Taiwan Today

Wu Chao-ming (吳照明) was quite happy living in the early eighties as a 33-year old bachelor. He thoroughly enjoyed his teaching and research work in geology at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei, and his parents were not pressuring him to get married—quite an unusual phenomenon at the time. But Wu couldn't resist the pressure from his students at least to consider marriage be cause he was "getting old." They encouraged him to go public with his interest in finding the right woman by participating in a TV matchmaking show that was not only popular with Taiwan's viewing audience, but also rather successful in bringing single people together. "I went because I thought it would be a good experience," Wu says. "But I didn't at all expect I would marry someone I met on the show."

Surprise. Wu met Liu Ai-hua (柳愛華) on a March 1984 show, and a decade later they are the parents of three young daughters and can thank the producers of I Love the Red Maid for bringing them together. (The show's name refers to a well-known fourteenth-century story in which a maid helps a budding romance blossom between the two main characters. Since then, Hung-niang, the Red Maid, has become synonymous with matchmaking.) The TV show is an indication of how much matchmaking has changed from the past.

"Traditionally, parents would ask friends or relatives to introduce mates for their sons or daughters when they reached marriage age," says Yang Hui-min (楊慧敏), who has many years of experience in bringing potential couples together. "But the matchmakers, as well as family and friends who heard about the possible match, were usually so enthusiastic that they put heavy pressure on the couple to make their decision. If it didn't work out, people lost face, and if it was successful, the couple felt a continuing obligation to the matchmaker."

Like many other participants on The Red Maid, Wu and Liu were at first not attracted to each other. But after attending several follow-up social activities sponsored by the show, they became better acquainted and decided to go steady. The match worked, and they were married a year later.

Today, Wu is still teaching, and he and his wife own and operate a jewelry store. Wu also teaches special courses on jewelry and publishes a quarterly magazine on the subject. From their conversation and frequent laughter, it is easy to see they are quite happy with their marriage. "I have nothing to complain about except that my husband is usually not very romantic," Liu jokes. "Maybe it's because he has spent so many years studying geology—sometimes he's just like one of those stones under his magnifying glass."

The Red Maid has compiled an impressive record of successful matches since the show started in 1982. At least three hundred couples owe their first introduction to the show or to its related activities. As Taiwan's first televised matchmaking service, the program broke new ground in society as much as on the screen. "People were so busy with their careers that they didn't have time for romance," says Hung Li-fu (洪理夫), producer of The Red Maid. Hung speaks from personal experience. When he married in 1980 at age 34, his family and friends thought he was already too old to be a groom.

At first, the show had difficulties attracting participants. Televised match making was still too radical an idea for most singles and their parents. But Taiwan society was shaken to the roots during the eighties by rapid modernization and urbanization, and people's attitudes began shifting with the times.

"We now have a long waiting list of applicants for the show, and many parents are even more enthusiastic than their sons or daughters," Hung says. The program has gained a good reputation be cause it chooses participants carefully. Besides conducting a basic background check, including educational experience, the show requires each applicant to go through a personal interview. Being photogenic is not the main criterion for se lection. Family background, education, occupation, hobbies, manners, and most important of all, attitude and personality, are all taken into consideration. "We interview people as if we were making matches for our own brothers or sisters," Hung says. "We believe you should not do to others what you would not want them to do to you."

The program format is quite simple. Through one-on-one, one-on-three, or three-on-three conversations guided by the shows host and hostess, participants get a basic idea of each other and decide whether they want to arrange a date after the show. But establishing a relationship while taping an hour-long segment of the show proved especially difficult for most of the early participants. In the second year of the show, Hung set up the I Love the Red Maid Club to hold follow-up activities for all the TV show's participants.

"Love at first sight doesn't happen very often," Hung says. "People needed more time to get to know the people they had just met. But after the show, they were usually too shy or too busy to con tact each other. So we provided the opportunity." The club now holds indoor and outdoor activities every month, and these have further improved the show's match making record.

The program's content has also diversified. Hung has had special programs for the widowed or divorced, middle aged, senior citizens, handicapped, and people from both sides of the Taiwan Straits. And for those who prefer not to show their faces on TV, he has since 1990 also produced a matchmaking radio show, The Red Maid Loves Me.

Hung tries to keep in touch with married couples who met on the program or in its club activities, and he often invites them to share their experiences with the audience. He has only one regret: "The participants are like our own family, and we would like to know if they get married," Hung says. "But I'm sorry that many of them don't tell us."

The success of The Red Maid has spawned imitators on both TV and radio. But only a limited number of singles can be accommodated by such programs. The growing demand for modern forms of matchmaking that cut out the hassle of traditional methods is therefore being met by other organizations offering similar services. These can be divided into two basic types: those that host group activities, and dating services.

The Taipei YWCA is a typical example of the first type. Since July 1990, the Taipei Y has been organizing social activities for single people aged twenty to forty. Dianne Huang (黃幟紅), a Y activity director, says they are doing much the same thing as The Red Maid. "We feel many people need our services," she says. "Activities like parties and games can reduce the discomfort people feel in groups."

