11/11/11: Singles Day or Love Day?

I was sitting in front of my computer with a blank Word document staring back at me for a while before Joanna Wang’s “I love you” song came up on my iTunes.  The lyrics got me thinking about love, and suddenly a whole bunch of images and instances from the past few weeks popped into my head.

Last Friday, China celebrated the ultimate “Singles Day” of the century.  Singles Day is a Chinese pop culture holiday on November 11, created for all those still living the single life.  It was started by male university students in Nanjing in the early 90s, but over the years has grown into a national holiday celebrated by both men and women.  I was told by Chinese students that this year, because of the duplication of the number “1” (11/11/11), there would be a particularly enthusiastic celebration of singledom in China.  I was really looking forward to this holiday since I had never known anyone, let alone an entire country, who devoted a yearly holiday to celebrating “being single.”  However, I was slightly incredulous.  How could a culture that emphasizes marriage to such an extent also commemorate the lack thereof?  Singles Day…really, China? What happened to the long tradition of arranged marriages?  What about all the parents and grandparents who gather at public parks on weekends to display their sons and daughters’ photos to potential suitors?  Where did it all go?  Sure, the hutongs are being razed to the ground and replaced with banks and skyscrapers, but did people’s belief in the power of love and tradition go with it?

It seemed strange, so on Thursday afternoon on November 10^th, I called my Chinese tutor, a graduate student at Peking University, and we took a walk through campus.  I asked Ming Jia how it was possible that Chinese people would be willing to celebrate being single when it seemed to me they did everything in their power to find a mate before they hit 25.  She stared at me for a few seconds, looking thoroughly confused, then let out a laugh.  “Oh!  You think ‘Singles Day’ celebrates being single?” she asked me in Chinese.  “Um, doesn’t it?” I said, slightly panicky.  Had I misread the characters?  I knew my Chinese wasn’t perfect, but I had looked up the words in the dictionary and I was sure they didn’t mean ‘couple,’ they meant ‘single’!  Ming Jia explained that Singles Day, or Guang Gun’er Jie, started as a celebration of the single life, but like anything, it changed over time.   The characters that make up Guang Gun’er Jie, 光棍儿节,were switched around and new ones were added to form 脱光, an abbreviation of 脱光棍儿的生活, meaning “to shed the single life.”  Of course, I thought.  China would not celebrate singledom à la Sex and the City, it is too radical and undesirable a thought all at once.

To be honest, I was slightly disappointed.  I had been looking forward to seeing this new side to Chinese people, a side I had never even heard of before.  But Ming Jia explained that Singles Day is actually very similar to Valentine’s Day.  She answered my questions with a sly smile on her face.   I’m sure she could tell I didn’t really want to go through another Valentine’s Day, let alone celebrate a fake Singles Day.  So after work on Friday afternoon, I went out for dinner to a fancy Italian restaurant with two single ladies—no men, no hassle.  It was a breath of fresh air, though all around me I kept spotting couples holding hands, boyfriends buying flower bouquets and girlfriends walking around with huge teddy bears in hand.

Sitting on the subway on my way back to Peking University after dinner that night, I looked up and saw a couple, fast asleep, sitting right in front of me.  They were holding hands and were locked in what looked like an eternal embrace, leaning on each other for support as the subway wove its way through the underground tunnels of Beijing.  Two feet away standing next to the subway door, was another couple, displaying a cruel and utterly absurd paradox when juxtaposed to the first:  the girl was crying and staring up at a man I can only assume was her boyfriend, saying repeatedly “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” in Chinese.  She was clenching his jacket, and kept wiping her tears with an already drenched tissue paper.  The man seemed untouched, however, and held a steady gaze that veered off somewhere into the next cart.  At that moment I thought, why change a worry-free holiday like Singles Day into a second tier Valentine’s-type Day?  Cynical? Yes.  But looking into that girl’s eyes, I knew no number of teddy bears could ever cure her pain.

But then I looked back at the hugging couple.  They were breathing steadily, holding onto each other all the while and looking thoroughly relaxed and comfortable, as though their bodies had always meant to be intertwined with one another.  Suddenly, an automated female voice came on the intercom reminding passengers of the next stop.  The man’s eyes opened, he tapped the girl and their bodies slid back into “single” positions.  Thirty seconds later, the subway doors opened and they walked away, holding hands.  I smiled.  “Love” creates a whole array of emotions in us, from hate to happiness to sorrow and forgiveness.  It’s complicated and messy, like that fighting couple still standing by the doorway, but it can be beautiful and surreal, like the sleeping couple that had just walked away, as though still living in a dream.

I woke up last Friday feeling jaded, expecting an over-the-top Valentine’s Day look-alike celebration, and though it was, I realized something: I had never witnessed a more wonderful November 11^th.  I also realized that Singles Day is for people in all stages of life—whether you are happily single, single and looking for love, happily married, or married and want to be single again.  11/11 is the day to celebrate the coming together of people, whether it’s based on friendship or love.  That night, when I got back to Peking University, I saw my roommate looking glamorous and ready to go out.  She told me to change my clothes and join her, so I did, and it was great.  We walked the streets of Beijing and saw hordes of Chinese people out celebrating life, love and everything in between, and it felt wonderful.  I couldn’t have expected a better 11/11/11, the ultimate Love Day of the century.