After subscribing to a dating website, one of its staff contacted her saying she had said she was seeking someone aged 30 to 33, but that this group of men only wanted to find women aged 25 to 28.

"She asked me to lower my standard to older men, and I refused. That kind of ageism against women is common in China. Many men want to marry younger women."

Eventually she met someone through the website, but that relationship lasted just six months because the man was too busy.

Being single means she has time to do the things she wants to do and to improve herself, such as learning the piano, she says.

Bin, 66, a retired public servant and freelance photographer of Beijing, who wants to give only his surname, says that while people younger than him are looking after grandchildren, he goes on media tours and posts his works online.

"Marriage is just a piece of paper. If you put too much store by it, it is going to restrict you. Chinese often think marriage is a precondition to living a real life. I don't have it, but I live a good life.

"I have no regrets at all. I can do whatever I like. People always tell me I should have company. Why should I do that?"

After two failed relationships when he was in his late teens and 30s he lost interest in marriage, he says. However, in the early 1990s, under pressure from his mother, he paid 30 yuan ($4.70) for a blind date activity, he says, and through that he met a divorcee with a 6-year-old daughter. After about three months they married.

What gave rise to this haste was that his employer was going to allocate him a house, he says, and if he was married it meant the house would be double the size, more than 50 square meters.

In the event, the marriage lasted less than one year because, he says, he and his wife were incompatible.

In 2001 he formed a relationship with a woman in her 20s he had met online, a relationship that lasted five years and ended when she went to work in another city. It had been clear from the outset that her family would never receive the blessing of her family because Bin was older than her father.

Bin, who is humorous, sociable and knowledgeable, says he has many friends, and that his relationships and his marriage reaffirm for him the importance of enjoying one's life.