Valentine's Day Cynicism

By staff reporter ZHAO YAYUAN

THE debate on whether to observe Valentine's Day on February 14 heats up every year with as much intensity as a new romance. On the Internet both supporters and opposers are many. On the evening of February 12, 2009, two men in Changsha City, Hunan Province erected a banner on the pedestrian thoroughfare of Huang-xing South Road with the slogan, "It is everyone's duty to boycott repugnant Valentine's Day." On the banner are the many signatures of netizens who agree to do just that.

Not breaking her heart: To some young people, the Valentine's Day means nothing more than a change in decorations.

The Dispensable Feast

    The sponsor of the prank and the Internet debate is a person who calls himself "pebble in the stream." He is a common wage-earner in Changsha City who on February 9, 2009 posted a call to other netizens to "Follow us to Huangxing Road to boycott repugnant Valentine's Day," specifically on the forum of Rednet.com, an influential portal in Hunan Province. He called on the like-minded to take to the streets and boycott observances of all kinds. Supporters on the Internet may be impressive, but very few went to the street to unfurl the banner. Talking about the aim of this activity, he said that he meant to call more attention to traditional Chinese holidays and encourage the rejection of disgusting foreign ones. He even listed 10 reasons for not observing this holiday. One of them is that merchants have commercialized it as a means to lure customers and it is absolutely unnecessary to feel pressure to be extravagant on Valentine's Day.

    Some scholars also agree that Western festivals might wear away at traditional Chinese holidays and challenge traditional Chinese values. They call for people to observe more Chinese festivals and fewer Western ones. To resist Valentine's Day, some people even looked for a Chinese substitute – Double-seventh Night – when Cowboy and Weaving-girl meet annually on the Magpie Bridge in the seventh evening of the seventh lunar month, according to Chinese legend. Some other scholars would like to make the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first lunar month "Chinese Valentine's Day."

    Feng Jicai, vice-president of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (CFLAC), published an article in a newspaper entitled "Never Let What's Human in Holidays Be Quietly Displaced," dealing with the relations between holiday culture and holiday economics. He believes that some long stretches in the calendar devoid of holidays provide the soil for Western holidays such as Valentine's Day and Father's Day to gain purchase in China. Some people need these opportunities to express their emotions. Meanwhile, Feng Jicai points out that the market economy tends to reduce many holidays to a materialistic base, converting them to merely a new "selling point" for the regular merchandise and services of businesspeople. When they have departed from their original nature to become simply catalysts for profit, the emotion of a celebration has been quietly displaced.

    Besides the intellectuals who are rejecting Western festivals, many Chinese people prefer to observe traditional holidays, regarding Valentine's Day as a dispensable feast.

    Although his father-in-law buys flowers or chocolate for his mother-in-law, and the latter was so glad that she danced in the kitchen, Su Dan, aged 28, is skeptical about the avant-garde behavior of his parents-in-law. "Very few people their age observe Valentine's Day. My parents also know of Valentine's, but never observe it." According to his analysis, psychologically many Chinese only respond to authentically traditional Chinese festivals.