Do you know what day is May 20 for the Chinese?
Valentine’s Day.
Difficult to understand, right? Well, the Chinese call May 20 a valentine’s day because the pronunciation of “520” sounds like “I love you” in Mandarin. Therefore, up to now, increasingly more people, especially young people like to celebrate May 20 as a valentine’s day apart from the traditional Valentine’s Day (February 14), a white Valentine’s Day (March 14), and Valentine’s Day based on Chinese lunar calendar (July 7, also called Qixi, or Double Seventh Festival).
Yes, Chinese lovers usually celebrate 4 Valentine’s Day in a year, that is, Feb.14, Mar. 14, May 20, and July 7 (Chinese lunar calendar). It’s not surprising at all to see your astonishing face on you.
Then, how do they celebrate them? Generally speaking, exactly the same as what people usually do on Feb. 14.
To celebrate May 20 Valentine’s Day, lovers or couples usually send a gift to each other or spend a night sharing a romantic buffet together. Recent years have witnessed a trend to send a red packet with digital cash to a lover on Valentine’s Day. After all, it is a release of pressure for men to guess what gift will satisfy their lovers or wives because it’s simple to prepare and most of the time, a red packet doesn’t let their love down. The red packet money is transferred on Alipay or WeChat Pay and the amount is usually 520 yuan to be compatible with the date. So “520” is a valentine’s day created and celebrated by the Chinese alone.
There isn’t a professional investigation while I find that the Chinese like celebrating Valentine’s Day most around the world. In addition, they spend the most Valentine’s Days (Feb. 14, March 14, May 20, and lunar double seventh) as well. But why?
According to my observation, the Chinese celebrate Valentine’s Day just want to express their love for a boy/girlfriend or husband/wife. Chinese are so shy that they don’t express their love as often as westerners who kiss and say “I love you” as often as they can, like leaving home to work, getting up in the morning, coming home from work, etc. It’s hard to imagine that lots of Chinese couples don’t say “I love you” even their whole life and they account for the majority. By the way, it’s even difficult to see them hug often as well.
However, when Valentine’s Day falls, the surroundings become so lovely that people won’t feel uncomfortable directly expressing their love to their loved ones. After all, everyone does the same, like preparing roses, buying a gift, or inviting their love to dinner.
Another reason for the Chinese celebrating valentine’s day lies in the fact that there are some who strongly believe their love deserves a gift on such an occasion to compensate for the shyness of using language.
Therefore, on May 20 valentine’s day gives businesses another chance to market their products or services using a slogan like “Express Your Love Loudly” that would encourage shy Chinese to bravely say out their internal feelings. In addition, many couples would like to register for marriage on valentine’s day so that it’ll be one of their memorial days.
How to express love differs from the country, from men and women, and from one to one. However, the simplest way to express your love is just to say “I love you” to your loved ones and accompany them.
If your love isn’t around you now, you can still express your love through unlimited calling and messaging. Use Dingtone to make calls to your love everywhere and tell them “love you”.