A local Bureau of Civil Affairs, where couples register and obtain their marriage certificate, launched a livestream to celebrate the marriage registration ceremony for new couples on August 22, marking the occasion of the Qixi Festival, often referred to as the Chinese equivalent of Valentine’s Day.

The celebratory livestream gained immense traction on Chinese social media, albeit for all the unintended reasons.

The livestream was held by the Youxian District of Mianyang, a prefecture-level city in Sichuan with a population of 4.8 million. The Qixi Festival is typically regarded as an ideal moment for marriage registration, and people had expected a buzz around the event, with many couples lining up for the much-anticipated marriage boom (结婚潮).

However, as online viewers noticed no long queues and an empty ceremony stage, news of the awkward ‘no-show’ registration day quickly circulated across social media platforms. Some said that the livestream even momentarily shifted to show the city view instead of the empty hall.

Instead of showing the empty hall, the livestream sometimes turned off the live camera view and switched to show a generic city view.

Later in the day, certain media outlets reported that throughout the entire livestream duration, spanning from 10 in the morning until 3:45 in the afternoon, merely 12 couples had appeared to complete their marriage registration. This figure was probably derived from comments made by the thousands of online viewers, who detailed their viewing experiences. One viewer shared that they had watched the livestream for over an hour and only saw two couples coming to get their marriage certificate.

“I’ve been watching for ages and I’ve seen not a single couple obtain their marriage certificate,” one viewer wrote during the livestream.

When a couple finally did show up, the online viewers congratulated them, although some also thought they might have just popped up to make it look more crowded.

The failed ‘romantic’ livestream already attracted online attention on August 22. A day later, on the 23rd, it became the number one trending topic on China’s Douyin (TikTok) app.

Press photo by Mianyang Bureau of Civil Affairs.

The Mianyang Bureau of Civil Affairs, however, denied that their office had been completely empty. A total of 77 couples did show up to get registered on the 22nd, they stated (#民政局否认七夕直播领证仅12对#, #官方否认民政局直播领证仅12对登记#).

“Do you also dare to say how many people got divorced on this day?”

But many netizens doubt their claim, or think it is irrelevant as the empty hall and low number of marriage registrations is actually why the topic went trending in the first place: the image of the empty marriage stage symbolizes an era marked by historically low marriage rates. Some also comment that is is too coincidental for them to come up with ’77 couples’ for festival of Qixi (七夕), the ‘double seven festival’ which is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month on the Chinese lunisolar calendar.

Behind this seemingly trivial trending topic lies a larger narrative that reflects how Chinese youth are increasingly deferring marriagem while optimistic depictions of love and matrimony in the media fail to align with their own experiences.

Even if 77 couples did register for marriage at the office, many netizens think it is still a low number – especially considering the fact that China was still dealing with the pandemic during last year’s Qixi Festival.

“Do you also dare to say how many people got divorced on this day?” some wondered.

On Douyin, the number two trending topic, below the Mianyang one, was about the number of singles in China rising to 239 million. The number has come out in the China Population Census Yearbook (2020), which also said that the average age when people first get married is 28.67, 3.78 years older compared to 2010.

China’s declining marriage rates go hand in hand with lower birth rates while society is rapidly aging. Recently, a renowned professor of demography, Yuan Xin, made headlines for pointing out that China has become one of the countries with the lowest birth rates globally, projecting that China’s negative population growth will continue well into the 2070s (read more in our premium newsletter).

Despite the situation at hand, or actually because of it, Chinese state media are pushing romantic narratives about tying the knot and starting a family. Not only did many Chinese media outlets highlight the supposed ‘wedding boom’ during the Qixi Festival, some local authorities texted residents wishing them “sweet love, marriage and childbirth.”

But Mianyang’s well-intended celebration of Chinese Valentine’s Day failed to mask the reality behind the positive news reports, which is exactly why so many netizens think the livestream was so funny.

