Renting a boyfriend is a New Year business'

By Sunny Lee

BEIJING ― Chinese don’t call it the “Chinese Lunar New Year.” They don’t call it “Lunar New Year” either. They call it “Spring Festival” (chun jie). And fireworks mark the start of the year of the snake.

Unlike Korea where people rushed to their hometowns Saturday and rushed back to Seoul Sunday, China’s Spring Festival is usually seven-days long, and this year it ends on Feb 15. Many people add their yearly leaves back-to-back to make it half-a-month holidays. Spring Festival remains by far the most important Chinese holiday.

Just like Korea, China’s biggest holiday is a family reunion time too. For singles of marriageable age, going home for the Spring Festival can be a frustrating, if not dreadful experience, because they have to face endless pesky questions from their worried parents such as: “Do you have a boyfriend?”

In Chinese society, there is a lot of pressure on women to marry and start a family. With national family planning, in China most parents these days have one child, who becomes the center of parental attention.

A girl of eligible age, who hasn’t found a boyfriend to bring home, during the nation’s biggest holiday becomes a cause for parental concern. In rural, traditional villages, parents also lose face. Understandably, the pressure to get married weighs heavily on the shoulders of many Chinese women. Even China’s state media refers to single women above age 27 as “leftover women.”

Now for these women, there is a new service available: renting a boyfriend.

The going price is about $50 to $80 a day, according to China’s online shopping mall, Taobao, which is like eBay in America and connects consumers to consumers. The company says online searches for the term “rental boyfriend” have soared by 884 percent over the same period last year. Days before the Spring Festival, the online company listed hundreds of men who were willing to play the temporary “knight in the shining armor” role.

The boyfriend, whose mission is to deceive (or “console”) the girl’s parents, should play the perfect and natural role of a real boyfriend, including drinking with parents and going shopping with the girl. If necessary, kisses can be provided too, but it comes at an extra cost, according to Chinese media.

A 24-year-old man surnamed Chen is willing to play this role – for a price. He is a stock dealer, who left his village in Hunan province two years ago and is working in Shenzhen, China’s southern Guangdong province. Chen began offering the service two months ago and has already made three deals, according to the China Daily.

Chen said he expects “brisk business” during the Spring Festival. More than 20 women have contacted him, showing interest in his service, even though it costs 500 yuan ($79) a day.

Chen is already a considerate businessman who attends to diverse customers’ various needs. He also makes sure to show his photo ID in his first meeting with potential clients to prove that he is not a scam. He feels there is some risk for him too.

“I’m also worried that I may get cheated or run into danger. After all, I have to travel to a new place together with a stranger,” Chen told the newspaper.

Sometimes Chen turns down an offer after he sees a client and doesn’t feel like they are a good match, thinking that their act won’t be convincing enough to her parents.

Another reason he is picky is because the business is booming, according to the newspaper, which said he is still choosing from nearly 30 potential clients.

The newspaper also tells the story of a woman, named Serena, to tell the woman’s side of the story. The 30-year-old woman wants to rent a boyfriend who can accompany her home and have dinners with her parents during the Spring Festival. She has her own worries as well, in case things go too well.

“My parents may keep asking when my ‘boyfriend’ and I plan to get married after seeing the ‘boyfriend’ I rent. And they will be looking forward to meeting him next Spring Festival. “It’s unrealistic to rent a different boyfriend every year,” Serena said.

Yet the much touted China’s new fad of rent-a-boyfriend services for the Lunar New Year’s holiday may have been exaggerated out of portion. A Chinese woman, who identified herself as Xu Xi, told the Korea Times that there might a number of such cases, but it is not anywhere close to be a “popular trend,” as some media outlets say.

“This can’t be true. I don’t know of any such cases among my female friends. It’s not for me either. Meeting parents is a serious business. In China, it means you’re serious about getting married to someone. Besides, parents would ask about the boy such as his job and his family background before they approve the daughter to bring him home to see them,” she said.

Another girl, who goes by the English name, Amanda, said: “It happens – but only among those women who are under extreme parental pressure and feel desperate.”

Sylvia, who married late and now is 41 years old, is sympathetic towards those women who resort to such “extreme means” of help.

“I know how they feel. If you don’t bring a boyfriend home during the New Year’s holiday, you will get quizzed not by your parents but also by your relatives for the entire week you will be staying at your parents’ home. That’s an enormously stressful experience. I think it’s better to pay some money to rent a boyfriend and get their nosy families off their backs.”