The Matchmaker's Year

Rural northern China, in the 1990s.

Zhao Lei was notorious far and wide as a “little hell-raiser.” He got into fights, skipped school, and led a gang of friends around mooching food and drink, making his mother chase him through the village with a stick. But he would give his new cotton-padded jacket to a classmate who was shivering in the cold, and race after a teacher across the schoolyard for falsely accusing one of his buddies. Everyone said he was “no good,” but only his mother knew the truth: the boy had a good heart, he just needed someone to keep him in line.

Su Min was the kind of child every family wanted. Always top of the class, she seemed quiet and gentle, yet she was the “little firecracker” no one dared provoke. She would slap anyone who bullied her deskmate, and she’d grab a carrying pole and chase street thugs down the block for her little brother. Her greatest wish was to study and become a teacher. She would never depend on a man.

These two people, who had nothing in common, were brought together because Third Aunt went to buy coal briquettes.

When they met, Zhao Lei was all swagger, while Su Min watched him coolly.

“Don’t worry. I’ll treat you well.”

“I don’t need you to treat me well. Just don’t get on my nerves.”

No one had high hopes for this match. But nobody expected the village’s so-called “womanizer” to give up drinking, settle down, and shoulder the whole family for the sake of one word from his wife.

And the young woman who had sworn never to depend on a man gradually learned to lean on someone amid the daily chores and routines.

This is a story of two young people brought together by their parents, growing from strangers into companions, learning to accommodate each other and stay by each other’s side. There’s laughter and tears, bickering and banter, and all the warmth and humanity unique to that era.

In those days, love wasn’t grand and dramatic. It was a bowl of noodles, a cotton-padded jacket, and a lifetime together.