{"id":73482,"date":"2025-08-16T16:00:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T07:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/aug\/16\/china-granny-wang-dating-show-marriage-rates"},"modified":"2025-08-16T16:00:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T07:00:54","slug":"now-its-about-personal-happiness-popular-granny-wang-dating-show-belies-chinas-plummeting-marriage-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=73482","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Now it&#8217;s about personal happiness\u2019: popular Granny Wang dating show belies China\u2019s plummeting marriage rate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zhou Mei\u2019s matchmaking show draws crowds in person and online, but young Chinese increasingly choose singledom<\/p>\n<p>The crowd is sweltering under a red and gold awning, but Granny Wang has them rapt. Packed into the space in front of the 62-year-old\u2019s small stage, and spilling out on to the wooden bleachers above, hundreds of people have gathered to hear Granny Wang \u2013 real name Zhao Mei \u2013 play matchmaker to young men and women at a daily show in a theme park in Kaifeng, an ancient city in central China\u2019s Henan province.<\/p>\n<p>One man who volunteers to be set up comes on stage and tells Zhao that a previous relationship broke down due to a lack of time. \u201cWell, now that you\u2019ve met your ideal partner here, you\u2019ll have the time,\u201d she assures him, and the crowd cheers.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/aug\/16\/china-granny-wang-dating-show-marriage-rates\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zhou Mei\u2019s matchmaking show draws crowds in person and online, but young Chinese increasingly choose singledomThe crowd is sweltering under a red and gold awning, but Granny Wang has them rapt. Packed into the space in front of the 62-year-old\u2019s small &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4896,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,1788,76,235,281,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-dating","category-marriage","category-social-media","category-women","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73483,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73482\/revisions\/73483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}