(Tokyo) Tired of Tinder? A Japanese city relies on the good old letters to promote romantic encounters, encouraging singles to take paper and pencil to find a soul mate, and boost the low birth rate in the process.
Posted at 10:23 a.m.
Compared to online dating applications, “it takes more time and pushes everyone to imagine the person with whom they are communicating,” says Rie Miyata, head of the company commissioned by the municipality of Miyazaki for this project.
“It’s not so much a feather story,” she told AFP. “Above all, you have to choose each word with your heart, thinking of the person to whom you are writing. »
“That’s what makes letters so powerful,” she added.
Some 450 people have registered since the start of the project in 2020, double the initial expectations, and 70% of them are between 20 and 30 years old.
Participants are selected by Mr.me Miyata and his team, then divided into pairs with potential halves, according to the personal information they transmitted on their favorite movies, books and sports for example.
But unlike dating apps, the only details everyone has about their correspondent are their age, name, profession and address: no profile picture is available.
“Appearance is often decisive” to find your partner, “but in letters, you are judged according to your personality”, assures Mme Miyata.
The letters are sent to the organizers who check the absence of obscenities or insults, before passing them on to the recipient.
To date, 32 pairs of participants have met in real life, and 17 couples have started a love affair.
While the initiative of the city of Miyazaki is original, it is not uncommon for some communities to finance dating programs in Japan, which has the oldest population in the world, and where the fertility rate is one of the weaker.
In 2021, only some 810,000 babies were born there (barely more than in France, which has half the population), and the fertility rate is only 1.3 children per woman on average, far below the generation renewal threshold estimated at 2.1 children.