Rural officials set limits on 鈥榞ood luck鈥 banquets
Print Edition
Frequent banquets are a symbol of growing affluence in China鈥檚 rural areas, but with an endless list of occasions requiring a toast, the practice has become increasingly burdensome on low-income households.
鈥淵ou should invite others to a banquet when you start groundwork for a new house, when your sows have new piglets, and even when you lose at a card table 鈥 a banquet helps win your luck back,鈥 said Zhou Guiyou, a farmer in southwest China鈥檚 Guizhou Province.
Zhou, 50, who lives in Tangyue Village of Anshun City, once had to spend over 80 percent of his 15,000-yuan (US$2,200) income maintaining relations with others.
It is a common practice for people in rural China to hold banquets and gather villagers to celebrate certain occasions, and guests usually have to pay cash as gifts to hosts.
鈥淪ometimes I had to borrow money from relatives to pay the hosts,鈥 said Zhou.
The village started a campaign in 2015 to limit the number of banquets and eventually managed to cut the number from 200 to 68. The dishes at one table shall cost no more than 100 yuan, said Zuo Wenxue, a village official, citing the new code.
鈥淪ome villagers were able to emerge out of poverty because they no longer have to splash out on so many banquets,鈥 Zuo said.
Zhou still drinks with his friends, but it costs him about 1,000 yuan every year, a 10th of what he used to pay.
Increasing extravagance, wastefulness and overspending in rural China have in part necessitated the guidelines issued by the central government in June to enhance rural governance.
The guidelines required that customs such as sumptuous weddings and funerals and high betrothal prices should be abolished.
鈥淚t was extremely difficult for some rural males to find wives, because they could not afford exorbitant caili (betrothal gifts),鈥 said Li Haiping, head of Luokou township in Jiangxi Province.
Research shows that betrothal gifts have started to spiral out of control, reaching upward of 100,000 yuan in some low-income areas.
The overwhelming caili led to low marriage rates in some villages and threatened social stability. 鈥淪ome of these older single males feel they are looked down upon by others, so they started to act rather recklessly,鈥 Li said.
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