{"id":12685,"date":"2016-11-07T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T12:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=12685"},"modified":"2017-11-07T13:18:58","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T17:18:58","slug":"china-singles-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/china-singles-day\/","title":{"rendered":"China Singles\u2019 Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Ayana<\/p><\/div>\n

Every November 11th<\/sup>, China celebrates Singles\u2019 Day. Although modern and not nationalistic, Singles\u2019 Day is a genuine Chinese holiday. Among a calendar full with traditional feasts, communist festivals and western celebrations, Singles\u2019 Day is a pretty unique holiday. It was created and shaped up by Chinese youngsters, and promoted by local commercial companies.<\/p>\n

Chinese celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day like westerns do. That includes flowers, chocolate, balloons, and romantic dinners. February 14th<\/sup> isn\u2019t the only opportunity to spread love: there\u2019s the Qixi Festival as well. The festival, also known as the Chinese Valentine\u2019s Day, originated from a romantic legend about two lovers, and has been celebrated in China since the Han Dynasty.<\/p>\n

With two Valentine\u2019s Days a year, no wonder some university students felt the urge to act. Somewhere during the mid-1990s they announced November 11th<\/sup> as Singles\u2019 Day. They called it \u5149\u68cd\u8282Gu\u0101ngg\u00f9n ji\u00e9. \u5149\u68cd\u513f, which literally means bare branch, and is a Chinese expression for a unmarried person or a bachelor who hasn’t borne children. And this day is dedicated for such people. On November 11th<\/sup> single people all over China organize activities together and buy presents for themselves. It is not meant to undermine love, it’s about acknowledging people who are still on the search for their other half.<\/p>\n

The founders of Singles\u2019 Day didn’t use the traditional Chinese lunar calendar to pick a date. They chose one according to the Gregorian calendar. But that isn’t the only sign of modernity features the holiday. The need to dedicate a whole day for people without spouses is an outcome of life in modern China. The students maybe conceived the idea of a Singles\u2019 Day as a joke, but the Chinese demography, influenced by the One Child Policy, is no joke. The historical preference of having a son, with the help of nowadays medical devices, led to a widespread abortion of female fetuses in the last few decades. It had resulted in a demographic imbalance: Chinese men outnumber Chinese women excessively. The gender gap is measured in millions. And many of those lads are having difficulties finding a wife. Surprisingly the girls are too. One of the latest Chinese slang is an expression for women who are over the age of 25-30 and aren’t married yet: \u5269\u5973Sh\u00e8ngn\u01da (literary means leftover woman).<\/p>\n

For about a decade \u5149\u68cd\u8282 had belonged to the people, but its purity was disturbed in 2009 by retailers. One of China’s biggest e-commerce websites, Alibaba.com, chose Singles\u2019 day 2009 to create an online sale. It was such a success that rival sites start offering discounts as well during Singles\u2019 Day in the following years. In 2013, Chinese shoppers spent billions of US dollars on the internet during \u5149\u68cd\u8282, exceeding the sales of Cyber Monday Sales. In 2014 Alibaba.com didn’t settle for the Chinese market and went global. Alibaba searched to extend the bonanza, and in order to do so spread out Singles\u2019 Day all over the world.<\/p>\n

Nowadays Singles\u2019 Day is better known as the world’s biggest online shopping day. But no matter what the commerce websites are planning for this year, my Chinese friend Xiaobai is still going to buy \u7b77\u5b50 ku\u00e0izi (chopsticks) as holiday gifts; go out to eat \u6cb9\u6761 Y\u00f3uti\u00e1o (deep-fried twisted dough sticks) with her girlfriends; and hope to find the love of her life until the next November 11th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

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Text vocabulary<\/u><\/p>\n

Singles\u2019 Day = \u5149\u68cd\u8282 Gu\u0101ngg\u00f9n ji\u00e9<\/p>\n

Valentine\u2019s Day = \u60c5\u4eba\u8282 Q\u00edngr\u00e9n ji\u00e9<\/p>\n

Qixi festival = \u4e03\u5915\u8282 Q\u012bx\u00ec ji\u00e9<\/p>\n

Chopsticks = \u7b77\u5b50 ku\u00e0izi<\/p>\n

Deep-fried twisted dough sticks = \u6cb9\u6761 Y\u00f3uti\u00e1o<\/p>\n

Unmarried man [an expression] = \u5149\u68cd\u513f Gu\u0101ngg\u00f9n er<\/p>\n

“Leftover woman” [a slang] = \u5269\u5973 Sh\u00e8ngn\u01da<\/p>\n

November 11th<\/sup> = 11\u670811\u65e5 Sh\u00edy\u012b yu\u00e8 sh\u00edy\u012b r\u00ec<\/p>\n

February 14th<\/sup> = 2\u670814\u65e5 \u00c8r yu\u00e8 sh\u00eds\u00ec r\u00ec<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Every November 11th, China celebrates Singles\u2019 Day. Although modern and not nationalistic, Singles\u2019 Day is a genuine Chinese holiday. Among a calendar full with traditional feasts, communist festivals and western celebrations, Singles\u2019 Day is a pretty unique holiday. It was created and shaped up by Chinese youngsters, and promoted by local commercial companies. Chinese celebrate…<\/p>\n

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