The Year of the Dog sees marriage rush
24/1/2006 18:11
Couples across China are rushing to get married shortly after the Year of
the Dog starts on Jan. 29 -- a year considered by the elderly to be auspicious
for weddings.
In the coming year of the dog, the lunar cycle begins
relatively early and will last for 385 days until Feb. 17, 2007 -- a phenomenon
that has occurred only 12 times in more than 2,300 years between 221 B.C. and
2100. The last 385-day lunar year was 1944.
As the year is unusually long, it
will have 13 months, with an intercalary month between the seventh and eighth
month of the Chinese lunar calendar, as well as two "lichun" -- the auspicious
day marking the beginning of spring -- on Feb. 4 of 2006 and 2007
respectively.
"Most elderly people believe a year with two beginnings of
spring and an intercalary month is a golden time to tie the knot," said Fei
Guangze, general manager of Suren Wedding Service Co in Hefei, capital of east
China's Anhui Province. "As the Chinese proverb goes, double beginnings of
spring and 13 months make a perfect year for weddings."
Fei's company
provides wedding related products and services ranging from wedding gowns, fancy
photo albums and bridal make-ups to luxuriant wedding fleets and witty masters
of ceremonies that are among the most popular choices for urban couples to get
married.
"We're already fully booked with weddings in February, March, May
and October -- some couples made reservations a year in advance," he said.
A
community service station of the civil affairs department in Luyang district of
downtown Hefei has been receiving more than 20 couples a day for marriage
registration since the start of January, about twice the daily average reported
in the last 10 months, an official told Xinhua in an interview. "They are all
preparing for wedding ceremonies in the year of the dog," he said.
Many other
cities have also reported soaring marriage registrations as the year of the dog
approaches.
In fact, many couples have been waiting for a year to chicken out
the rooster year weddings because they believe the past year, which lasts from
Feb. 9, 2005 to Jan. 28, 2006, does not contain "lichun", earning it the dubious
distinction of being a "widow year", or unlucky for wedlock.
A similar
marriage rush was reported in January 2005, when people scrambled to get hitched
in the last days of the year of the monkey.
"Though the 'widow year' is
nonsense, the fact that people try to avoid it reflects their strong desire for
a happy marriage," Zhang Youde, a sociologist at Shanghai University, told
Xinhua.
Many young people, however, believe love should prevail over
traditional beliefs. "It doesn't matter to me in which year we get married,"
said Beijing urban resident Wang Lin. "My girlfriend and I will get married when
we feel like it."
Xinhua News
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