For many unmarried urban youths, returning home during the holidays has changed from family reunion to "marriage promotion," and the National Day holiday has become a "blind date golden week."
Many single young people will go on blind dates this holiday season, urged by their parents to use the break to "solve their personal problems."
Bachelor parties and matchmaking activities with different themes (eight-minute dating, lightning dating, meeting at theater, etc.), as well as entertainment activities (such as playing chess and cards, board games, etc.), are also held in various cities.
A two-day blind dating is held in Pingdingshan, Central China's Henan Province, and some other cities during the holiday break.
As National Day approached, some single young people were shocked when they received a seven-day matchmaking schedule from their parents. Some young people find the non-stop dating during the holidays more tiring than working, according to Wuhan Morning Post. "I have five blind dates to attend to during the seven-day National Day break," Xiaoyue, a girl from Xiangyang, Central China's Hubei Province, told the Wuhan Morning Post.
"A low-quality marriage is far inferior to a high-quality single life," Zhang, who said he would rather go on a road trip with his classmates during the National Day holiday than passively accept blind dates at home, told the Wuhan Morning Post. He said he is still looking forward to romance instead of an arranged marriage.
Data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairsshowed that the marriage rate in China was 7.3 per 1,000 in 2018, 0.4 points lower than the previous year and the lowest in the past 11 years.
In contrast, the number of active users of dating apps surpassed 20 million by the first quarter of 2019, and the overall age of users falls mainly between 25 and 35, according to a report by BigData research, a Beijing-based consulting service company.
