Love gets a lift from the youth league

Too busy working, with few chances to find a date? Single people in Zhejiang province in East China can now embrace more chances to find love, after the provincial youth league set up a department to serve them, starting in June.

"The new department will build a database with records on the singletons, and set up some groups to organize regular mass dating parties to provide more chances for them to find their love,"Wang Jun, official in charge of such services at the Zhejiang provincial branch of China's Communist Youth League, said on Friday.

"What we do is serve them to cater to their growing demand, and it's not an administrative order to force them to participate,"he added.

It's among efforts that quickly came about after the country's youth league said on May 17 that it planned to pay more attention to the growing concerns of young single people and promised to provide more help.

The news about the coming help from the youth league went viral online last week, triggering a lively discussion about single people in China.

"We have noticed the growing needs of young people, who are busy with work and find it difficult to date because of their narrow set of friends,"said Wang, from the Zhejiang provincial youth league.

Data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs show that about 200 million adults were single and living alone in 2015, and marriages dropped by 6.3 percent year-on-year in 2015. Another survey, released in August by a large commercial dating website, Zhenai, found that most singles are concentrated in the metropolises of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing.

The league has organized mass dating parties since last year, which enables many singles to meet other singles, "and I know some of them are in relationships now”, Wang said. "Additionally, we can guarantee better than some commercial dating sites that there are no swindlers in our activities."

According to Wang, people do not need to be a youth league member to participate in the dating activities, and no age limit is set.

Many people applauded the Zhejiang initiative.

Followers of the youth league's weibo account cheered the news: "Count me in, please! I'm 23,"and, "Finally! My country never disappoints me!"

"It's great and will help us to find a date efficiently,"said Wang Zheng, 25, who will graduate from the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing this summer.

Others voiced doubts about authorities becoming involved in dating and marriage issues.

"The mass dating parties will not work, because it would be too awkward,"said Han Yanni, 24, who works in Beijing, adding that she has participated in some of the parties while at her university, but without results.

Liu Han, who also works in Beijing, agreed, saying it's a personal issue and it's better for authorities not to step in.