"Hottest" Chinglish Valentine's express their hearts Day

Vocabulary:

affluent: having a lot of money and a good standard of living 富裕的

spurn: to reject or refuse somebody/something, especially in a proud way （尤指傲慢地）拒绝（She spurned all offers of help. 她断然拒绝一切帮助。）

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    As Valentine's Day falls on Chinese New Year's Day this year, both love and debate are in the air. And the changing times and views of amorousness can be read in the revival of romance novels.(Source: China Daily)

BEIJING, Feb. 11 -- As Valentine's Day falls on Chinese New Year's Day this year, both love and debate are in the air. And the changing times and views of amorousness can be read in the revival of romance novels.

Attitudes toward love have changed over the past three decades, and so has the passion for romance novels.

Readers in the Chinese mainland are no longer eyeing Western stories by Jane Austin and the Bronte sisters, or sentimental tales by Taiwan's Chiung Yao (Qiong Yao) and Xi Juan. Instead, they've shifted their attention to local writers.

According to Enjoy Reading Era, a Beijing-based cultural company specializing in publishing romantic novels, 1,500 love stories by writers in the mainland were published last year, an all-time high. The company exported 50 romance novels to Hong Kong and Taiwan, while it only imported three novels from Taiwan.

"The situation was in reverse a decade ago," says Hou Kai, manager of Enjoy Reading Era. "Time changes. Readers now identify more with romantic novels by mainland novelists, who provide fresh scenes and plots."

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, romantic novels from Hong Kong and Taiwan dominated the country's romantic novel market. Most of them had a contemporary setting, featuring protagonists for whom love was the priority.

A number of these romance novels were turned into TV series and movies. They, in turn, helped novels gain in popularity among teenagers and adults.

"It happened when China opened up. People began to focus on their feelings and emotions," says Hou, adding the personalized writing style of romantic novels brought warmth to readers, most of whom only had access to serious, revolutionary fictions.

As a genre of popular fiction, romantic novels were overlooked by mainstream writers and publishing houses decades ago.

"Love stories were considered of low artistic and cultural value," says literary critic Xia Lie. "Romantic novels were seen as works by unsuccessful writers."

But Xia adds the popularity of romantic novels is an indicator of social changes. He says, unlike other forms of literature, romantic novels target female readers, and development of the genre shows the rising social status of women.

The economies of Taiwan and Hong Kong began to take off in the late 1970s and women contributed a lot to it. They then had spare money for entertainment and some of them purchased romantic novels, Xia says.

"In the 1980s, we saw a rising demand for romance novels in the mainland."

However, readers found the themes and plots in romance novels from Hong Kong and Taiwan to be too limited over the years.

"There are not many surprises and I can predict the ending easily," says Ming Xiaoxi, a young university lecturer.

Dissatisfied, she wrote campus love stories for fun and posted them online. Much to her surprise, the stories received high acclaim from netizens and they re-posted the stories to more forums.

Ming is now a well-known writer with more than 10 published novels. Two of her stories, Angel Will Help Me Love You and Bubble Summer, have been adapted into TV series with A-list stars. She also writes stories with diversified themes, like time-travel, contemporary and historical love stories.

Ming is just one of thousands of amateur romantic novelists who have created love stories online. Many popular romantic novels have gained fame through literature websites first.

Hongxiu.com, a leading literature website targeting female readers, is famous for original romantic novels. Bi Jianwei, editor-in-chief of the website, claims it has attracted nearly 2 million online romantic works, receiving 30 million page visits every day by viewers aged from 18 to 35.

Stories written by well-known online writers are free for the first chapters, but the remaining chapters cost about 0.02 yuan (0.3 cent) for 1,000 Chinese characters, on average. Bi says pay-online reading has become a major source of income for the website, the other sources being copyright tradings with publishing houses. There are over 5,000 signed novelists on Hongxiu.com and some amateur novelists have turned full time. The growing number of writers and readers online makes Bi firmly believe in the saying: "Where there are women, there are romantic novels".

"It is a very competitive market," Bi says. "Online stories should have fascinating plots because readers are looking for entertainment and surprises. Writers have to be more creative and imaginative than their predecessors."

A popular theme of today's online romantic novels is time travel: A protagonist goes back in history or travels to the future to meet the other half. The female protagonists are, typically, determined and independent, which is a striking contrast to the stereotypical image of being timid, in previous romance fiction.

