Survey shows more post-90s prefer Qixi to Valentine's Day

Compared to Valentine's Day, Qixi Festival, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, is more popular with post-90s born Chinese people, the Beijing Evening News reported on Thursday, citing a survey by Renren.com, a social networking site.

The survey of 2,536 respondents shows that 37.5 percent prefer Qixi, the Chinese equivalent of Valentine's Day, while 25 percent favor western Valentine's Day.

"Though not as passionate as the one in February, Qixi is more enduring and fits the Chinese mentality," said Yang, a college student in Beijing.

Some 70.6 percent of post-90 couples said that they take Qixi seriously and make special arrangements, with popular choices including dinner and a movie (53.1 percent), shopping (18.8 percent), and short trips (9.4 percent).

It is worth noting that 73.9 percent of post-90s Chinese are single. The survey finds that 59.4 percent of singles said they would pop the question to their lovers, while 40.6 percent said they would wait to be asked.

Some 59.4 percent of post-90s said they were not interested in discounts targeting young lovers, although 68.8 percent said they would buy their partners gifts, according to the survey.

In terms of spending, 53.1 percent intended to spend no more than 500 yuan (78 U.S. dollars), while only 11.7 percent were willing to spend more than 1,000 yuan (156 U.S. dollars). Another 8.4 percent had no set spending limit.