This Bureau of Civil Affairs in Sichuan had all the good intentions for Qixi ("Chinese Valentine's Day") by hosting a livestream showing all the happy couples coming to get married. The livestream did go viral, but for all the wrong reasons; the absence of couples tying the knot. pic.twitter.com/wiUd8atkHS

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) August 23, 2023

“Perhaps next time you should livestream the divorce office instead,” one commenter suggested: “It’ll probably be a lot more lively.”

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By Manya Koetse

With contributions by Miranda Barnes

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Why did a private argument between a Chinese couple over an unappetizing bowl of noodles at a local noodle shop attract over 300 million views and thousands of comments? The video unexpectedly led Chinese netizens to analyze the toxic dynamics within the couple’s relationship.

A video showing a woman and her partner arguing over a bowl of noodles has gone completely viral on Chinese social this week, with one hashtag about the topic attracting over 160 million clicks on Weibo (#女生因为吃面崩溃#).

One thread about the topic received over one million likes and more than 30,000 comments and shares on Weibo, and the video went viral on China’s Douyin (TikTok).

The video shows the moment a woman loses it because her partner criticizes her for complaining about the food at a local noodle shop. The couple apparently had to wait half an hour for their 15 yuan ($2.20) noodle dish. When it finally arrived, it did not taste good at all, and the woman proceeded to complain about it to the noodle shop owner.

Her partner, however, felt that they were “losing face” over a small issue and walked off. If your noodles aren’t tasty, you just leave and find another place instead, he argued.

The video, allegedly recorded in Anhui’s Hefei, is just 1,5 minutes long and shows the discussion between the woman and her partner as they are seated in the car after the incident happened. The woman is clearly very upset about her partner blaming her for embarrassing them – she feels she has every right to complain about a dish that smells and tastes funny and is very emotional about her partner not supporting her.

The video went viral for various reasons. The very fact that a private argument between a couple was posted online for everyone to see is one of the reasons, but it goes further than that.

According to some views, the partner posted the video online to show the behavior of his wife and get people to side with him, but instead many saw a red flag in his behavior: this was not about a bowl of noodles anymore, but about the man making his partner think that her normal behavior was completely out of line.

This is why many blame the man for “gaslighting” his partner. The word in Chinese is “méiqì dēng xiàoyìng” (煤气灯效应), “gaslight effect,” and refers to a form of manipulation.

Gaslighting is a psychological method in which a person – often a romantic partner – repeatedly questions or denies the victim’s reality, leading them to doubt their own perceptions and experiences. As a result, the victim becomes confused and agitated, feeling as though they are wrong or at fault for situations that they are not responsible for. This can cause significant distress and erode the victim’s self-confidence and sense of identity, which then might cause them to stay in a relationship that is actually toxic.

The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1944 American film Gaslight, which was previously a play, in which a husband manipulates his wife into believing she is mentally unwell by causing the gas lights in their home to flicker on and off, and then denying that anything is wrong with them.

On Weibo and Douyin, hundreds of commenters pointed out that the man was gaslighting his wife, especially because her extreme emotional response showed that his accusations greatly confused and upset her – suggesting this might happen more often. Others called this a case of cyberbullying, and they advised the woman to separate from her husband. Some bloggers recorded entire videos as armchair therapists, analyzing the incident from start to finish.

Meanwhile, some commenters wonder if the entire video might have been staged for clout.

It is not uncommon for small, private affairs among unknown people to go viral like this. Last year, an individual female blogger posting about her upcoming trip to West Africa went completely viral after she stopped updating her blogs and netizens feared she had been abducted.

The issue grew so big that even the Chinese Consultate in Nigeria responded to the issue (#大使馆回应周周在西非已失联#) and said they would look into the matter. The girl later posted she was doing ok.

Another example of an individual post becoming trending nationwide happened in 2016 when a Shanghai girl was so disappointed about what her boyfriend’s parents served her for Chinese New Year, that she ended her relationship because of it.

Stories such as these often gain so much attention because parts of the story resonate with netizens and trigger wider discussions about morals, emotions, and people’s relationships.

By Manya Koetse , with contributions by Miranda Barnes

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Part of the featured image was created by M. W.

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