Agency Matchmaking Japanese Women seeking Men for Marriage


	Topic: Japanese parents play Cupid By Masayo Yoshida / Associated Press Worried about their son's love life, Tadashi Saito and his wife, Mitsue, talk to a concerned mother, who shows them a picture of her unmarried daughter. TOKYO Tadashi Saito imagines his son leaving the office and trudging home to a lonely bachelo apartment dark and no hot food on the table after a long day at work. So instead of waiting for his son to find the woman of his dreams and settle down, Saito is making the first move by joining the latest fad in Japan lucrative marriage market: attending a lonely hearts parent convention. Then I imagine my son going home with nobody waiting for him, I feel sorry for him,Saito said as he handed out photos of his 33-year-old son to parents with eligible daughters at a recent gathering in Tokyo. Saito and his wife, Mitsue, both 59, are among the 1,500 parents to have attended one of the marriage conventions in recent years a trend that is slowly changing the face of matchmaking for profit in Japan. The conventions, which can bring in more than 100 parents at a time, are filling the breach left by the decline of the traditional arranged marriage, which accounted for only 7.4 percent of Japanese marriages in 2002, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. The meetings also reflect the growing anxiety among more traditional parents in a country where the percentage of unmarried people in their 20s and early 30s has skyrocketed in the past two decades andhectic work schedules leave little time for dating. Topic: Japanese women live longest Breaking News in Herald Sun From correspondents in Tokyo JAPANESE women set a record for the world's longest life expectancy last year, retaining the title for the 19th straight year, the government said today. Japan's Health Ministry said women in the country could expect to live 85.3 years in 2003, up from 85.2 years in 2002. Life expectancy for Japanese men tied with a domestic record of 78.3 years set the year before, ministry official Toshiko Tanabe said. Japanese women have had the globe's longest life expectancy since 1985. By comparison, women in Hong Kong could expect to live 84.5 years in 2002 and Swiss women 83.0 years in 2001, Tanabe said. Icelandic men hold the title for life expectancy among males, at 78.7 years, according to Iceland's 2001-2003 statistics. Men in Hong Kong came in second, at 78.6 years, in 2002, and Japanese men were third, Tanabe said. Researchers say Japan's traditional fish-based, low-fat diet may be the secret to longevity. There are an estimated 20,500 Japanese over the age of 100, and women make up about 85 per cent of the total, according to government figures.

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