5201314

我爱你一生一世

I love you with all my life

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May 20th, another valentine’s day for the couples in China. This is the day where the internet will be filled with “romantic deals” and businesses blasting their promotion ads. LOVE IS IN THE AIR

Yes, even hotels are selling like hotcakes. Picture taken from my phone app.

Personal interpretation

Personally I have another interpretation for this phenomenon. Back in the days the Chinese are quite conservative, so being good (or forced to be good) in maths give the Asians creativity in playing the sound and language. After all, the Chinese pronunciation is all about the sounds and intonation.

So using numbers as the secret language, it become a language to express love without saying the words directly. When a Chinese confess their love to another person, they usually say “我喜欢你”which translate as “I like you” instead of“我爱你”(I love you). In Chinese culture,谦虚qian xu has always been a part of life. It could be perceive as indirectness.

How did it all started?

This trend started with a song called “Love Numbers”/ 《数字恋爱》back in 2011, where 520 is use as “I love you”, and the sensation of “internet valentine’s day” and “internet lover” went viral. Later on, 521 is also interpreted among lovers as “我愿意/ Yes I do/ I love you too”; the Internet Valentines Day is also known as “Lucky Wedding Day”/ “结婚吉日”, “Confess-Your-Love Day” /“表白日”, “Flirting Day” /“撒娇日”, “Seek Love Day” /“求爱节”.

Thus the begin of May 20 as a day full of love and confessions. Stores online and offline seize the opportunity to attract customers especially young lovebirds. Restaurants and cafes offer couple discounts for cakes and romantic dinner sets, the florist would also be busy selling flowers for this special day. And singles will probably spend the day like any normal day. LOL

On May 20, you need to queue up to get married, the price of fresh roses doubled, and everywhere will be flooded with the theme of “I LOVE YOU”, the Chinese social media would be filled with love confessions between young lovers and cheesy stories of young men proposing to their girlfriends.

My impression: the Chinese are romantic is a different manner.

China now is neither conservative nor expressive. As younger generations feel the need to express their love towards one another, it is becoming common to see couples in a café cuddling while watching a movie or reading a book, while the older generations can get shy if the husband surprise the wive with a bouquet of flowers. Nevertheless, the fact that these old couples spend decades still in love will always win our hearts whereas in recent years there is a higher percentage of divorce among married couples in China.

In terms of expressing love, a Chinese will never say I love you when confession to their love interest because their logic is, how can I love you without liking you first? I asked my Chinese friend if she ever heard her parents saying “I love you” to each other or peck kisses in daily life or special occasion, the answer I got is no. It is not the culture. A husband shows love by providing his family, by making sure his family is not hungry. And a wife shows love by taking care of the children, making sure the husband comes home to a warm and welcoming home.

Indeed, Asians have their way of showing love.

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Thanks for reading!

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