Domestic Affairs

Nov 11, a libido-fueled Single's Day

By Zuo Likun (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-11-11 15:02

Of all the gossip you hear about Chinese college students, here is the truth most likely to be denied, they are libido-fueled, in a lovely way.

It is wise to have a healthy humor for the sultry diagnosis. For those who live outside the Middle Kingdom with no idea of its overprotective parents that remain prudishly ancient-minded on sex education, try to think about the gushing energy when you, in life's prime, were suddenly freed from an almost-two-decade no-no of any romance that was awkwardly unexplained at all except "don't even think about it before the college."

Yes, college, the Chinese students' Mecca of Love, where the most intolerable sin is being a miserable single.

While, where there is oppression, there is resistance. That's why the lonely hearts cobble together their Bachelor's Declaration by coming up with, not one (they love to deny their hatred of the number) but three festivals, on January 1, November 1 and 11, dubbing them the Little Single's Day, the Middle Single's Day and the ultimate Big Single's Day respectively. Obviously, they hate the number so much that it becomes a symbol worthy of special rituals.

As a nude wild run would be not fun or innovative enough (the fact is, it is too damn cold), the proud dorm birds retreat into comradely bachelor league seeking the little comforts that belonging brings and, secretly and more importantly, a potential mate to escape the club; some just indulge in the laughable sour grape jealousy by vowing to take up all the single seats in cinema, just to separate gooey couples. (Oh, poor guy, get a life.)

Jumping into romance just to avoid the self-imagined awkwardness on every Nov 11 is hardly the universal choice. People in Hong Kong celebrate the date as well, but in a totally different way. They save it, a surprise, for the lovey-dovey couples, as the two elevens are spelled out as one by one, side by side. What a romantic interpretation! Similarly adorable, Taiwan residents celebrate it, surprise again, for all the twins. And in the West, Nov 11 is marked more solemnly for the fallen soldiers and surviving veterans in the WWI as the warfare drew to an end in 1918.

Until we come before a colorful culture mirror, we haven't realized that our self-images could be painted in so many different ways, which makes the Chinese student's amorous abandon on Nov 11 so much more entertaining. So, let's whoop it up.