Zhang Lisha and Chen Lei, two members of a women's lion dance team in Guangdong Province prepare to hold a wushu (martial arts) contest these days, in hopes of finding husbands after their hearts through such an activity.

Zhang and Chen are in charge of the lion tail while doing the lion dance, and Zhang is also a wushu coach. Both of them did very well in the Guangdong provincial lion dance contest.

When talking about their activity, they were a little bit embarrassed. Zhang said, "We have thought it all out. We practiced wushu when we were young. If we choose a gentle young man as our husbands, they will more or less have psychological pressures. So we intend our future husbands to have similar professions to ours."

Chen has been busy with lion-dance training and contests in recent years, and thus has narrow social circles. She believes such kind of activity will also enrich her experiences. Also, they raise other requirements for the contestants, like age, moral character and educational credentials.

Currently they have sent the announcement of the contest to sports collages and universities, wushu associations and lion dance associations. They indicated that their husbands would be chosen through careful selections.

The specific time of the contest is yet to be decided. They said the activity would be held if more than 10 men applied for it.

(China News Service August 4, 2006)