29-year-old Gong Haiyan, who graduated from Peking University and fulfilled her postgraduate courses in Fudan University, is now engaged in a centuries-old profession -- matchmaking. However, compared with mothers and grandmothers undertaking this career, she seems unusual.
Gong chose to serve the population of rapidly increasing internet users in that the internet has reached all aspects of Chinese people's daily life.
As the founder of www.love21cn.com, the most frequently visited professional dating website in China, Gong Haiyan has 500,000 registered members. More than 20,000 people have found a spouse through her website, which now registers 4,000 new members every day.
It is not easy to become a member of this website. Since lover21cn is a regular website for dating and marriage, Gong requires that its members, junior college graduates at least, submit their academic certifications and identifications, and promise that to find true love is their only purpose.
Indeed, a large number of members have realized their dreams. A doctoral degree holder met a friend through the website, paid mutual formal family visits two months later, finished decorating their new home in the fourth month after they got to know each other, took photos for their wedding in the fifth month, and then released on the website their marriage registration certificate.
A young man working in Singapore met a girl living in Dalian, a coastal city in northeast China. They kept in contact with each other on the phone for three months and got the marriage certificate seven days after their first date. They invited Gong Haiyan to their wedding banquet and asked her to name their baby to express their gratitude.
Gong was one of those who have found love through this website. She confessed that her original intention was to find a husband for herself as soon as possible.
She had realized her dream and married a 33-year-old postdoctoral member of the Chinese Academy of Science one and a half months after they met each other. They rode to the local civil affairs bureau by bicycle and got their marriage registered at the bureau.
(China News Service April 20, 2006)
