Growing parental pressure for marriage has prompted staunch Chinese bachelors and bachelorettes to blow off steam through a subway advertisement.
"Dear mom and dad. The world is big and the ways of life are many. You can also be happy being single," said an advertisement adorned with a cartoon girl, lanterns and firecrackers against a bright orange background.
The ad has been on display since early February at a subway station in downtown Beijing. The 38,000 yuan (around 5, 783 U.S. dollars) required for the ad was raised through online alliance formed by a group of young Chinese with shared experience in being pressed by their parents to get married.
For young, single Chinese, the pressure to get married, known in Chinese as 'bihun', usually becomes bigger as they travel home during this time of the year for the Spring Festival family reunion, where parents, grandparents and other relatives badger them about their personal life.
A recent poll shows 86 percent of young Chinese aged between 25 to 35 years old have been pressed by their parents to get married.
Han Deqian, a 33-year-old bachelor and one of the organizers of the alliance, said his parents began pressuring him to tie the knot since he was 25.
"Growing up, I was never on the same page with my parents when it comes to marriage," Han said. "Back in high school, my parents told me not to have a girlfriend. But after I graduated from college, they suddenly became anxious about me not seeing anyone."
Han said he wanted to use the ad to raise more public awareness about the generational rift over singlehood, which Peking University sociologist Qiu Zeqi said came as young people living open, diverse lifestyles in big cities are increasingly drifting away from traditional family values.
"I don't like the word 'bihun'," said Shen Yifei, another sociologist from Shanghai Fudan University. "It puts two generations on opposing stances when in fact it is the Chinese way of showing care to your personal life, a virtue rarely found in western societies."
The solution, Shen suggests, is for the younger generation to find a better way to handle such well-intended inquiries.
That is probably something Han needs to work at as he expects to brace a fresh wave of questions over his singlehood during his trip back home this Spring Festival.
