The live blind date rule of "rural version of Mengfei"

Wang Mengge and his wife sitting in the courtyard of their hometown (provided by interviewee/photo)

New solutions for blind dates

"How tall? Multiple? What education? What does it do? How much is the salary? Is there a room? Do you have a car? A series of questions appeared in the live broadcast room, which is the usual phrase of Wang Mengge, the anchor of the blind date "red lady".

When meeting older guests, he will also add to ask, whether he has ever been married, whether he has children, can he accept to bring a girl... In the context of Wang Mengge's live broadcast room, it is better to take a girl than a boy, because when the latter grows up, buying a car and a house and giving a bride price will be a big burden for the family.

These questions, which are offensive under general scrutiny, collide in the live broadcast room to produce straightforward and accurate answers, and the blind date stories are staged here, and Wang Mengge is also known as the "rural version of Mengfei". This is a new solution for blind dates that he has explored - the hardware conditions are "paper can't contain the fire", and he is responsible for checking and finding the other half of the guests who come on blind dates.

"Wang Mengge" is the flower name. He is 52 years old and a native of Linyi, Shandong. His surname is Wang and his wife's surname is Meng, and their dream is to buy an attic one day and live in a high-rise building, hence the flower name "Wang Mengge". Because his wife was ill and needed to be raised at home, the idle couple played short videos, often opened live broadcasts and chatted with netizens about home, and the local dialect was called "Laga". There are more pulls, and the popularity is also there, and there are often one or two thousand people in the live broadcast room. Some netizens saw that Wang Mengge was often happy, singing while cooking, and asked why he was so happy, Wang Mengge replied, "I told my two sons' daughters-in-law, and now I have three grandchildren and a granddaughter." This was a blessing that Wang Mengge felt.

There is no shortage of old people who worry about their children in Wang Mengge's live broadcast room, and soon someone asked if he could tell his family a daughter-in-law. Wang Mengge agreed, and the first time he connected the microphone in the live broadcast room, the matter really happened. Coming and going, more and more people, word of mouth, Wang Mengge simply decided to hold an offline blind date conference on the Qixi Festival.

The day before the Qixi Festival in 2022, Wang Mengge previewed in the video, "The two of us discussed holding a marriage party for the common people, so that our rural children can get rid of the single." ”

More than 2,000 people poured into the farmyard, the sound of firecrackers sounded non-stop, on the day of the Qixi Festival, the scene said that there were more than 70 pairs, and it was also on that day that the peak popularity of Wang Mengge's Kuaishou live broadcast room exceeded 10,000. After becoming famous in World War I, Wang Mengge's village became the focus, and people from nearby counties and townships who wanted to ask for relatives or see the excitement began to rush here. For the next 70 days, more than 5,000 people came every day, and hundreds of cars were parked on nearby roads every day. The pandemic until the end of 2022 led to the suspension of activities. The local government was very supportive of Wang Mengge, and specially sent police to maintain traffic security, "building toilets, men's and women's toilets, repairing parking lots, and building roads." Wang Mengge said.

As for why the government is so supportive, Wang Mengge feels that it is because he has also made a little contribution to society, "Let's do this thing to connect the older youth of our people, and also maintain our social security, you are like an older youth without a daughter-in-law, idle and idle, causing certain harm in society." "There are nearly 200 blind date anchors in Linyi, Shandong, and on the short video platform Kuaishou, it is the city with the largest number of blind date live broadcasts in China. The popular Wang Mengge live broadcast room has a law that belongs to this context.

"As long as it rains, I will run home," Wang Mengge summed up the standard for "the other half", which is a typical example of living a solid life. There is another sentence hanging on the lips, "the conditions are relaxed, the road is as wide as it is, and the Yihe River (a local river) is as wide as it is", following this rule, a pair of guests were successfully matched. In Wang Mengge's view, there is no marriage that cannot be made into a couple, "If we really want to negotiate, let's relax the conditions for him, and (in the future) we can come back to the mirror again every month and strive until he finds a partner." ”

Matching is the supreme rule here

People with disabilities are often a silent group in the blind date market, but Wang Mengge's live broadcast room has reserved places for them, such as arranging 20 pairs of blind dates, of which 1-2 are people with disabilities. Wang Mengge can understand the situation of the families of disabled children, and their parents hope that the children can form a family, so that after a hundred years, the children will not be alone.

Wang Mengge recalled that there was a young man who lacked an ear to go on a blind date, this person is good at selling second-hand mobile phones, with an annual income of more than 200,000 yuan, Wang Mengge believes that this is his advantage over many able-bodied people, but if you do not spread such "advantages" with the help of the Internet, you may not find anyone with a lantern in reality.

Wang Mengge said that he had been a pair of deaf and mute men and women, the man was in his thirties, and Wang Mengge matched a deaf woman 6 years older than him, both of whom were locals, and met at the scene. It was a light rain that day, and both of them were holding umbrellas, sometimes communicating with gestures, and those present could not understand, but many shed tears. "Finding a physically sound person for a disabled person may not necessarily be able to live well, and it is important for two people to match and have a common language," Wang explained.

In fact, here in Wang Mengge, the difficulty of matching people with disabilities is less than that of ordinary older youth, he analyzed, this is precisely because non-disabled people have relatively more choices, pick and choose, but can not be determined.