Huang points out an interesting phenomenon in her work: For outdoor activities, more women sign up than men, but the situation is reversed for indoor activities. Huang explains that women can usually enjoy one-to-three-day trips, even if they don't meet an ideal male friend. But men usually think it's not worth the risk of spending a couple of days and getting nowhere. It's better to meet as many women as possible in the two-to-three-hour indoor activities. "They tell me they simply don't want to waste the time," Huang says.

Huang also feels sorry that there is no way to know how many couples have married after meeting at the Y's activities. "We sometimes receive wedding invitations or engagement cakes, and we are very happy that we can share in the joyful news," she says. "But fewer and fewer people are letting us know."

Although participating in organized group activities may be a good way to reduce the uneasiness of a first meeting, some professional matchmakers see problems with this approach. "In group activities, better-looking people usually have better chances," says matchmaker Yang Hui-min. "But on one-on-one dates, there's a better environment for two people to learn about each other's inner personality, which we consider more important than outward appearances."

Yang has been in the matchmaking profession for more than sixteen years and now operates the Yi Hsin Club, one of Taiwan's largest dating clubs. When singles apply for club membership, the first step is to fill out forms that ask for personal information and preferences regarding the type of people they would like to meet. Club staff members then inter view new members to gain a better idea of their background and personalities. "The more we know about our members, the better chance we have of matching them with the right people," Yang says.

Clubs such as Yi Hsin all have membership fees, which can vary from more than US$100 to ten times that figure. In some cases, the club staff arranges dates for its members based on the information in the application forms. In other clubs, members can read through the data filed by members of the opposite sex and then ask the club to arrange an introduction. A few clubs use computers to match people, but Yang insists that the human brain does the best job. "We are looking for lifetime matches," she says. "These decisions are best made by experienced matchmakers, not computers."

Another appeal of dating services is that scheduling is easier. Because many people have to work on weekends and holidays, they find it difficult to make time for group socializing. "Group activities consider the convenience of the majority," Yang says. "But we focus on the needs of each individual." For safety and convenience, the first dates take place in the club's meeting rooms. Here, potential couples can decide whether they want to exchange phone numbers and arrange an other time to get together.

Jessica Menn is a member of the Yi Hsin Club's branch in Taichung, central Taiwan. She joined because her younger sister is a member and has been dating someone she met through the club. Menn has a degree in business administration and would like her potential date to have at least an undergraduate degree. In the past year, the club has arranged about ten dates for her, but Menn has yet to find the man of her life. "Maybe it's fate," she says.

Even though Menn is usually very outgoing, she admits it was a little awkward to just start talking to a man she had never met before, especially knowing that both of them were thinking of finding someone to marry. "The good thing about the club's arrangements is that I can meet many people, and there is no pressure if I don't really like them," she says. "But it does seem that the traditional process of getting to know someone, falling in love, planning for the future, then getting married, is somehow reversed."

A few dating clubs make use of the latest audio-visual materials by giving club members video databases to scan in order to see if there are people they want to meet. One of Yang's professional matchmaking friends tried the idea several years ago, but it failed. "Everyone wanted to watch tapes of other people, but they were reluctant to be taped them selves," Yang says. "Maybe our society is still not ready for it."

But society has already gone through some sweeping changes since The Red Maid first went on the air and the Taipei Y started hosting group activities. In fact, the dating and marriage scene has changed enough in recent years to divert audiences away from The Red Maid, which may even go off the air soon. These days, singles suffer less from shyness and lack of dating experience. When Hung Li fu and Yang Hui-min started their match making services, they were generally considered the last hope for those who wished to end their single life. "But now, people have no problem finding dates," Yang says. "They come because they know we can provide more and better choices. And to be practical, we save them a lot of time. The more members a club has, the more chances it has to make good matches."

Yang points out another change in the people who meet in her group activities: the time between the first date and marriage has shortened from several years to several months. Hung says that people are also getting married later and later. Grooms who are thirty-five or thirty-six are no longer considered "old." Statistics from the Ministry of the Interior concur. In 1981, the average marrying age was 28.8 for men and 22.8 for women. A decade later, it increased to 29.9 for men and 26.7 for women.

Hung also points out another changing attitude toward marriage. He says that more and more people choose to divorce when they really only have a minor problem. In 1981, 14,900 couples divorced, and the number increased to 29,200 couples in 1992. "Where have all the virtues such as patience and communication gone?" Hung asks.

It is difficult to know how many dating clubs and other matchmaking organizations operate around the island. One reason is that club lifespans vary greatly. Many close down because of bad management. The most common complaint in these cases is a failure to maintain the confidentiality of their databases. Other clubs just do not attract enough members and membership fees to pay their staff.

For those who want to use dating and matchmaking services, the producer of The Red Maid has some solid advice: Be fore applying, check out the reputation of the club and the attitude of the people who are in charge. Do they really offer worth while services or do they just want to make money? Then find out how the club works, the degree of confidentiality, and if the fees are reasonable. "In a busy society, dating and matchmaking services are a good way to broaden one's social life," Hung says. "The important thing is to keep the right attitude. The key to success is to judge your own background and personality accurately so that you won't make a list of qualifications that can never be met." •