By Zhan Yan

    BEIJING, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Her day job is nursing but Liu Xiang is gaining fame for her off-duty skills: in matchmaking. Dubbed Beijing's No 1 matchmaker, Liu is now also a favorite on television talk shows thanks to her quick wit and assertive style.

    "It's my hobby," says Liu, 42. "Reading makes me drowsy, but matchmaking can make my eyes sparkle."

    The talent for playing Cupid apparently runs in the family. Her mother was a good matchmaker and since following in her footsteps 25 years ago, Liu has helped more than 500 couples tie the knot.

    "My mother was a famous matchmaker, so I learned a lot from her when I was little. At the time, I was still dreaming about what kind of man I would marry," she says.

    She became hooked on helping people find love after making her first match at the age of 17, when she introduced a boy who was trying to date her to a friend instead. The couple hit it off and now have a son.

    Liu's matchmaking instincts are at work even while on holiday. While checking out of a hotel after a break at the summer resort of Beidaihe, she got into a chat with a new arrival and decided she knew the perfect man for her. Although the girl didn't take her seriously, Liu set them up on a date. "Then, click, they fell in love and got married."

    "It's not magic; practice makes perfect," she says. "You first have to know what kind of people they like. If their needs and requirements fit with each other, then I will arrange a date."

    Matchmaking seems an anachronism in the Internet age, but the practice lives on because young Chinese are often caught up in work and have limited social circles.

    At first Liu restricted her efforts to helping single colleagues and friends. Then she began striking up conversations with strangers in shops, gyms and even public toilets. Now thousands come to her for help.

    The matchmaking halted briefly when her husband Wei Jiujiu lost patience over her zeal - Liu was in such a hurry to set up a date that she left their flat without locking the door. But Wei relented when he saw how depressed his wife became when she stopped.

    "I told her to carry on with it," he says. "It's her only hobby- if matchmaking could be called that. I won't make her unhappy by preventing her from doing what she enjoys."

    Besides, they, too, came together through her mission to help others find love. Liu first contacted the more introverted Wei, a co-worker at her hospital, to line up prospective partners for him. That meant getting to know him better, finding out about his hobbies, preferences and the like. After about a year - and several unsuccessful dates with other women - the pair decided they were best suited to each other.

    "I'm against whirlwind unions," says Liu, who married when she was 27."Two people have to know each other enough before they get married."

    As Liu sees it, her success at playing Cupid is built on helping people get along with each other. "If you don't know how to love people around you, you will never find your love," she says. "You have to give to get love."

    A hospital colleague, Zhang Jinhua, reckons Liu has a special talent. "She's very kind. I also tried to hook other people up but only succeeded three times," Zhang says. "Not every one can be a matchmaker. It's very complicated and time-consuming."

    Although some feminists dismiss Liu's mission as a backward step, she is no simple-minded dreamer. A shrewd observer of human foibles, she dispenses blunt advice.

    "Men in their 40s often cast look to young girls or others' [wives], while women in their 30s are easily sweet-talked into affairs, forgetting about their husbands and children," she says.

    "Men tend to love with their eyes, while women love with their hearts - this is all wrong. They should love with their ears to grasp the overtones."

    To avoid being disrupted at the hospital by requests from the lonely, a volunteer helped Liu set up a web page, www.99liuxiang.net, last December so that people can register for her services online. Within months, the web page had received nearly 2,000 registrations.

    Not surprisingly, the majority are women. Out of every 100 people who register, about 80 are women, she says.

    "The women are mostly high-flyers and hold great expectations of potential husbands. But while men in their 40s can marry a 20-year-old girl, few women can marry younger men."

    "The most common problem for singles is they can't assess themselves realistically. The men expect to find young 'princesses' and women, board chairmen. The thing is where can we find enough princesses or chairmen? Even if there were enough, canyou handle them? It's like choosing shoes. If you wear a size 36, why bother with a size 40?"

    Her main task, she says, is to help those who lack the ability to evaluate their situations adjust their expectations. "For the arrogant, I tune it lower and for the inferior, higher," she says." Some need two or three years to find a nice match."

    But to stay happily married, mutual understanding and tolerance are most important, she says. "Don't try to change anyone; just accept him or her as they are."

    Divorce rates were lower in the past because people were afraid dying old and lonely, she says. "Nowadays, society is more open and people have more choice. It's a kind of progress, but too many choices make some men dizzy."

    Setting herself apart from dating agencies and fulltime matchmakers, Liu insists she doesn't take money or gifts. "I'm happy to make friends. I wouldn't get rich with the money they offer nor could I be impoverished without it.

    "It's beyond my capacity to help many people, so I hope someone else could try to help them free of charge," she says. "I don't want to commercialize matchmaking; these are human beings, not machine parts."

    Family upbringing may help explain Liu's passion. Both her parents grew up in an orphanage, which is why she says the most important thing in the world is to love and be loved.

    But there's another underlying motivation: she hopes that helping others find happiness will bring better karma for her daughter.

    "Ancient matchmakers used to say that making three successful matches would ensure a safe life. My daughter was born 15 years ago with heart and eye problems. We tried our best to cure her, but there was little improvement. We faced up to the fact and made a decision: while we will try to seek medical help, I will try and do something good for society.

    "Each time when a pair fall in love and get married, I pray for my daughter's health. It's a little superstitious, but a belief that supports me," Liu says.