SEVEN MINUTES. How would you make best use of seven minutes? By having a cigarette break, perhaps. But the average cigarette takes 12 minutes to smoke. Maybe it could be spent applying a five-minute face mask, with one minute for putting it on and another to wash it off. Seven minutes doesn't seem long enough for a turning point in your life, when you might meet the man or woman of your dreams.
Well think again, lonely hearts. Speed Dating has finally arrived in Hong Kong. if you can spare seven minutes from your hectic schedule, you could meet the love of your life.
Sounds unlikely? It has worked elsewhere. Speed Dating began in Los Angeles in January 1999. Started by a Jewish resource organisation called Aish HaToran, the musical chairs-style introductions service originated as a scheme to help Jews meet and marry. Its popularity spread and it soon became hip in Man-hattan too.
It works like this. An equal number of men and women are invited to the venue. Each woman is assigned to a different table. The men get to sit with each woman for seven minutes. When the time is up, a bell rings, signalling the guys to move on to another date. The women stay where they are. At the end, everybody has to put down the name of the person he or she fancies to see if there is a match. The only cost is for drinks consumed and, perhaps, a bruised ego if it all goes horribly wrong.
Club bl.ush in Hollywood Road has borrowed this concept from the United States and recently held the SAR's first Speed Dating session.
'The idea came from one of our shareholders,' says the club's manager TM Chan. 'Lots of his friends in the US and Europe have been to this Speed Dating and it was very cool.'
