Today's a Lucky Day to Get Married in China; A Crappy Day to Do It Anywhere Else

In Mandarin, the words for “January 4th, 2013” are pronounced a lot like the phrase “I will love you all my life,” and so, logically, that means that January 4th is a lucky day to get married in China, kind of like how March 4th of every year is a lucky day to join the Army or leave your spouse in the middle of the night here in America.

Tens of thousands of couples are slated to get married in China today, and many more are expected to show up unannounced at wedding chapels and various other matrimony making emporiums. The homonym-ish date has caused so much buzz that today’s been nicknamed “Love You Forever” day in Chinese media. It’s a nice day for a Red wedding.

Numbers and superstition play a large role in wedding date selection in China, according to the BBC — dates involving repetition like 12/12/12 caused similar wedding rushes to Love You Forever Day, and because the number 8 is pronounced a lot like the word for “prosperity,” 08/08/08 was basically a wedding-apalooza. Poor unlucky number 4, on the other hand, sounds a little bit like the word for “death,” and thus people avoid that number when planning important events or constructing buildings. No wonder FourSquare has had such a hard time establishing itself in China. That, and the fact that declaring yourself the mayor of a place by virtue of visiting it multiple times is probably breaking some Chinese law.