Does the prospect of showing up alone for your yearly visit home to see your Chinese parents terrify you to the very core? You may want to think of renting a boyfriend.
China is experiencing a surging new business trend of rental services for boyfriends and girlfriends, ABC News reported. Searches for the term "rental boyfriend" have increased by 884 percent from the same time period last year on one of the most popular shopping websites in the country, Taobao. Searching the Chinese characters for "rent-a-boyfriend" on Taobao.com brings up more than 2,000 results, in diverse price ranges, according to ABC.
The trend looks to be inspired in part by the approaching Chinese New Year, a time when many Chinese who live far away from their hometowns and families make an annual migration back, returning to pay respects to their roots. As the Globe and Mail puts its: "Because so many Chinese live and work away from their native towns and villages, and travel home only once a year, the treasured family time is weighted with pressure to show what you've accomplished over the last 12 months."
For many single young people in the country, there's tremendous pressure to get married by the age of 30, so, "accomplishment" is generally translated to accommodate their family's wishes, meaning: this is the time bring home a potential future mate. Even the Chinese government refers to unmarried women over the age of 27 as "leftover women."
"My parents want me to get married by 30," 26-year-old Lily Li explained to the Guardian. "Bringing a 'boyfriend' back home simply means I get less hassle from relatives and my parents will stop worrying about my romantic life."
One of the new rental services, created last fall by a man who asked to be referred to as Mr. Gao, offers boyfriend rentals that offer virtually anything the customer desires. His business provides boyfriends who will go to the movies with you for 50 RMB (roughly $8) an hour, give you charming wake-up calls for 9 RMB (about $1.45) a day, and even do the unimaginable - go shopping with you - for 40 RMB ($6.42) an hour. And while rental boyfriends won't have sex for money, Gao says, things like handshakes, hugs, and goodbye kisses on the cheeks or forehead are free, ABC reported.
According to Gao, the rental market for boyfriends dwarfs that of rental girlfriends in China.
"There are many reasons why women pay for this service," Gao said in an interview with ABC News. "Some are trying to make their boyfriends jealous. Some want to bring a boyfriend to attend their company's annual dinner party to show their bosses that they are settled and stable. The women who rent a boyfriend to bring home for the Lunar New Year are wealthy women around the age of 25. Their parents fear losing face and worry that no one wants to marry their old single daughters."
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