双十一是怎么来的？
Where did Singles Day come from?
Name: ________________ Date: ________
每年到了十一月十一日，很多中国人的购物车都满满的，快递一直在路上，钱包却空空的。有意思的是，这一天本来和买东西一点关系也没有。它原来的名字叫“光棍节”。
“光棍”，字面意思是光秃秃的棍子，口语里指没结婚的男人，现在也常常用来指单身的人。这一天写成数字，就是四个“1”排在一起，像不像四根光棍？
一般的说法是，这个节日来自二十世纪九十年代南京的大学校园。据说1993年，南京大学一间宿舍的四个男生睡前聊天，说起大家都没有女朋友，就决定把十一月十一日叫作“光棍节”。这个玩笑很快传到了别的学校，又从校园传到了社会上。
那时候，光棍节是单身的人拿自己开玩笑的日子。有人早饭吃四根油条和一个包子：油条是四个“1”，包子是两个“11”中间的那个点。也有人约几个单身朋友一起吃饭，或者去参加相亲活动，希望明年不用再过这个节。
2009年，淘宝商城，也就是后来的天猫，在这一天搞了一次打折活动，很多东西都打五折。不管有没有对象，打折谁不喜欢呢？那一天只有二十七个品牌参加，却卖了五千二百万元，据说是平时的十倍。
后来，别的购物网站也跟着打折，“光棍节”慢慢变成了“双十一”。2019年，光是阿里巴巴，这一天就卖了两千六百多亿元。活动越来越长，有些年份十月就开始了，双十一也就不只是一天了。
双十一也给中文带来了不少新词。东西越买越多，心疼钱的人就说自己要“剁手”，意思是：剁了手，看你还怎么买！为了用上“满三百减五十”这样的优惠，大家还会“凑单”，往购物车里多放几样东西，凑到三百元。钱都花光了怎么办？那就只好“吃土”了。
每年这个时候，总有人在网上喊：“再买就剁手！”可是到了第二年，手又长出来了。
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 一直 | yìzhí | always; all along; continuously |
| 关系 | guānxì | relation; relationship |
| 结婚 | jiéhūn | to marry; to get married |
| 男人 | nánrén | man; men |
| 常常 | chángcháng | often; frequently |
| 节日 | jiérì | festival; holiday |
| 快递 | kuàidì | express delivery; courier service |
| 口语 | kóuyǔ | speaking (skill); spoken language; colloquial speech |
| 指 | zhǐ | to mean; to refer to |
| 用来 | yònglái | to be used for |
| 数字 | shùzì | number; digit; figure |
| 排 | pái | to arrange; to line up |
English (for the teacher)
Every year on 11 November, plenty of people in China have shopping baskets full to the brim and parcels forever on the way, but empty wallets. The funny thing is, the day started out with nothing at all to do with shopping. Its original name was Guānggùn Jié, “Singles Day”.
Literally, guānggùn means a bare stick; in everyday speech it means a man who isn’t married, and these days it’s often used for anyone who is single. Write the date in numbers and you get four 1s standing in a row: don’t they look like four lonely sticks?
The usual story is that the day began on university campuses in Nanjing in the 1990s. It’s said that in 1993, four young men sharing a dorm at Nanjing University were chatting before bed about how none of them had a girlfriend, and decided to call 11 November “Singles Day”. The joke soon spread to other universities, and then from campus to the rest of society.
Back then, Singles Day was a day for single people to laugh at themselves. Some ate four fried dough sticks and one steamed bun for breakfast: the dough sticks were the four 1s, and the bun was the dot between the two 11s. Others met a few single friends for dinner or went to blind-date events, hoping they wouldn’t be celebrating it again next year.
In 2009, Taobao Mall, which later became Tmall, held a sale on that day, with lots of things at half price. Partner or no partner, who doesn’t love a sale? Only 27 brands took part, yet that day they sold 52 million yuan’s worth of goods, reportedly ten times a normal day.
Later, other shopping sites joined in with sales of their own, and Singles Day slowly turned into Shuāng Shíyī, “Double Eleven”. In 2019, Alibaba alone sold more than 260 billion yuan’s worth on that one day. The sales grew longer and longer, in some years starting as early as October, so Double Eleven was no longer just one day.
Double Eleven has also given Chinese plenty of new words. As the shopping piles up, people who feel the pinch say they need to duòshǒu, “chop their hands off”: let’s see you shop without hands! To get deals like “spend 300, get 50 off”, people còudān, “top up the order”, adding a few more things to the basket until it reaches 300 yuan. And when all the money’s gone? Then there’s nothing for it but to chītǔ, “eat dirt”.
Every year around this time, someone online cries: “One more purchase and I’m chopping my hands off!” But by the next year, the hands have grown back.