Chinese “Black Friday”:光棍节 Guāng gùn Jié

Hi everyone!

How was your Thanksgiving? 

你的感恩节过的好吗? (Nǐ de gǎn’ēn jiéguò dé hǎo ma?)

As you may know, today is the day after Thanksgiving, which means that it’s Black Friday (黑色星期五 Hēisè xīngqíwǔ) and almost Cyber Monday (网络星期一Wǎngluò xīngqí yī)! Typically, in the US (美国 Měiguó), 黑色星期五 and 网络星期一are the days people go  crazy in shopping malls and online stores. However (但是 Dànshì) , this is not the case in China (中国 Zhōngguó). In 中国, the unique shopping day already passed a couple of weeks ago on November 11th (11月11日–11 Yuè 11 rì).

11月11日was “Singles’ Day” (光棍节 Guānggùn Jié — literally “bare sticks holiday”) in 中国. On this day, young, single people gather together at parties to celebrate. Blind dates are sometimes arranged for those who want to put an end to their lack of companionship. This day was originally for young, single, male university students, but has since been extended to include the other gender. 11月11日was chosen as the date for this unique holiday because of the resemblance between the “1” and a single individual. (You could imagine how this holiday was celebrated on 2011年11月11日!)

Now, you may be wondering what 光棍节 has to do with 黑色星期五 and 网络星期一. Well, 光棍节 is one of the largest online shopping days in the world, with sales reaching 14.32 billion USD in 2015 for a single company! Not only do the young people shop online, they also go to karaoke and restaurants to celebrate. On 2011年11月11日, the young had an excuse to celebrate even more extravagantly.

There you have it– the Chinese Black Friday/Cyber Monday! I hope you enjoyed this post! Until next week! 再见!