Besides the massive online reader base, many teenage fans purchase printed romances. Shen Hanying, editor of romantic novels from Memory House, a major publishing company for female literature, says their readers are between 14 and 18.

"Given the age, we are more careful in choosing to publish romantic novels. Romantic novels which contain sexual content is vetoed by most publishing houses," Shen says. "Online writers also know this rule. Some of them don't even write about a kiss, which they think is too bold and unnecessary for the story."

Having read over 100 romantic novels, Shen calls herself an "enthusiastic romantic novel fan". She says although romantic novels nowadays are still not taken seriously as literary fiction, they have a positive function.

"Most of them focus on the bright side of life and have optimistic endings. They also provide wisdom and guide readers to enjoy everyday life," Shen says.

"Who dares to say some of them will not be classics one day?" Shen adds. "Love is a universal topic and people are all equal in front of it. Romantic novels are a good record of people's attitude toward love in different times." 

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Rather than spending Valentine's Day with their partner, one fifth of adults would prefer to be with their pet, although the French still came top for romance, according to a joint global poll by Reuters/Ipsos.
The survey of 24,000 people in 23 countries found 21 percent of adults would rather spend February 14 with their pet than their spouse, although the French were least likely to choose a furry friend over a human with only 10 percent taking that option.
But the survey found that age and income were more of a determining factor than nationality when it came to romance, with younger, less affluent people more likely to choose their pet as their Valentine's Day companion.
John Wright, senior vice president of Ipsos, said 25 percent of people aged under 35 opted for their pet over their partner compared to 18 percent of those aged 35-54 and 14 percent of people aged 55 plus.
Men and women were evenly split over the question.
Those choosing pets over people were also more likely to be those who have a lower income (24 percent) compared to those who were middle or higher income earners (20 percent).
"Likely defying stereotype, the desire to spurn a partner for a pet is not rooted in gender but rather age and even there it seems the older you are, the least likely it is you'd choose pet over partner," said Wright.
"While there are country differences, it's more of a personal choice made by younger and less affluent individuals."
On a country-by-country basis, residents of Turkey were the most likely, at 49 percent, to choose their pet over their spouse or partner.
Next came India with 41 percent, then Japan with 30 percent, China with 29 percent, the United States with 27 percent and Australia with 25 percent.
On the other hand, the nations where residents were the least likely to want to spend the day with a pet instead of their spouse or partner were France at 10 percent, Mexico 11 percent, the Netherlands 12 percent and Hungary at 12 percent.
(Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a multimedia journalist at the China Daily Web site.)
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(Agencies)

据路透集团和益普索调查机构日前联合开展的一项全球民调显示，五分之一的成年人愿与宠物而非伴侣共度情人节。不过法国人依然最浪漫。

这项对23个国家共2.4万人开展的调查发现，21%的成年人宁愿与宠物而非伴侣共度2月14日的情人节，不过法国人选择与宠物共度该节日的可能性最小，仅有10%的人有此意向。

但调查发现，与国籍相比，年龄和收入与人们浪漫与否的关系更大。经济上不太富裕的年轻人更倾向于选择与宠物共度情人节。

益普索调查机构的高级副总裁约翰•莱特说，年龄在35岁以下的人中，有25%的人选择宠物而非伴侣共度情人节，而年龄在35到54岁之间的人做出这一选择的比例为18%，55岁以上人群的这一比例为14%。

男性和女性对这一问题的态度差不多。

收入较低的人更倾向于选择与宠物共度情人节（24%），而中高收入者的这一比例为20%。

莱特说：“这可能是一种反传统的做法，重宠物轻伴侣的想法和性别无关，而在于年龄。似乎是一个人的年龄越大，选择宠物的可能性越小。”

“尽管国家之间也存在差异，但这更多的是年轻和经济上不富裕的人群所做出的个人选择。”

就不同国家而言，土耳其人选择与宠物共度情人节的比例最高，达49%。

其次是印度，为41%，日本为30%，中国为29%，美国是27%，澳大利亚是25%。

另一方面，法国人最不愿意抛弃配偶或伴侣而选择与宠物共度情人节，仅有10%的人愿意这样做；墨西哥人的这一比例为11%，荷兰为12%，匈牙利为12%。

What Gets Me Hot

2.11.2010