Dating: Chinese-Style

Finding a perfect mate or companion can be a challenge. Dating can be fun, for some; for others, it's a chore. But one Cupertino resident thinks he may have found a solution—for those who speak Chinese, anyway.

An estimated one in five Americans has used an online dating service, according to a recent study conducted by University of California-Berkeley researchers. The popularity of online dating makes Cupertino resident Jeff Shi believe in the future of 2RedBeans.com, a Chinese dating website he co-founded with his friend, Qinghua Zhao.

Shi says Zhao suggested establishing such a website when she realized quite a number of Chinese-Americans she knew stayed single, because they were too busy with their careers to seek potential matches.

According to Shi, many single Chinese immigrants are reluctant to use mainstream American dating sites, such as Match.com and eHarmony, because they prefer dating within their own race.

"They want to find someone who shares their cultural background," says Shi. "But most people on Match.com or eHarmony are not Chinese. That's where we came in."

Shi says 2RedBeans.com also welcomes non-Chinese to sign up, if they are interested in an interracial relationship, but they must know how to read Chinese, because more than 70 percent of the profiles on the website are in Chinese.

The name of the website may sound odd to those who don't know the Chinese language. But it makes perfect sense to those who are familiar with Chinese culture, in which red beans became a symbol of romance after a Tang Dynasty poem called them "the ultimate reminder of longing for love."

The website launched Jan. 31 from Shi's living room in Cupertino. Since then, it has registered more than 2,500 members—about 1,400 men and 1,100 women, according to Shi.

Right now, 2ReadBeans.com offers free membership to attract users. But Shi says the website will begin to charge members when it grows to the point he needs to hire employees.

There are now two marketing interns working for 2ReadBeans.com besides Shi and Zhao. None of the four gets paid, because the company hasn't generated any income. The start-up hasn't received any investment, either.

"Fortunately, our expenses are low," says Shi. "We just have to pay the website hosting fee and rely on our savings to cover the cost of living."

Shi, with a master's degree in science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is in charge of the technology used for the website. He is a devoted full-timer without another job to help pay the bills.

Shi, ever the optimistic entrepreneur, says, "This is a stage a start-up must go through, and I'll start looking for funding in the near future. Once we have funding coming in, we'll make it really big."