(Photo by Wang Xiaoying/China Daily)
With more recognition than Halloween and less than Christmas, Valentine's Day as a somewhat recently imported festival faces a precarious situation in China, where it's caught between shifting forces of tradition and fashion.
Valentine's Day has a natural foe in China. And it is not the Chinese equivalent, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month on the lunar calendar, usually around half a year away from Feb 14. It is Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year, that will keep the Feast of Saint Valentine at bay.
Because of the differences between the lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar, the Chinese New Year shifts each year but generally falls in early February. The secret is not just the specific date, but the length of the celebration.
While the legal holiday lasts seven days, the festive mood lasts for at least twice as long. As custom has it, the 15th day of the first lunar month marks the official end of festivities. And add to it the run-up to New Year's Eve and it could be 20 days in total. No wonder expatriates who first arrive in China are flabbergasted that the country can grind to a halt and for so long.
However, many Chinese still complain about inadequate time off.
Compared with some Western countries, they maintain, we seem to have far less time off.
Well, it really depends on the line of work one is involved in.
If it's rigid, tough luck. You'll probably have to report to work by the end of the public holidays. But most employers are more considerate. They will give days off if it can be arranged. Generally, it is a gradual process to return to the work mood.
Back to Valentine's Day, which falls on the seventh day of the lunar year in 2016. This means many couples are on the way back from their journeys home. If it were the 10th day, the sales of roses would have been much higher, or I guess.
Last year, Valentine's Day was five days before the Chinese New Year and, in 2010, it coincided with the biggest day on the Chinese calendar. Statistically, most Valentine's Days are outshone by the colorful illumination of red lanterns and dazzling fireworks.
Of course, the two holidays are not direct competitors, so there is no reason they cannot coexist.
It is just that a month and half earlier there is another imported and localized holiday which pretty much steals the thunder－or shall I say the appeal－of the occasion.
Christmas.
In China, Christmas is mostly for the urban youth, who have stripped it of its religious coating and secularized it to the point that it is an urbane celebration of romantic love. As a matter of fact, most Western holidays come with a built-in vogue or sophistication.
The real feud between East and West probably took place over a century ago, when China's door was forced open by Western powers and Chinese intellectuals advocated westernization as a means to beef up our nation's ability to compete. The introduction of the Gregorian calendar and Western measurements was both an acknowledgment of their influence and an effort to assimilate into the world order.
Nowadays, we see them as the international standards.
But had China been as powerful as the United States, naysayers of the metric system and other outside influences would have wielded more clout. For a full century, we have had two systems running in parallel.
When I was a kid, my grandmother would use traditional Chinese measurements and the lunar calendar. New Year's Day－Jan 1－was adamantly dismissed. The week leading up to the Chinese New Year, on the other hand, was so rich with rituals that I never managed to figure out which day was for what activities.
