For immigrant families, the desire to have your offspring marrying within your native race and population is very natural. The ideal situation is to have your children marry children of other immigrant families of the same race on account fo cultural similarities and compatibility. Chinese Americans are no exception. Since the mid 70s, the Taiwan government has organized every summer a Chinese/Taiwan heritage tour of multi-week duration for young Chinese American men and women of high school and early college age to visit Taiwan unsupervised by their parent. The official purpose of these tours is to re-connect the Chinese American youth with their native land. But a side development  never openly acknowledged is the fact that many romances and ultimately marriages among participants have resulted from these tours. A popular TV program at that time in the US was the “The Love Boat” which featured shipboard romances on each episode. Consequently, the flights to carry the young people to Taiwan has come to be known as the Love Boat flights. In today;s Sunday New York Times, there is a featured article about this “Love Boat” connection.

Apparently this practice is not limited to Taiwan. The countries of Israel and Armenia run similar programs which the NY times calls “Match Making – the ultimate government Service”

I wonder when will the Chinese government take up this challenge if they have not already in some form.