On Friday, throngs of couples in China rushed to get married to mark an auspicious "love you forever" date.
As noted by a blogger on the website Fluentu.com, the date Jan. 4, 2013, when said aloud in Mandarin, sounds a lot like a declaration of adoration (roughly translated as "I will love you for all of my life").
Wanting to make the most of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, thousands of couples reportedly flocked to registry offices across China to tie the knot.
According to Sky News, approximately 10,000 couples were married in Beijing on Friday. Additional government staff were reportedly called in to deal with the nuptials surge.
In Guangdong province, CNTV reports that nearly 5,000 couples got hitched; while in Hong Kong, the city's five marriage registries were said to have been fully booked since September 2012. And in Shanghai, according to Shanghai Daily, more than 7,000 couples tied the knot.
As the BBC notes, numbers play an important role in Chinese culture, with many couples choosing to marry on dates considered numerically favorable. For example, a similar "wedding rush" took place in China on Dec. 12, 2012.
For more, watch this unsubtitled CCTV-13 news video about the special day:
Related
Before You Go
