreigner orders…

Here we were able to witness a scene which every day takes place in this country in one way or the other. Our culinary quartet from the West will shake their heads upon leaving the restaurant. They don’t understand why in China people need to order so many main dishes that it’s impossible to finish the plates. The clearing waiter on the other hand is also shaking his head. And it’s because of the foreigners who always order so many side dishes while forgetting so many other important parts of a meal.

The yummy tummy reader probably guessed it: once again everything is different in Li country.

In the West we have gotten used to a very clear food order: Steak with fries, chicken with rice, lamb with sauteed veggies, red snapper with salat on the side. Neatly following formular t as in tasty we call the dish by the meat part and treat the herbal part as secondary level. It’s on the side any way and therefore not too important. But noone cares too much about this, because at the end of the day, in the West we are served a pre-arranged meal all on one plate for a single person.

You may order a starter prior to the main course and that could be anything: hot, cold, meaty or veggie. Being a starter, it has no further description like, let’s say, side-dish-starter or main-hors d’œvre. And nobody cares should you not order any starter at all.

In China people expect you to be able to compse a dinner. You don’t get your all-on-one-plate servings, but need to order every food category yourself. Oh, and of course not only for yourself, but for the whole group. The plates will be gathered on the turntable in the middle and everybody enjoys everything. If it’s tasty. And if it’s composed with sense.

There should be a soup in order to warm up the stomach. A cold starter (there aren’t really any warm starters) should be on the table and of course a number of dishes, covering at least two meat categories. And certainly some veggie plates as well. After all that we turn to the main course. This is usually constituted by a bowl of rice, Baozi (a dough ball with filling) or noodles. Something with starch. Being a foreigner, this can certainly mess up your sense for what terms to use for food. A small bowl of plain rice….and that’s supposed to be a main course? You’d never guess if noone tells you.

Tea is also a must on the table. Or beer for that matter. A clear choice. And with both there is a single principle: The host (we’ll learn who that is in a minute) refills. And refilling means to watch out closely that no cup or glass is ever less than half way full. That constitutes a problem for the peace-loving European who likes to empty the glass or is looking forward to the drinkable temperature of the tea. It’s like consumption stress: much too often will he drink and also way too much, because the glass is always full.

The person to refill the glasses also has to watch out for one more thing: never to place the tea can facing any of the guests. That’s rude, will bring heaps of bad luck and constitutes the beginning of the end of the world. The only strange thing: this seems to be limited to the guests on the refiller’s own table. Nobody gives a chicken foot, should it point directly towards 120 other people in the room.

The host in the role of the refiller needs to be very much up to speed. Should he fail to fulfill the filling, he will be perceived as being stingy and inhospitable. Optionally this arguable fame falls to the younger generation who are required to take care of the oder ones. Regardless of who is the host.

And that brings us to the topic of “who is the host?”. Let’s assume that Mister and Misses Meyer have called up Mister and Misses Johnson to go and have dinner with them. In the Chinese mind, everything is set from that very moment. Mister Meyer is expected to book the restaurant, choose the dishes (at least 2 more than anyone can eat), watch over the drink supply and at the end of the day to pay the bill. Mister Johnson’s task on the other hand is to act like he wanted to take on the check. After that, both should fight for a short moment, only to have Mister Meyer prevail. This enables Mister Johnson to express a friendly “next time it’s on me”.

Subsequently that’s something he should do. And everything starts over from the beginning. With or without main course.

There are other posters as well-advertising fried fish, duck neck, pig intestines and river crabs. Gosh, Mister Li, what happened yo good old potato chips?

Anyway, time to spin the ball. “Waiter…!?”

While it sounds like silly fun, it carries some heavy stuff behind the laughter lines: The difficulty of name distribution beyond the nick name axis. Somehow everyone has already picked up on it somewhere that there was something the Chinese did differently. Was it the direction in which they are writing? Are they doing it from right to left? No, hold on, that was the Japanese. Bullocks, they are doing it from top to bottom. Yepp, but THEN they’re going from right to left, just like the Arabs do. Only those aren’t Asians, at least not the majority. But this takes us too far off the subject.

The only thing that, according to our sense of order, the Chinese do from right to left is their naming. Hu Jintao, Wen Jiaobao and even Mister Li – they all carry their last name up front (certainly, we now need to ask the deeply philosophical question whether or not we can actually still call the last name just that. But let’s not twist our last two brain cells over this).

So, comrade chairman is not happily greeted with “Hey Hu” when he takes his bicycle around the pond for a spin. Rather he’ll be thrown a more polite “Yoohoo, Mister Hu”. By the way: “Hu” also means beard or mustache, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he keeps a stiff upper lip.

So, the Chinese are turning their names around and start in reversed order. And they’re actually doing this with lots of things. Mister Johnson introduces himself this way: Hello, I am George Johnson, I’m working as an engineer at Intel in Santa Clara, California.

