There are 500 million and counting packages that the Chinese Post expects to deliver for the "Singles' Day" of November 11 (also called 'Double 11 Day'). It all began in 1996, when some university students, tired of the sweetness of Valentine's Day, decided to create a day for the singles, the "Singles Day".
There are also demographic reasons behind this goliardic decision: there is an imbalance, essentially due to selective abortions, between the number of women and the number of men in China, and many young men will struggle to find a bride. The idea of Singles' Day caught on and in recent years has exploded into a crescendo of expenses and gifts among singles.
Liu Jun, the deputy director of the postal service, said deliveries starting on 11/11 would increase by 50 percent compared to last year. Last year, on Singles' Day 2013, Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant and one of the original promoters of the big day, recorded an 83% increase in sales on those days, across both online platforms: Tmall.com and Taobao.com.
