{"id":9514,"date":"2013-11-11T04:37:39","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T08:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=9514"},"modified":"2013-11-11T04:37:39","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T08:37:39","slug":"singles-day-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/singles-day-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Singles’ Day in China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is November 11, and it is Singles’ Day<\/strong> (\u5149\u68cd\u8282 \u2013 gu\u0101ng g\u00f9n ji\u00e9) here in China. The name of the festival can roughly be translated as \u201cbare branch\u201d \u2013 a tree with no leaves representing a person with no better half. Celebrated on 11.11, the four ones represent those who are flying solo in love. As is the case with every Chinese holiday, there is a wild tale behind Single’s Day. It is said that long ago, on one November 11 evening, four single men were sitting around playing mahjong<\/a> <\/strong>(\u9ebb\u5c06 \u2013 m\u00e1 ji\u00e0ng), a very popular Chinese game. On that particular day, the men played from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.<\/strong> (\u4ece\u4e0a\u4e94\u5341\u4e00\u70b9\u5230\u665a\u4e0a\u5341\u4e00\u70b9 \u2013 c\u00f3ng sh\u00e0ng w\u01d4 sh\u00ed y\u012b di\u01cen d\u00e0o w\u01cen sh\u00e0ng sh\u00ed y\u012b di\u01cen). During their games, no matter who won, the winning card was always the \u201cfour columns\u201d card, which shows four independent, parallel columns in two lines, thus resembling the date \u2013 11.11.<\/p>\n

\"\u56db\u4e2a\u6cb9\u6761\uff0c\u4e00\u4e2a\u5305\u5b50\"<\/a>

\u56db\u4e2a\u6cb9\u6761\uff0c\u4e00\u4e2a\u5305\u5b50<\/p><\/div>\n

Basically the anti-Qi Xi Jie<\/strong> (HERE <\/a>is a video I made about that holiday), Singles’ Day was started down south in Nanjing<\/strong> (\u5357\u4eac \u2013 N\u00e1n j\u012bng) by single college students<\/strong> (\u5927\u5b66\u751f \u2013 d\u00e0 xu\u00e9 sh\u0113ng) in the 1990s. Back then, the main custom for the holiday was to go out to dinner with a group of single friends. Of course, everybody would go Dutch<\/strong> (AA\u5236 \u2013 AA zh\u00ec) on the bill to show their independence. Another Singles’ Day tradition is to eat four fried dough sticks<\/strong> (\u6cb9\u6761 \u2013 y\u00f3u ti\u00e1o) to represent the four ones, and one steamed bun<\/strong> (\u5305\u5b50 \u2013 b\u0101o zi), to represent the dot in 11.11. If you do this, you just might be lucky enough to not be celebrating (or mourning) Singles’ Day next year.<\/p>\n

These days, millions of Chinese are in a position to take part in this holiday. This is due in part to the drastic increase in the number of one-person households in China, which has gone up a staggering 29% in the last five years alone. In fact, it is estimated by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that by 2020, 23 million Chinese men will have no choice but to remain bachelors. Of course, the one child policy and the tendencies of people to prefer said one child to be a boy rather than a girl haven\u2019t helped matters here. This statistic may also help to explain the immense popularity of internet bars<\/strong> (\u7f51\u5427 \u2013 w\u01ceng b\u0101) and online games like World of Warcraft amongst young men here \u2013 perhaps they have already consigned themselves to a life of bachelorhood.<\/p>\n

\"Translation<\/a>

Translation – “Nov. 11 – how do we want to celebrate our Singles Day?”<\/p><\/div>\n

\"There<\/a>

There will be tons of these this week in China.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise that many people have cashed in on this holiday in recent years. Indeed, this holiday proves to be a fine example of modern day China and its capitalistic tendencies. With so many single people looking for love out there, profitable business ventures abound.<\/p>\n

In big cities like Beijing, bars<\/strong> (\u9152\u5427 \u2013 ji\u01d4 b\u0101), movie theater<\/strong>s (\u7535\u5f71\u9662 \u2013 di\u00e0n y\u01d0ng yu\u00e0n), and amusement parks<\/strong> (\u6e38\u4e50\u56ed \u2013 y\u00f3u l\u00e8 yu\u00e1n) will all run special deals for the holiday, looking to cash in on the single crowd. Online shopping has become huge on this day as well, and the e-commerce giant Alibaba even sold over 19 billion RMB (3 billion USD) worth of goods on 11\/11 last year.<\/p>\n