The 'First Dates' of Chinese Single Grandparents

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• LUCAS OF THE LIME

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  @Lucasdelacal

  Beijing

Updated Monday, February 21, 2022-02:26

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Mr. Cui Qingwen enters the set and grabs the microphone.

"My wife died 23 days ago and I want to forget her," he explains.

He wears a cap, a black suit and has a slight limp in his left leg.

"I am looking for a young and beautiful wife to serve me," he blurts out, looking at the camera.

On television, as Cui speaks, a banner appears that introduces him: "74-year-old widowed grandfather. He has his own house and a pension of 3,300 yuan a month [460 euros]."

Then the microphone is handed over to Mrs. Jin Yukun (caption: "71-year-old widow with a pension of 2,500 yuan [350 euros]." She does not seem very happy. "You are not looking for a woman, what you want is a babysitter," the woman rebukes Cui.

They had both had a recorded date at the man's house.

It didn't go very well.

"I think you're a bit selfish. You only think about your other half taking care of you. Have you ever thought about taking care of others?" The woman continues.

"Don't give me lessons. I spent five years taking care of my sick wife before she died. Now I just want them to do the same to me," Cui defends.

The second guest enters.

Pu Fang, 76 years old, divorced.

She says that her ex-husband was an alcoholic and that he "went crazy and started hitting people on the street."

She is only looking for a man to accompany her and take care of her.

"I don't like it. I don't want to take care of anyone and I don't want more friends. What I'm looking for is a loving and intimate relationship," insists Cui.

They also had a date before entering the set.

It was another failure.

Retirees Cui, Jin and Pu starred last week in

, a 30-minute daily program aired on the public broadcaster in Jilin, a northeastern Chinese province that borders North Korea and Russia.

It is the

dating

Unlike most of the many similar programs across the Asian country, in Jilin's

.

In 2020, producer Gao Pengju, who specializes in youth blind date

shows, came up with the idea after his team received many calls from older people asking if they could also participate in the show to find love.

Now,

Jilin's

.

But there are many more, especially young people, who devour the hundreds of best moments of the program that circulate on Douyin, as TikTok is known in China.

Couple participating in Jilin.EM's TV show

Wang Fucheng, 78, who has been a widower for two decades, cries after going on a restaurant date with the couple who had found him on the show.

," says the man.

Next to her, Zhang Shuqing, a divorcee the same age as her, is emotional because she too feels very lonely.

The date seems to be going well until Wang reveals that he is uneducated.

"I did graduate. I'm not interested in you. I hope to find someone with a bit of culture," says the woman.

In addition to the successful Jilin TV slot, new dating shows with large audiences starring older people who bluntly talk about previously taboo topics, such as having sex after menopause, are appearing all the time.

wave of divorces

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics in 2021, there are more than 260 million people over the age of 60 in China, 14.2% of the national population.

A quarter are widowed or divorced elderly living alone.

A figure that continues to rise because the wave of divorces among older people, something unthinkable in China a few decades ago, continues to grow.

That's why more and more retirees are turning to TV shows to find a partner or signing up for online dating platforms.

"The number of silver-haired singles exceeds 80 million, and middle-aged and older people are becoming the backbone of the blind date market," says a publication by Everytime Technology, one of the companies that has designed a

aimed at Chinese retirees.

It has 10,000 subscribed users.

A couple dances in a park, in Shanghai.AP

The Chinese newspaper

published an article in which it also located the

, which are extended to various parts of the country.

Like IKEA in Shanghai, Zhongshan Park in Wuhan or the banks of the Changpu River in Beijing.

In the latter, there is a group of eight single retirees who meet every Thursday morning.

"My neighbor met here last year who is now her second husband. He encouraged me to come and I have met very interesting men, but only as friends," says Mrs. Feng (72 years old).

"When I was young I had a boyfriend who died in a traffic accident. Since then I haven't had a partner again. But it's never too late."

Another of the unconditional supporters of the river is Huang, who turns 74 this spring.

He says that when he became a widower three years ago he turned to a matchmaker for help finding a new woman.

"She cheated on me. I paid her 1,000 yuan [140 euros] to set me up several dates, but then she disappeared with my money," he says.

Huang and Feng have a few days left to go buy vegetables at the market.

The other retirees from the river joke that they are already a couple but that they still don't know it.

Feng is not very amused and makes a blunt statement: "Huang only loves me because I have more money than him."

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