AWM Love offers private, cross-border matchmaking connecting Beijing and the United States — for professionals in Chaoyang, Haidian and the CBD, for expatriates posted to the city, and for Beijing families whose adult children are studying or working in America. A third-generation 紅娘 tradition, applied across two continents. My clients come from every background, and cross-cultural matching is the heart of this practice.

Why Beijing Is Personal For Me

Beijing entered my life twice — once through family, once through work.

My great uncle lived here and we visited him often. And my husband studied Chinese in Beijing and spent a year at Tsinghua, which means this city belongs to our family’s story and not only to my professional one.

I came for the work. As a China analyst for J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs I flew up regularly from Hong Kong, where I lived for seven years, and I did that work in Mandarin. More recently, my work with the German Marshall Fund as a Marshall Memorial Fellow — including leading China Talk sessions for the fellowship network — has kept me close to the people who build careers across these two countries.

Which is, not coincidentally, exactly who I match.

Credentials

I’m a third-generation Chinese matchmaker (紅娘) and a former Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan investment banker. I’ve been featured in Business Insider, NBC News Daily, and ABC News. I bring both the ancient wisdom of the 紅娘 tradition and a very modern understanding of the lives my clients actually lead.

Who I Work With In Beijing

It All Starts With Learning About You and….Who You’d Love to Meet.

The people I work with in connection with Beijing are returnees (海归) educated in the United States, professionals in technology, finance, policy and academia, expatriate executives on posting, and Beijing families whose adult children are living in America. Many are connected to Tsinghua and Peking University circles, and a great many are navigating serious family expectations alongside demanding careers.

Not all of my clients are Chinese. Many are people whose lives already cross cultures — expatriates, internationally mobile professionals, people whose careers span both countries — and who want a partner who moves comfortably between them. That’s the heart of this work.

Why Dating Here Is Harder Than It Should Be

Returnees come home to a narrower world than they left. Years abroad change what you’re looking for. Coming back to domestic introductions that don’t account for that is one of the most common frustrations I hear.

The distance between parents and children is geographic and generational at once. Families in Beijing want to help their children abroad and have almost no means of doing so. The child, meanwhile, wants to be met as an adult. Both are right.

Academic and policy careers run long. Doctorates, postdocs, institutional advancement. The years that would build a personal life go into credentials instead, and the pressure arrives all at once afterward.

Expatriate circles are small and temporary. Postings end and social worlds dissolve with them. Anything durable has to be built on a wider field than the expatriate community offers.