Zhou Mei’s matchmaking show draws crowds in person and online, but young Chinese increasingly choose singledom
T
he crowd is sweltering under a red and gold awning, but Granny Wang has them rapt. Packed into the space in front of the 62-year-old’s small stage, and spilling out on to the wooden bleachers above, hundreds of people have gathered to hear Granny Wang – real name Zhao Mei – play matchmaker to young men and women at a daily show in a theme park in Kaifeng, an ancient city in central China’s Henan province.
One man who volunteers to be set up comes on stage and tells Zhao that a previous relationship broke down due to a lack of time. “Well, now that you’ve met your ideal partner here, you’ll have the time,” she assures him, and the crowd cheers.
Zhao has played the character of Granny Wang for eight years and introduced the matchmaking element of her show in 2023 – which brought her viral fame. Last year she went from having a few hundred thousand followers on Douyin, a Chinese social media app similar to TikTok, to more than 7 million, and has been called “China’s Cilla Black”, a reference to the late host of the British TV show Blind Date. But with some audience members arriving several hours early and enduring the mid-August heat to grab a front-row spot for the raucous and somewhat camp performance, Zhao could just as well be Henan’s Madonna.
