Singles Day

Each year on November 11th,  while some Chinese youths celebrate their single status, others rush to terminate it.  In Chinese popular culture, 11 • 11 is "光棍节" (Guang Gun Jie), literally "bare sticks day," referring specifically to Chinese bachelors.  This year's 11 • 11 • 11 marked "Super Singles Day," which only comes around every 100 years.

Given that the phenomenon is only 20 years old, having been started by students at Nanjing University in the early 90's, yesterday was the first celebration of this momentous Super Singles Day.  Singles traditionally eat for breakfast four 油条 (youtiao), fried dough sticks, for the four ones, and one 包子 (baozi), a steamed stuffed bun, for the dot in the middle.   See below a Guang Gun breakfast plate:



While the holiday is celebrated largely good fun, a much more serious societal issue lies beneath the surface.  In reality, the celebration of bachelor status is an acknowledgement and acceptance of the significant likelihood that many single youths will remain so for quite some time, if not forever.  Indeed, some predict that by 2020, males between the ages of 20 and 45 will outnumber their female peers by 30 million.  And current estimates put the male:female birth ratio at 119:100, whereas the international ratio is somewhere between 103 to 107:100.  An oversimplified but nevertheless convenient explanation is, as many well know, the conflation of China's One Child Policy and Chinese parents' traditional preference for male children.  As the saying goes, there are three unfilial acts, the worst of which is not to carry on the family line...

That being said, thousands of Chinese couples took advantage of what they saw as an auspicious opportunity to tie the knot.  Statistics suggest that over 5,000 couples were married yesterday in Shanghai, 3,000 in Nanjing.  In typical Chinese fashion, the date was even more auspicious given its grand total of 8 (1+1+1+1+2+0+1+1 = 8), the luckiest of Chinese numbers.  And most auspicious of all was, no doubt, corporate profit, with e-commerce platforms like Taobao.com raking in hundreds of millions in sales revenue.  We can well see why the government has no problem with this holiday...

In any event, I thought I'd wrap this all up with a little dose of Western culture, namely, a few suggestions for what not to say to your single, or newly single, friends.  And for those of you who are single:  加油！

What Not to Say to a Single (or Newly Single) Person

Don’t say: “You were too good for him.”
Why: You are basically saying she has bad taste. And you’ll be embarrassed if they ever patch it up.
Instead say: “His loss!” It gets the same point across without disparaging her judgment.

Don’t say: “I’m glad you got rid of him. I never liked him anyway.”
Why: She’ll wonder about your fake adoration for him while they were together.
Instead say: “I’m confident you’ll find someone who will give you exactly what you want.” It focuses on what’s to come, not on the dud you’re glad she’s done with.

Don’t say: “How could someone as perfect as you still be single?”
Why: A statement like this comes off as a backhanded compliment. What she hears is “What’s wrong with you?”
Instead say: “Seeing anyone?” If she’s tight-lipped about her love life, move on to other topics.

Expert: Bethany Marshall, Ph.D., a psychotherapist in Beverly Hills and the author of Deal Breakers: When to Work On a Relationship and When to Walk Away (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $23, amazon.com).