When a Chinese auntie met the right uncle

Shzr Ee Tan is the vice-dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for the School of Performing and Digital Arts at London" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="145481" data-entity-type="organization">Royal Holloway, University of London.Let me pick up where I left off in a previous column. On sabbatical in China, I was reeling from being pored over by parents at the Shanghai marriage market, and judged to be too old and overqualified. But if no vigilant parent would have me for their offspring, perhaps someone in my more permanent home of London would?So I began again. Although nine months away from British dating apps had not changed them, something in myself had changed. The algorithms may rely on Photoshop and well-meaning friends who can window-dress bios, I figured, but some of the lonely hearts had to be real if they had friends. I was real, and surely people out there were seeking real persons too.Instead of channelling a forever young and sophisticated Maggie Cheung Man-yuk or trying to reel in a silver fox in quietly luxurious Loro Piana, I thought I would proclaim my dumpling-shaped auntieness and wait to see who responded.