中國的"光棍節"成了世界上最大的網上購物日

There are too many men in China.

中國人實在太多了。

That’s not the complaint of a love hungry young Chinese bachelor, but rather a statistical fact: by the year 2020, approximately 30 million more men will reach adulthood and enter the mating market than women. That may not make Chinese men happy, but it’s become a huge annual boost to China’s online retailers. How? Back in the early 1990s, Chinese singles created a sort of anti-Valentine’s Day called Singles’ Day, an annual celebration of bachelorhood or bachelorettehood taking place on November 11. (numerically, 11/11, the date of lonely “1s.”)

這不是在埋怨年輕中國單身漢對愛情的渴望，它只是一個統計學上的事實：2020年之前，將會成年並進入婚配市場的男性大約比女性多三千萬。這個數據大概不會讓中國男人感到開心，但是對於中國在線零售商來說，它帶來了一年一度的銷量劇增。這是怎麼發生的呢？時間回溯到上世紀90年代初期，中國的單身人士發明了一種與情人節相反的節日叫做光棍節，一個在每年11月11日（從數字角度來說，11/11，也就是孤獨的“1”的集合的日期）對單身和單身生活的慶祝。

Singles’ Day has since evolved into a major shopping holiday, similar to Black Friday or Cyber Monday here in the U.S. And just as U.S. corporations like Hallmark adopted Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to boost sales, Chinese online retailers like Alibaba, a massive online marketplace, have embraced the cultural phenomenon that is Singles’ Day.

自此以後，光棍節就漸漸演變成了一個主要的購物節日，類似於美國的黑色星期五，以及黑色星期五之後的網購星期一（在美國標誌着感恩節至聖誕節之間網絡購物旺季的開始）。而且正如美國諸如賀曼之類的公司把情人節當做提高銷量的好機會，中國諸如阿里巴巴（一個大型的線上市場）之類的在線零售商已經張開雙手擁抱了光棍節這個文化現象。

And that embrace comes with good reason. China’s Alibaba online marketplace alone reported over $9 billion in sales on Tuesday, skyrocketing past the company’s previous Singles’ Day record of about $5.9 billion, MarketWatch reports. Those are stunning numbers — by comparison, U.S. consumers spent just $1.2 billion online during Black Friday last year, according to ComScore, and another $2.29 billion during Cyber Monday, per Adobe Systems. (Factoring in physical store sales, total Black Friday weekend spending in the U.S. last year was a hair over $57 billion.) Those numbers come just two months after Alibaba went public in a $25 billion U.S.-based public offering, which has since hit the record books as the world’s biggest-ever IPO.

這種擁抱不是沒有收穫的。據市場觀察報道（MarketWatch），在星期二，中國的阿里巴巴在線市場單獨一家就報告了超過90億美元的銷售額，遠遠超過了這家公司在上個光棍節約59億美元的銷量，這些都是非常驚人的數據——因爲相比較而言，康姆斯科公司（comScore）的數據顯示，根據每個奧多比系統的用戶，美國的消費者在去年黑色星期五期間的在線消費只有12億美元，在網購星期一期間，消費了另外的22.9億美元（加上實體店銷售額，去年美國整個黑色星期五週末消費略超過570億美元）。 而就在兩個月前，阿里巴巴首次上市，募集到250億的美國資本，作爲世界最大的獨立上市公司打破了點擊記錄。

Singles’ Day is a holiday that speaks to the rapidly growing purchasing power of China’s middle class as well as a culture increasingly focused on the acquisition of material wealth. Accordingly, Singles’ Day has spawned a bevy of outlandish tales that redefine consumerism — one Chinese man, in preparation for Singles’ Day, proposed to his girlfriend in a heart-shaped ring of 99 iPhone 6s that cost about $82,000, reports the Nanfang. The woman rejected his proposal.

光棍節是一個證明了中國中產階級飛速增長的購買力的節日，也是一種日益在關注物質財富的獲得的文化。相應的光棍節也產生了一批奇聞怪談，重新定義了消費主義——有一箇中國男人，爲了準備即將到來的光棍節，花費了大約82000美元，用99部蘋果6s擺成的心形環向他的女朋友求婚。到女方拒絕了他的求婚。

But the Singles’ Day windfall for Chinese retailers like Alibaba is also an accident of China’s one-child policy, instituted in 1979. The policy led many Chinese—who historically have often preferred to have boys—to take advantage of cheap ultrasound technology that has allowed women to determine the sex of their child in early pregnancy, offering them the option to continue or terminate pregnancies based on gender. The resulting gender imbalance has actually led many of China’s surplus men (and some women as well) to view Singles’ Day as a chance to celebrate what they hope could be the last day of singledom—hence much of the expensive buying, which is tied to gift-giving to woo significant others.

但是對於如阿里巴巴的中國零售商來說，光棍節的意外之財也是中國在1979年制定的獨生子女政策的意外影響。這個政策導致很多中國人——那些由於歷史原因經常更傾向於得到兒子的——利用了低級的超聲波技術，因而女人得以在懷孕早期就確定他們的孩子的性別，也有了繼續或者終止這次懷孕的選擇。結果造成的男女性別不平衡實際上已經導致很多中國的剩男（有些剩女也是）將光棍節當成一次機會，慶祝希望中的單身的最後一天——因此，要給那個重要的人求愛，這就造成了很多高昂的消費。

Alibaba, which acts as a bazaar for online merchants, has taken advantage to a remarkable extent of growing disposable incomes in China. This year, the company posted the largest initial public offering at $25 billion, launching off its rapid growth in China.

阿里巴巴作爲在線商家的集市，已經把中國不斷增長的消費收入利用到了淋漓盡致的程度。今年，這家公司發佈了最大的首次公開募股250億美元，加快了它在中國的飛速發展。