In Japan, parents go on dates instead of their children (7 photos)

Do you know what speed dating is? It's when you meet a few dozen people in one evening, moving from table to table, and then decide who you'd like to continue communicating with.





From the outside it seems like these are dates for the elderly, but no!

In Japan, young people don't like to go on such dates with strangers - they have to communicate there. That's why mom and dad will help here too, and go on dates instead of them!

In fact, mothers do not come on dates with girls, but with the same mothers and fathers of other quiet or workaholics. You can't distract their children from work tasks (or play).

How speed dating for mothers and fathers goes



They take the task seriously, more seriously than their children

Each participant pays 14,000 yen for the event. But the organizers do not give you any guarantees, how you can advertise your daughters and sons, that is the result you will get. Moreover, the mothers on the other side are not fools either.

There are also regular speed dates in Japan, but workaholics don't go to them - they're busy. And if you leave things to chance, Japan has already broken anti-records for marriages and birth rates in recent years.

Parents bring photos of their children with the girls dressed in traditional kimonos. Because the older generation really likes this kind of tradition, and you have to go through the sieve of the elders to get to their sons.





With such a photo, you will definitely be liked by the groom's aunt and grandmother!

At the same time, their children are far from marginal, not strange individuals, but doctors, nurses, civil servants. In general, very busy professional people. On average, they try to marry children at the age of 30-40, the oldest groom of marriageable age was 51, and his mother was over 80.

According to the agency's estimates, about 10% of such "absentee grooms" eventually get married.

A huge plus (for the Japanese) is that they are spared awkward conversations, which sometimes turn them off dating for years. Because there are often parents of men over 40 who are looking for 20-30 year old girls. And the girls do not have to turn them down themselves, they just tell their mother "we don't need such people."



In Japan, there is even a whole culture of young girls accompanying "old men" in exchange for gifts. That's why "old men" overestimate themselves in the marriage field

Similarly, for those forty-year-olds - he just sent his mother to the market for a bride, and how many times they refused before they found one with the right parameters does not bother him.

The Japanese urgently need to get married!

In 2021, the number of new registered marriages fell to 501,116, the lowest figure since the end of World War II in 1945. And only half of the number of registered marriages in the 1970s.



The Japanese don't like dating as much as they like watching romantic date dramas

At the same time, people are getting married much later, so their chances of having multiple children are greatly reduced.

And the birth rate in Japan is 1.3 (and to even maintain the population, it needs to be 2.1)

With the rising cost of living, poor economic prospects, and a demanding work culture that is against them, fewer and fewer Japanese people are choosing to get married and have children.

Times have changed

Over the past six years, there has been a "leap in public consciousness." If parents used to be embarrassed to attend such events, now there is overbooking - many want grandchildren.



10% of successful marriages is actually a good return, if you do not overestimate your children

In China, for example, there is a similar market for grooms and brides, where they hang up sheets of paper with advertisements with the advantages of the groom. The difference is that the bride market is a traditional market.

And Japan, where arranged marriages and omiai are not new either, has switched to the modern format of speed dating among parents. It sounds pretty strange and at the same time... cool. Maybe single parents will at least get to know each other.

Japan has long been a country of singles

An interesting social study based on supermarket shelves. Japan has one of the largest sections in supermarkets with prepared meals compared to other countries. And this is in addition to small cafes with seats for one.



A cafe with single-seat tables and partitions, so that people don't think about accidentally chatting!

That is, the entire economy has been restructured to accommodate the fact that a person only works and lives alone - he has no time or desire to cook, working 70 hours a week.