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For a country where many major holidays can be traced back thousands of years, Singles Day is a refreshingly recent invention. No one is quite sure exactly who first thought it up, but it definitely emerged as a student tradition in the mid-1990s. The most widely-accepted story is that it emerged from the dorms of Nanjing University in 1993 when four single male students got together to discuss how to break free of the loneliness and monotony of single life. One suggested that because of the ones in the date, November 11 would be a good day on which to organize activities for singles. 中国的很多传统节日都可以追溯到上千年以前，但光混节却是个最近几年才兴起的节日。没人能确切说出是谁先想出了这个节日，但能够肯定的是它最早出现在上世纪九十年代中期，是大学生们的一项传统。大家公认的说法是，1993年在南京大学的宿舍里，有4个单身男生聚在一起讨论如何摆脱单身生活的孤独和乏味时，其中一个建议说11月11日恰好是四个数字1组成的，就像4个光棍，所以这天可能会是个为光棍们组织活动的好日子。 What started as an idea executed by a small group of friends gradually became a university tradition. Singles Day grew into something like the anti-Valentines day, a day China’s single young people – at first just men, but later single women adopted the tradition as well – could use as an excuse to get together and do fun stuff like visit karaoke bars together. | 
