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Debbie Mason

China's new super-rich are discovering that all their money cannot buy the one thing many of them crave - a  spouse. 
The number of mainland millionaires is estimated to be more than 500,000, while billionaires have reached the triple digits, according to the latest Forbes China Rich List, released last week. But as many discover that their luxury yachts, mock Italian villas and real diamonds are not attracting the girls of their seven-star dreams, they  find themselves turning to specialist online Cupids to sort their love lives out. 
For US$1,500, Shanghai-based Diamond Bachelor is offering its clients a luxury service to assist them in hunting down quality wives.
The company hires full-time 'love hunters' to scour restaurants and shopping malls in the mainland's large cities for the right women for their rich, but rather coy, customers.
'Our company provides a vital service for a niche market,' site founder Xu Tianli said.
'Our clients may be wealthy, but the circles they move in make it hard for them to find partners.'
The website's internet address, 915915.com.cn, is a homonym for 'Just want me, just want me'. Its love hunters are based in three offices  in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
Yang Jing heads the Beijing team and organises 'events' around the city at which they literally go on the hunt.
On one occasion, she heads to the Xinhua Department Store off the second ring road in downtown Beijing. 
Yang, 27, is married and quite specific about her requirements.
'We are looking for good women for our clients,' she  said. 'We have three grades. Grade A is young, good education, very elegant, 22 to 30, height between 1.3 metres  and 1.7 metres.  B grade is quite good-looking, the right height, also educated. 
'C grade is very ordinary girls. For very ordinary girls, we just have one demand. They must be very kindhearted.
'It's best if they have long hair.'
 Yang said clients like nurses, as men consider them to be gentle, sympathetic and understanding, so events are often held at  hospitals. 
'We signed up a nurse today,' she  said. 
Yang only approaches those women who 'walk properly', have a high enough education (she can tell from observing their behaviour), and are neither too old nor too fat.
 At a cosmetics booth on the ground floor, she homes in on potential prey.
After five minutes' introduction, a slim, long-haired sales assistant in her twenties starts looking interested. She eventually nods her head and takes Yang's card. 
'I don't have a boyfriend at the moment, so yes, I think this will be interesting,' says Wang Hui.
As we walk away, Yang  whispers: 'C grade.' 
Diamond Bachelor claims to have five million clients on its books and that the success rate - success is chalked up when a client  falls in love - is at least 80 per cent. 
Miss Chen, a young hopeful at the Beijing office, was signed up by  Yang a few days ago, when she went to an event advertised online. 
'We [women] always feel the love at the start; we don't care about money and material things, because the feelings are more important,'  Chen says.
'Then, slowly, we think that the man should have a certain economic basis if we are to live together, so that the two of us can support the family.
'I had a quick look on the website: they are quite old. Well, I'm not a young girl either. I'm 27; I can accept a man between 30 and 35 years old. There are lots of boys and girls these days who are left on the shelf. 
'There's a paradox, you want to wait for your Prince Charming, but time doesn't wait for you, and you get too old.'
Dr Li Song is the founder of the largest Chinese-speaking matchmaking site in the world, Zhenai.com. Its name means 'Cherish'. 
He explained that in China, matchmaking is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years. While in past generations it took the form of an old woman  running between villages with name lists of likely marriage material, today it has simply shifted to the internet.  
 Li said one thing that hasn't changed is the fact that women still want  their men to be the breadwinners. 
'It turns out that despite the feminist movement in the last several  decades, the facts don't really support people's claim that things have changed,' he said. 
'Based on studies by US academics, female millionaires set even higher standards. The theory is that even though in their current life they are doing very well and they are financially independent, in their distant memory their genes still remember the hunger and the insecurity.' 
As Chen explains, 'Even when she already has a high revenue, no matter what achievements she has made, or what position in society she has, a woman still needs a man to protect her. 
'She is, in the end, a woman.' 
Recent research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences warns that the gender imbalance on the mainland could start  to hit hard by 2020, with 24 million men potentially unable to find wives.
For those with a few extra dollars, specialist help is at hand. 
'They need our help because their feeling is that they have particularly high qualifications and need to find women who are exceptional,'  Diamond Bachelor's Xu said.  
'Our company provides a strict service to our members: we have to stress that our ultimate goal is to find a spouse, not just a girlfriend or someone to sleep with. They are willing to pay a lot of money to find an exceptional one to give them a family. 
'They want a home.'



Millionaires turn to online Cupids