Single’s Day - Crazy for Shopping

What is the craziest Day in China? It’s not Spring Festival, not Mid-autumn Festival, but Single’s Day or Bachelor’s Day on 11th November. In Chinese, it is called 光棍节(ɡuānɡ ɡùn jié). “节” means “festival”. “光棍” refers to those who are single in love. As the name can tell, it is a festival that belongs to all single ones who are not married or who don’t have a girlfriend. Single’s Day is especially popular among young people who take pride in themselves for their single love status. (Maybe it’s kind of a self-mockery.)

Origin of Single’s Day

Because 11.11 consists of four Arabic numbers “1”, which looks pretty like a single man standing there alone, this day is regarded as a day for all single people. It is said this Festival came from the dormitory of a university in Nanjing, a city in Jiangsu Province of China. The dormitory lives 4 single men who, because of loneliness, would have a “single’s party talk” every night. They would discuss how to get rid of being single each night and during their discussion, they created the idea of organizing an activity on the day of 11月11日, in hope that they can find a girlfriend as soon as possible. Gradually, more and more single men and women know about this and join them. And thus come 光棍节, Single’s Day.

What People Do

1. 闪婚 (shǎn hūn) - to get married in seconds. A lot of people choose to get married on Nov. 11th, to get rid of being single.

2. 闷酒 (mèn jiǔ) - solitary drinking. Because of loneliness, many single men and women drink alone hoping to drown their troubles.

3. 裸奔 (luǒ bēn) - to run around naked. This may sound crazy but many people do so, because they see “光棍节” as “脱光节(tuō ɡuānɡ jié)”, in which “脱光” has a double meaning of “to get naked” and “to get rid of being single.”

4. 加班 (jiā bān) - to work over time. They “punish” themselves by working harder, believing that if they are more successful, then they have more chances of finding their Mr. Right.

5. 聚会 (jù huì) - party. Instead of punishing themselves, some choose to give them a treat by having parties with their friends who are also in “misfortune”.

6. 疯狂购物 (fēnɡ kuánɡ ɡòu wù) - crazy shopping. Single’s Day is also a day for CRAZY shopping, because many big sellers like 天猫(tiān māo) will carry out promotional campaigns and give bigger discount to customers on this day. 11.11 has become the largest scale of Internet shopping in China. Last year, the shopping website Tian Mao hit a record income of 10 billion RMB within 13 hours on Single’s Day.