His business partner, Mister Zhang on the other hand does it like this: Hello, I am Zhang Yu, I work in China, Beijing at Honhai as head of inspection.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that all Chinese are coming on from behind. It’s more likely the much different perception of the importance of the individual that makes them do this. Being a little nasty we could say that in the West everybody thinks of themselves as the greatest thing on the face of this planet. In the East people believe they are merely a tiny wheel somewhere in the back of the much larger gear of society. The basic difference of one’s own identity can easily be displayed by asking the simple question “what’s your name”. You will hear “George” from the left and “Zhang” from the right.

Unfortunately though, as interesting as this information might be, it’s just as useless. At least it makes for some additional confusion. The reason is that some Chinese and Westeners are enlightened enough to try and come towards the other. This creates a large mingle-mangle of all sorts of combinations on name cards and documents:

Firstname Lastname
Firstname LASTNAME
Lastname Firstname
LASTNAME Firstename
Lastname, Firstname
and even Firstname, Lastname

The problem is that the names of the opposing culture are more often than not anything but self-explanatory. Is it Wang Bing or Bing Wang? Eventually you will have to ask. And once more you feel like the stupid tourist from next door.

However, asking also doesn’t necessarily get you very far. The reason lies within the previously mentioned circumstance that a “last name” in this sense is non-existant in the Chinese culture.

“Is Wang your first or last name?” usually would result in a puzzled face on the opposite side. Sticking to the truth he would reply: “Wang is … my name”.
Oh,really? We knew that already, John Doe, but which one of your names is it? This question makes his reflective cortex burn up and all you can expect to come out from him will be a cloud of smoke. He won’t understand why you’re asking for only a part of his name.
Certainly he does know the difference between the family name and the given name. In China though, people will either call one another by nickname, a construct of a title and last name or the full name. The latter certainly by putting the last name – or what you want to call it – first.

And who knows – maybe this is the root of the old saying “the last will be the first”.

Walking in a park is magical. It’s one of the few things that almost everyone loves. It heals the wounds of stress, it nourishes the senses and calms the mind, preparing it for the next tough week of life ahead.

It’s a piece of freedom of the cake of space around you. Geez, that’s heavy stuff.

People in an elevator, at least in Western ones, throw one another a short nod with the head as a sign of acknowledgement of the other person’s existance. It’s a brief statement of ‘I will accept your privacy’. People in a park however tend to joyfully express a “good day” to any stranger that crosses their path.

Being there underneath these high oak trees, you’d think this must be the most relaxing place on the face of this planet.

Think again.

When your country has more than a billion inhabitants and just about four economic centers, things are a slight bit different.

In Hamburg, where I used to live for the last 15 years, people pride themselves in quoting an ancient law, that is still in place: Any street of the city must feature at least one tree. It is therefore one of the greenest of the world’s bigger cities and still has lots of even greener parks on top, like the Ohlsdorf cemetary, Europe’s biggest.

In China there isn’t any such law, but I believe there is be a spoken rule that says: Any spot in the city must feature at least ten or more people.

Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and the like are therefore ideal giant settings for a music video of Michael Jackson’s “You are not alone”.

Because that’s what you are, just never alone. Ever.

Look at it this way: a city with less than 3 million citizens may not even be represented by more that a tiny dot on the map and people might not have heard of it, even if it’s only a 100 km away.

In that light, Hamburg with it’s just-below-2mio would probably not have much more than the status of an upper-sized village.

Let’s keep that in mind.

So, when you’re about to enter a park in China, the first thing you do is to line up behind the 100 people before you at the ticket counter. Yes, that’s right-you need to purchase a ticket to get in! And this would usually be somewhere around 6 Euros or above and only gives way to any general park-ish areas. Please pay again, if there’s a temple, greenhouse, large rock or any other amazing specialty in there.

And the ticket office was only the beginning.

Chinese like to go to bed early. And that in return makes them get up way before you. So when you finally reach the park, early in your own time, you bet that you’re welcomed by at least 5,000 fellow park enthusiasts. The early bird tramps the worm.

The noise level and plentitude isn’t much different from the streets out there. There’s babbling, shouting, running around and eating food where ever you go. A fairground atmosphere. And in the glorious times of iPod and music phones, there are also numerous walking sources of one-man entertainment centers and mini DJs.

Of course, having a phone’s tiny speakers cranked up to the point where it sounds like they’re about to give in any minute means one thing: the person in charge needs to speak quite loudly in order to communicate with the others in their group. You’d think they either want to listen to blasto-phone OR talk OR walk, but once more logic doesn’t apply.

And with a price this high (think of the average income level), most visitors will stay as long as possible, getting the highest return on invest as possible. You’d even see them bringing tents and turning the whole visit into a celebatory picknick-nap-play-nap-picknick event. They’ll do a lot to make sure they don’t have to go home too soon.

