Rent-a-date

Filial piety has long been hailed as a great virtue in traditional Chinese culture. It is so crucial, even among young people today, that some will go as far as to "rent" a boyfriend or girlfriend during the Chinese New Year just to please their parents back home.

Turning from simply a concept into reality, the business of renting partners has thrived in recent years, especially when tens of millions of single men and women are planning trips home to reunite with their families for the most important holiday of the year - Spring Festival.

As a result, advertisements for such services abound on the Internet, offering a boyfriend or girlfriend at different prices based on their looks, education and manners.

Girlfriend for hire

Song Haiyang is someone who has chosen to use the service. The 28-year-old bachelor, who runs a packaging plant in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, hired a girlfriend to accompany him while visiting his parents in Sichuan Province last Spring Festival.

"My parents have been urging me [to find a girlfriend] for a long time, but they are not something you just get whenever you want," Song told the Global Times.

As a solution, he hired someone to pose as his girlfriend for 10 days. She charged 700 yuan a day, which was a bargain for Song as she had originally asked for 1,000 yuan a day.

In return, Song got to hug or hold her hand in front of his friends and relatives, but no kissing or sleeping in the same bed was allowed, as stated in a contract Song signed with the dating website.

To find "Miss Right," Song said that he had originally selected more than 10 girls on dating websites and interviewed them face to face.

According to him, their different appearances, manners and education backgrounds determined their prices, with the most expensive one charging about 2000 yuan a day and the cheapest one charging 300 yuan a day.

Song added that girls who are "beautiful or hot" cost more, and are usually from the art colleges in Guangzhou, while the less expensive ones are average-looking.

"It turned out to be a happy ending," Song said. "It might have been a lie, but a white lie. Since last year's Spring Festival, my parents have stopped pressuring me to get hitched and I felt proud in front of my friends when I had this girlfriend at my side."