For personal information such as income, Wang Mengge will also try his best to do a good job of verification, and once the hardware conditions match, the probability of success will be doubled. Many guests followed their parents to the live broadcast room, and Wang Mengge played the role of such a trusted elder intermediary.

Requiring parents to accompany their blind date children is an important means for Wang Mengge to check personal information. In the rural areas where Yan Mo is connected, this is more practical than legal notarization, "marriage affairs cannot be used as children's play, and the control is strictly controlled, which has been recognized by others." Our requirement is that parents bring their children to the scene, unless there are special circumstances, such as the death of both parents, we can let other elders bring them to the scene. ”

During live blind dates, Wang Mengge generally invites men to appear on camera and show them in the live broadcast room, about 20 at a time. This is done in consideration of the fact that there will be girls who are reluctant to appear because they are shy. Centered on the number of boys, there is no limit to the number of girls, and if the on-site selection is not possible, the information is posted in the live broadcast room to allow more people to participate, which greatly improves the success rate of blind dates.

There have always been more boys than girls in the live broadcast room, and girls who choose to show their faces in the live broadcast are often very easy to find. Wang Mengge's observation is that boys are often unwilling to endure hardships, "mischievous, unwilling to work hard, pampered, and come down after a junior high school and primary school." "But girls are improving themselves," and they are trying to get a degree, a civil servant. "This leads to a crowd of older young men, and there are not as many really good boys as girls." Occasionally find an excellent older boy and basically come to our scene and be robbed. ”

Regardless of gender and other factors, matching is the supreme rule here. If the male guest is a junior high school graduate, and the female guest is a bachelor's degree, Wang Mengge will hang up directly, "Find a high education with a high education, find a low education with a low education, and have a common language, which is not a high or inferior." "(Sometimes I find) junior high school is better than college", this is not offensive in the live broadcast room, here are mostly "ordinary people's children", boys are honest, girls are restrained, each hoping to find the other half.

New era, new problems

Finding the right partner isn't easy. Wang Mengge sighed that modern people live in the community, and they don't even know the neighbors at the opposite door, unlike when he was young, he knew the bottom and had the opportunity and space to fall in love.

When Wang Mengge was young, most of the young men and women in that area worked in factories, and the innate love place was in front of him. Now the layers are clear, most of the girls in the nearby area are front desks and shopping guides, and the boys are in the back workshop, with a clear and isolated division of labor.

In his observations, finding objects today and once upon a time are two completely different concepts. There are many older young men and too few girls. This is related to the gender imbalance brought about by the original preference for sons, resulting in the reality that there are now more men and fewer women, and the imperfect hardware facilities further lead to the difficulty of getting out of singles. The "hardware facilities" here refer to the house, the woman generally requires the man to buy the house, and whether the man can get rid of the order is often a comprehensive assessment of the economic strength of the man's family.

There are also very few cases where superstitions do not fit in age or zodiac signs, and some superstitions are not even understood by Wang Mengge, such as chickens and dogs cannot be made, because there is an idiom called "chickens and dogs are restless". There is even a difference in surnames, such as a surname Yang came from the live broadcast room, matching the previous one in all aspects is suitable, but the other party's surname is Pan, this is not compatible, saying that because in history the Yang family will have a feud with Pan Renmei.

The girl with good conditions was "really difficult to find a partner" in Wang Mengge's live broadcast room. Most of them are beautiful, highly educated, civil servants or young women with a teaching staff, who are "too picky and not conducive to getting rid of the list".

In addition to older youth, the middle-aged and elderly blind date market is a new direction that Wang Mengge is trying. In his observations of his surroundings, some middle-aged and elderly women have a need to find a partner.

Wang Mengge can sometimes "nest end", such as some middle-aged women with girls in their twenties, and middle-aged men with boys in their twenties, the two sides can be combined into a large family, aunt and uncle paired, two children paired, this situation may happen, "is also the best ending", Wang Mengge analyzed.

Wang Mengge and his wife are also reorganized families. Wang Mengge was born a few months without a mother, grew up from snacks and hundred family meals, family conditions are not good, no matchmaker is willing to give him a kiss, he will find his own opportunity, "there are dates without dates to hit a shot", and later met the widowed Aunt Meng. The days are decades away. The family affairs of the two sons in the family were all told by him.

In the local area, there are many young people in their early twenties who get married, and when the two sons reach the age, Wang Mengge begins to kiss.

The eldest son's daughter-in-law originally lived in a neighboring village, worked at a gas station, and said that when she was kissed, the eldest son brought breakfast to the girl every day, and the family wrapped dumplings, and did not eat it herself, first sent a plate to the girl, and it became a matter of coming and going.

The daughter-in-law of the second son is also a local, and the two are elementary school classmates, and the two know the roots. Wang Mengge directly took his son to the other party's home to meet, and the two sides felt suitable for a chat, and they made a marriage the next day.

This is Wang Mengge's life experience, and it is also used by him in today's live broadcast room, the children of ordinary people are almost on the line, and they can only become relatives in the door.

Southern People Weekly reporter Han Ruxue Southern People Weekly intern reporter He Weiyu