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Originally posted by USA Today
Because of the vagaries of the Chinese lunar calendar, this new year will not contain the traditional start of spring known as li chun. For many here, that means the Chinese year 4702 will be cursed and, thus, a bad one in which to marry.
The sudden fuss over li chun is just the latest round in China's long-running tussle between modernity and tradition. In the 1960s, Red Guard revolutionaries waged a vicious campaign against everything traditional, destroying antiquities and deriding the Confucian values that guided Chinese life for centuries.
Today, Chinese enjoy greater economic and personal — though not political — freedoms. That has left them free to choose their own lifestyles and traditions, rather than follow Communist Party dictates or mimic Western habits. Their search for the latest trend has led some young Chinese back to ancient ways — such the notion of the widow's year.
"It's definitely something I considered. ... I don't believe in it too much, but it's better to be safe than sorry," Guo said, after waiting more than two hours.
For the past several weeks, as the old year drained away, Chinese couples have thronged municipal marriage registration offices.
On one reputedly lucky day earlier this month, 600 couples showed up to get married at an office in Beijing's Haidian district — six times the daily average, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
Some people waited up to seven hours to complete the 15-minute formalities. The office, which normally closes at 5 p.m., remained open until midnight.
On Friday, the last lucky day of the current year, the Chaoyang district office was busy from its 8:30 a.m. opening. By mid-morning, couples filled the blue plastic seats lining the hallway outside the marriage office. Architects, doctors and investment consultants were among those filing into the yuan yuan— or "garden of joining together" — room to get married before bad luck descended.
The sudden fuss over li chun is just the latest round in China's long-running tussle between modernity and tradition. In the 1960s, Red Guard revolutionaries waged a vicious campaign against everything traditional, destroying antiquities and deriding the Confucian values that guided Chinese life for centuries.
Today, Chinese enjoy greater economic and personal — though not political — freedoms. That has left them free to choose their own lifestyles and traditions, rather than follow Communist Party dictates or mimic Western habits. Their search for the latest trend has led some young Chinese back to ancient ways — such the notion of the widow's year.
"It's definitely something I considered. ... I don't believe in it too much, but it's better to be safe than sorry," Guo said, after waiting more than two hours.
For the past several weeks, as the old year drained away, Chinese couples have thronged municipal marriage registration offices.
On one reputedly lucky day earlier this month, 600 couples showed up to get married at an office in Beijing's Haidian district — six times the daily average, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
Some people waited up to seven hours to complete the 15-minute formalities. The office, which normally closes at 5 p.m., remained open until midnight.
On Friday, the last lucky day of the current year, the Chaoyang district office was busy from its 8:30 a.m. opening. By mid-morning, couples filled the blue plastic seats lining the hallway outside the marriage office. Architects, doctors and investment consultants were among those filing into the yuan yuan— or "garden of joining together" — room to get married before bad luck descended.
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