Well, you will say, at least you have the fresh shading trees, the calming nature and wonderful smells to enjoy, right?

Oh, how nice that would be.

The North of China doesn’t exactly enjoy a large supply of water. The nearby desert sends lots of hot dry air and only few rain clouds ever sneak through it to actually reach the area, making for sparse growth. And that makes parks quite a bit less green than their European counterparts. However, powered by wishful thinking, there is no lack of signs which try reminding you to keep away from that obviously invisible green stuff.

But the Chinese are easy to satisfy. Show them a half-bread tree with a handful of flaps that in a way resemble leaves, tell them this is wonderful nature and they shall believe it. Posing in front of anything that looks like it’s not fake they are happy as a bunch of squirrels in Spring time.

Fake? Yes, they actually HAVE fake trees and blossoms, too. Why? Well, because “it looks so nice”. Right, and it’s care-free. Made in China and all…

Don’t expect any shade from the aforementioned tooth picky trees though and stow away your romantical expectations of laying underneath and watching birds do birdy business.

The blossoming flowers might be there, but don’t look too closely-you might find they are all in plastic cups, being put there only a week ago. No need to plant any. The Winter is too harsh, so why bother? This way you can just easily replace them by buying new pallets and switching the dead ones. Oh, lovely passion for nature.

And as for the smells–you’ll have the wonderful scents of preservatives from cup noodles and other quick bites which prove to be astonishingly intense and long lasting.

I do adore the Chinese though. Here we are nagging about how impossible it is to find peace and calm in this environment. Meanwhile the crowd around us doesn’t give a chicken foot about it. They’re obviously enjoying themselves, kicking feather balls, taking loads of pictures with kitschy poses and doing whatever it is they like to do. They possess the ability to see nothing around them and focus just on themselves and their leisure time. For them, the park fulfills all the expectations they put into it: a place to be themselves.

That again is something to learn from.
Darn. Again!

And a date in China is paid for by the man. There’s no political correct fiddling with the bill. Who was drinking more wine, but had less 18 on the 23 and who had the sweeter tooth during desert? You can never really split a bill in half, and so East of Berlin nobody even tries. The man very manly proves his strength. He picks the restaurant, after that the food and eventually also the bills from his wallet.

Madam Wonderful on the other hand is expected to be styled-up to covergirl standard. Her job is to flirtatiously but in a slightly shy way wave her long eye lashes at the person on the other side of the table. And she’s expected to be in awe to anything Mister Li acquaints. Very clear areas of accountability. That’s not too bad after all.

Only, Mister Li doesn’t really know WHO he is about to spend the evening with. Short, tall, thin, clever, funny oder fond of tiny handbag doggies? He doesn’t have the slightest clue and his wondering mind puts more and more wrinkles on his forehead as the evening comes closer and closer.

Europeans who go on a blind date are considered rather daring. And while this very direct kind of thing is usually arranged for via web or through any other classifieds, the majority of the blind dates are actually done in disguise. Beth and Andrew might think for instance that Michelle and Steve could work out quite well together. And so they will do their hidden magic: “We’re going for dinner on Friday. Wanna join? Great. Oh, by the way, there’s also going to be one of Andy’s colleagues. I don’t know him, but he’s supposed to be rather fun to be around, so it should be alright. And it’s all very casual, we just want to have a nice time out.”
Well, but sure! Michelle and Steve anyway will chat around over pasta and have heaps of easy fun, because they don’t even know they have just been blind-dated.

When Mister Li and Miss Wonderful meet up, they will similarly not be the ones who have arranged for it. They will know however, that it’s a date and they’re even going to be all by themselves. And they definitely will go. They have no choice.

So, while these two strangers are making their polite hellos in the restaurant of choice, we will leave the scene for a moment. Let’s go and take a look at how this actually came about. And for that we need to turn back the clock a whole week.

Mother Li is getting out of the cab. It’s a sunny Sunday morning, the air smells like success. She resolutely closes the cab door and turns toward the Yuyuantan park in front of her. She loses no time, knows exactly where she wants to go and elegantly bypasses any obstacles and sights on the way.

It’s perfect timing as she reaches the cattle market. The choice is substantial, the competition sparse. Mother Li opens her handbag to grab hold of a pile of paper – documents and photos. Today it’s going to work out wonderfully. She can feel that. One last deep breath and off she goes with the astuteness of a hunter. She approaches a pack of chattering women and throws a cheerful “Good morning, ladies”.
The game begins.

