This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Abroad from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

As Petula Clark once sort of sang: When you’re alone and life is making you lonely you can always go…to China. And not just because the population here is 1.4 billion but also because of Singles Day. Singles Day is the brainchild of Nanjing university students and was conceived as a sort of antidote to China’s idealized notion of romantic love and the estate of matrimony. Celebrated on 11/11 (1-1-1-1 get it?), it’s a day when merchants go for big profits by targeting the lonely who turn to retail therapy for comfort. One of those merchants is the e-commerce marketplace Alibaba, which brought in a record 9 billion dollars in a single (no pun intended) day with an offer of holiday specials just for singles. If, as another song goes, one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do, might as well do it in China.

With thanks to Paula Li for this text, from the KU Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.