FOR Hangzhou singletons and their parents desperate to see them married, one local lady provides an invaluable service - and all for free. Xu Wenwen meets the warm-hearted woman who has successfully worked her matchmaking magic for more than 100 couples.

Jin Aiwen flips open her notebook, and several middle-aged people standing around take an anxious look at the pages filled with hundreds of young people's personal information.

The middle-aged observers are parents of "leftover" single men and women, who are eager to find their sons or daughters a marriage partner with the help of Jin, Hangzhou's renowned matchmaker.

The 52-year-old has been matchmaking couples for 18 years and has the details of 500 women and 300 men in her notebooks.

So far, she has matched 125 couples (none of them divorced) and has not received payment for her services except for wedding candies. Today, the child of the first couple she introduced to each other is 17 years old.

Warm-hearted Jin's real job is a saleswoman in a small retail store at the gateway of Yuanyuan Folk Park at Yellow Dragon Cave, and it is here that she began her matchmaking career.

Yuan in Chinese literally means predestined relationship, and the folk park is the traditional local resort for blind-dating parties.

While working at the store, Jin witnessed how anxious "leftover" single people and their parents wandered in the park looking for Mr or Ms Right, so one day 18 years ago, she decided to help them.

Jin's method of helping is interesting - she is so smart that she can identify among the customers in her store who is looking for a date and who's looking for his or her child for a date. Once these people are identified she introduces herself to them.

Without using a computer, Jin matches couples by searching information in her notebooks and by memory.

To match couples she begins by recording a person's general information, such as age, gender, job and hobbies; then she gets to know their requirements in a marriage partner; then she finds out more about the person and uses her experience to judge their character.

Over time, she has become such a famous matchmaker that she no longer needs to look for single people as they come to her, and since what she does has been reported by the local media several times, Jin's "database" has increased.

However, in recent years a trend occured where the number of "leftover" single women was much higher than "leftover" single men.

Three months ago, Jin's database had 400 women and only 100 men, which forced her to stop receiving new women's requirement because she has to deal with the surplus first.

Fortunately, the imbalance was reported by local media and more single men came to her, although at present there are 500 women and only 300 men.

Jin says that shy women and those with high requirements are the most likely to be "leftover." It is usual for local girls to have high requirements for a husband, especially with regards to his financial status and whether he has his own car and house.

"Good men are few and non-local women are grabbing them as well," says Jin. "I guess it's time to warn Hangzhou girls to lower their expectations and requirements."

She quotes the example of a local 42-year-old woman who has never married. The woman is looking for a man who has never married and has no children, so Jin introduced a never-married 50-year-old man to her. However, the woman refused the man because he was too old.

The woman's mother turns to Jin repeatedly for one more date, but Jin declines as she has "no such person that suits the woman."

Jin has a number of suggestions for "leftover" women:

A liberal approach to a blind date is required, taking the man's feelings into consideration and not being too shy to talk. More communication and understanding will allow you and the man more chances.

Furthermore, women should broaden their range. "Many girls insist on a local man," says Jin. "But there is an abundance of excellent out-of-town men."

Women should not choose "potential" men by whether they own a house or car but should consider their personality and long-term potential for development.

Having been a matchmaker for years, Jin also acts as a peacemaker for couples, and she has a set of rules to cope with family relationships.

"Couples should consider their partners for at least two months before deciding on marriage. They should find each other's faults and consider whether they can tolerate these faults," she says.

Jin cites an example of a quick marriage. She introduced a kindergarten teacher to an army official, and the couple only dated for four months before they got married. Jin was surprised but gave her congratulations, although problems soon occurred.

When the couple decorated their house, the couple clashed over what color to use and family conflict soon erupted.

Hearing the bad news, Jin mediated immediately. She analyzed their hasty marriage and told them to give each other more time to get to know each other, something they didn't have enough time to do when dating.

"Sweet words confuse young people and push them to romance," says Jin. "Yet to spend your whole life with another person is serious. I suggest couples spend two to five months thinking about whether they can tolerate each other before marriage."

Before marriage, everybody should be careful. However, once you're married, Jin suggests playing the fool.

Jin mentions another couple she introduced to each other: The husband is a policeman and the wife a teacher. One day, the husband checked his wife's cellphone and found she had communicated with her ex-boyfriend by SMS.

Though the text messages contained innocent greetings, the husband became irritated. Instead of confronting his wife, he showed anger toward her. Meanwhile, he explained the situation to Jin.

Jin appeased the husband first, telling him to "play the fool" as the text messages only contained friendly chat. At the same time, she called the wife and told her: "Next time, delete the messages before going home."

"Couples need to learn to play the fool, which is actually smart."

Given that in many families, husbands earn more than their wives and are busier than their wives, women are suggested to tolerate when husbands are too busy to take care of the family.

But it is also important for husbands to share their responsibilities - one of the simplest ways is to do more housework.

As marriage actually involves not only two people, but two families, Jin also has suggestions for parents.

"The wife's parents obviously speak for the wife while the husband's parents similarly speak for the husband; however, if the wife's parents can speak for the husband while the husband's parents can speak for the wife, everything could be perfect," says Jin. "And it would be good too if the parents are not involved in the couples' quarrels."