For the next hours mother Li and all the other mommies and daddies are going to be busy bees, exchanging lots of information. “My daughter is stunningly beautiful!” “My son has a house!” “Mine does too AND he has a car!” “Does your daughter cook well?” “Sure, at least 30 dishes. And she’s really good at sowing.” “What are her school grades like?” “Can you show me some bank statements of your son?” “Tell me something about your family’s history”…
This is future in the making. It’s a mercyless business. And it’s one that bears a high numerus clausus.

The Chinese, as we all know, believe in lots of superstitions and they have legends for just about anything. At the time of the Tang dynastiy for instance there was a god who was responsible for the love between man and woman. Yue Lao, the “old man in the moon” possessed the book of fate. Written in it were all the people’s marriages. Furthermore he owned a red strand. It was said that once he tied two people together with it, they were bound to fall in love. regardless of how much sympathy they had for one another beforehand.

We don’t know whether the most beloved hobbyhorse of the Chinese, the matchmaking, started back then. But this hobby does belong to them the way baguette bread belongs to the French.

Today, however, Yue Lao is not needed. Mother Li has already gathered 5 promising telephone numbers.
Having done one hour of negotiations, this is quite normal for her. After all, she represents a son and that makes the game a slight bit more easy. Almost 90% of the tendering community is offering daughters. Mother Li is used to having the choice. But still it’s a kind of an art. It is considered impolite to refuse an offer for a date and so mother Li has to go upon it in a very tactical way. Don’t reveal too much information to soon. The daughter mob is lairy. Rapidly and unconsiderate is it lusting for contact.

Matchmaking is all that counts. The clock is a-ticking. Those whose female offsprings have passed 25 years of age look as relaxed as a trout in the desert. After 28 they are considered old. The daughters that is, not the trouts.
Furthermore, the grandchildren need to see the light of day before the lovely daughter turns 30. Anything later than that sheds an aweful light on the family and makes for some losing-face situation. Nobody wants neighbors and friends to think something’s fishy with their young ones…

And make no mistake – when a date gets arranged for on this market, it has a sole purpose: the two candidates are expected to decide for marriage no later than between main course and dessert. So that’s why mother Li is being very serious about the whole thing. Serious and, well, motherly.
She even has a trick that keeps any obstrusive candidates at distance. She invents alternative realities. Something that works really well is the story of her son being divorced and looking for a second wife. That usually does the job. The market doesn’t like return items.
Luckily she has the possibility of doing so. Men don’t have a best-before-date on this market. For them there merely is a financial hurdle. And you’re all safe should your collective possessions make you pass this one.

Mister Li is very safe. Not only does he have a decent job, he also owns an appartment. That’s why he already outlived several motherly procured dates and still keeps both feet on the ground instead of hectically putting down one knee in a rush.

Besides him, every week in China there are countless other daughters and sons who find themselves confronted with dating schedules they didn’t see coming. It’s pure stress. Even worse, at the end of the night there’s always the debriefing with the parents who want to know whether they can finally call the banns. And that is pure pressure. So every meet with every candidate becomes a test. If you don’t immediately hear violins play or see angels dance, your fear of being difficult to place just keeps growing another bit.

But do you really have to use mediators to meet the love of your life? The uncountable number of agencies for just that matter speaks for itself. Sure, the Europeans have them too, but on this side of the planet they are much more realistic. And that can be quite uncomfy. In Europe people like to pretend they care about nothing but the moral courage and the philosophical world views of other people. But in China facts are what matters. You might not even be accepted to an online platform for instance, should you choose to keep your salary a secret. You even find platforms which won’t accept anyone below a certain level of financial strength.

Should you strive to know about the reasons behind all this matchmaking action, you just need to ask mother Li: “Our kids don’t have enough time. They work too much and much too long. Their friend circle is either far away or comprise only colleagues. How on Earth are they supposed to meet somebody new?”

The logic is ravishing. And even the very individual and enlightened European has to admit that this problem isn’t anything unusual. The means may differ, but the goal is the same. And the Chinese don’t have the Westeners’ possibilities of running into someone in a bar or a club. Those establishments are still considered slightly shady amoungst a surprisingly large group of Chinese people, regardless of age. It’s an ancient misbelief, which (no longer) bears any truth.
The remaining choices are office and friends. Or one of the previously mentioned agencies and mom and dad.

Luckily the Chinese method is with quite some success. Lots of parents have sufficient time at their disposal to go out and hunt. And they have no fear of contact. Besides: Who else would know their kids this well? And that’s the best prerequisite for matchmaking. Whether the kids like it or not.

Mister Li really had fun tonight. It’s not always likt that, so he really is upbeat. He sends the young lady off in a cab and watches the car disappear in the traffic. A smile runs around his face. It really was nice. Mister Li would love to see her again. Best tomorrow. But unfortunately that’s not possible. Tomorrow is Saturday and as usual mother Li has appointed two new dates to attend.
Mister Li sighs and calls a taxi to take him home. It really isn’t easy being single in Beijing.