Singles' Day

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Chinese Singles' Day or Guanggun Jie (Chinese: ???; pinyin: Gu?nggùn Jié; Wade-Giles: Kuang-kun chieh; literally: "Single Sticks' Holiday") is an entertainment festival famous among young people in Mainland China, that celebrates the fact that they are proud of being single. The date, November 11th (11/11), was chosen because the number "1" resembles an individual who is alone.

The event is not an officially recognized public holiday, but as an official national festival. It has become the largest offline and online shopping day in the world. Sales in Alibaba's sites, Tmall and Taobao, have reached US$5.8 billion in 2013, US$9.3 billion in 2014, US$14.3 billion in 2015, US$17.8 billion in 2016, and over US$25.4 billion in 2017. JD.com also achieved a sales record of US$19.1 billion in 2017, while Lazada drums up US$123 million.

In 2017, Alibaba--the company most closely associated with Singles' Day--set a world record for payment transactions during the festival. Its mobile wallet app Alipay processed 256,000 payment transactions per second. A total of 1.48 billion transactions were processed by Alipay in the entire 24 hours, with delivery orders through Cainiao (Alibaba's logistics affiliate) reaching close to 700 million, breaking 2016's record. The event is now nearly four times the size of America's biggest shopping days, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Video Singles' Day

Origins

Chinese Singles' Day, or Bachelors' Day, originated at Nanjing University in 1993. Singles' Day celebrations spread to several other universities in Nanjing during the 1990s. The holiday was named "Singles' Day" because its date - 11/11 - consists of four "ones," representing four singles. Upon graduating, these college students carried the university tradition into society. Singles' Day has since been popularized through the internet and is now observed at several places outside of China as well.

Singles' Day serves as an occasion for single people to meet, and parties are organized at various places. The holiday was initially only celebrated by young men, hence the initial name, "Bachelors' Day." It is now, however, widely celebrated by both sexes. "Blind date" parties are also popular on this day, in an attempt to alter the single status of the attendees. Some schools of a university put forth a special program to gather singles together for celebration. Singles may take on a bemoaning or self-deprecating attitude for remaining single as a university student, but university initiatives have helped curb that negativity.

2011 marked the "Singles Day of the Century" (Shiji Guanggun Jie), this date having six "ones" rather than four--an excuse to take celebrations to a higher level. Shopping promotions were highlighted throughout China and activities were widespread. Although this date is meant to celebrate singlehood, the desire to find a spouse or mate is often expressed by young Chinese on this date, while other love-related issues are discussed by the Chinese media.

There are several theories explaining the creation of the Singles' Day festival, as there is no one accepted origin, and the details of the first celebration are notoriously unlcear. The most widely accepted origin is one that grew out of Nanjing University's dorm culture. In Nanjing University's 'Mingcaowuzhu' ('All single men') dorm in 1993, four male students discussed how they could break away from the monotony of being single, agreeing that 11/11 would be a day of events and celebrations surrounding singlehood. These activities spread further into various other Nanjing universities, and eventually made their way into wider society. This spread increased with the use of social media, which has driven the event to become increasingly popular within contemporary Chinese culture and society. A less accepted theory is based around the love story of a Nanjing University student called Mu Guang Kun, known as Guang Gun. The story goes that his girlfriend was diagnosed with cancer during his second year at the university, and eventually died. The distraught Guang Gun took to placing candles on the rooftops in memory of his lover, and on his birthday, in the subsequent year, his roommates joined him to keep him company. After this, the day became a holiday at the university, and grew to become the national, commercialized festival that is celebrated today.

Maps Singles' Day

Symbolism

The following symbolism has been associated with the special date:

• "1": The figure of "1" symbolizes an individual, a single person
• 2x"1": Two individuals, finding each other, and being together on one side of the special date (11.11)
• 2x(2x"1"): A celebration of 2 (and more) different and separate couples, each comprising two single individuals finding each other on the special date (11.11)

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Celebration

In 2011, an above-average number of marital celebrations occurred in Hong Kong and Beijing on November 11.

In addition to meaning "single", the four "ones" of the date can also mean "only one" as in "the only one for me." Some people will use this date and this meaning to tell their special someone that they are the only "one" in their heart.

As more people join in the celebration of this holiday, companies have taken the opportunity to target younger consumers, including restaurants, Karaoke, and online shopping malls. For example, the Chinese online shopping mall Taobao sold 19 billion CNY (about 3 billion USD) of goods on November 11, 2012. In November 2016, the e-commerce giant Alibaba has set its Singles Day record and generated 120.7 billion CNY (17.79 billion USD) in gross merchandise.

Mediamarkt, a German company, is also doing promotions on that day in their Dutch stores.

Belgian Mediamarkt is also participating, but initial reactions have been negative since the 11th of November is an important day in Belgian history, remembering the dead and the day when the First World War ended.

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Trademarks

The term "???" (meaning "Double 11") was trademarked in China by Alibaba Group on December 28, 2012, under registration numbers 10136470 and 10136420. In October 2014, Alibaba threatened legal action against media outlets that accept advertising from competitors that use this term.

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See also

• Cyber Monday
• Sheng nu (??, shèngn?"), so-called "leftover women" who remain unmarried
• Singles Awareness Day
• Singles event
• Black Day
• Black Friday (shopping)
• Boxing Day
• Other occasions sharing the same date:
  • Veterans Day
  • Remembrance Day
  • Armistice Day

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References

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External links

• Creative Singles Day

Source of the article : Wikipedia