Hyman Shao is a good-looking young man who was completely bowled over by Shanghai's biggest-ever matchmaking party. That's because the night wasn't at all what he expected it to be — a happy, memorable occasion where he would meet some attractive young women.

"I only stopped still for, like, 30 seconds and then five or six middle-aged women approached me and I was cornered," Shao says, recalling the experience when he first walked into the party of 4,000 people in Zhongshan Park.

"They asked me my age, educational background, occupation, salary and even whether I own an apartment," Shao says. "To be frank, I was stunned."

The big matchmaking party turned out to be a gathering not only for the young who were looking for Mr or Ms Right, it was also a great opportunity for their parents to select ideal in-laws from the big pool of young men and women.

"It was quite annoying to be stopped several times by parents," Shao says. "In my opinion, they had better leave the whole thing to our own generation."

However, Shao says he can understand the motive of the parents — they wanted to be of help in what may be the most important decision their children will ever make. Yet, the way they were behaving scared him off rather than arousing his curiosity to meet one of their daughters.

"I felt like they were not looking for somebody who could live happily with their daughters but for a qualified employee, so I seldom left my contact numbers with them," Shao says.

But he is quick to add that if his parents wanted to go to a matchmaking party to look for a potential daughter-in-law, it would be OK with him. "But I still believe that looking for Mr or Mrs Right is something out of control — all one can do is to hope to 'bump into' the right person," he says.

Some of the parents said they were looking forward to attending more such "multi-functional" parties.

A middled-aged woman surnamed Zhong said that at the party she had two "responsibilities" — one was to wait at the entrance looking for "targets" and then to call her daughter inside the park to ask her to come out for a quick meeting. The second "responsibility" was to chat with other parents who were on a similar mission.

"I asked for my daughter's permission to come and she said it was up to me. So, I'm here because I'm worried she might miss another chance," she says.

Zhong says she wished that the number of "partygoers" could have been limited to 1,000 and the organizers had divided people into different groups according to their age or educational background.

"It's too difficult to find the right one in such a hodgepodge," Zhong says.

The Zhongshan Park party had more parents looking for sons-in-law than for daughters-in-law and the gender ratio of women to men was about six to four.

This ratio is the case with most matchmaking events, according to Zhu Shengtao, general manager of the Shanghai Oriental Exhibition, the event's organizer.

"When I arrived at around 4:30pm, there were few gentlemen and we could only sit there doing nothing," says Kelly Chen, 27, complaining about the situation at the speed-dating area in the park.

According to Chen Zhanqing, general manager of the Shanghai Jingguoyuan Matchmaking Agency, more parents signed up on behalf of their daughters than for their sons at his organization's regular monthly matchmaking gatherings.

"Parents of girls will have to wait till April next year, if they sign up now, while we're still looking for more boys' parents for this month's gathering," Chen says.

Men in Shanghai are usually not in a hurry to get married even when they reach 30 because they think a successful career is more important, but for a woman, the "golden time" is when she is under 30, says Chen, an experienced matchmaker.

"When parents retire and their daughters are still single, her marriage is usually the only thing that worries them," he adds.

Event organizer Zhu reveals that more men will be invited to take part in the next matchmaking event to make the gender ratio more balanced. The next party is scheduled on Valentine's Day.

Yu Hai, a sociologist at Fudan University, says young women who have received a first-class education may not be so eager to tie the knot but their parents still follow traditional Chinese thinking that girls should marry early.

"White-collar workers in the city still have too few chances to find their life's partner and that's why matchmaking parties are so well received," Yu says.