As the Chinese New Year approaches, a recent video shared by netizens claims that a village in Huaihua, Hunan, has hung a banner at the village entrance demanding that migrant workers “cannot enter the village without bringing their girlfriends back.” This incident has triggered questioning from netizens, who believe it is a disguised form of matchmaking, with some netizens stating that “many places are implementing these kinds of rules.”
The video shows a prominent red banner hanging on a pavilion at the entrance of the village in question, with the message “Cannot enter the village without bringing your girlfriend back.”
The caption accompanying the video states, “The village chief said, regardless of whether you drive a Mercedes-Benz, a BMW, or an Audi this year, you cannot enter the village without bringing your girlfriend back.” According to comments in the video’s comment section, the village in question is Jiangjiabao Village, Tongdao County, Huaihua City, Hunan Province.
The video has sparked discontent among netizens online, who see it as a form of “covert matchmaking.” Some comments express sympathy, saying, “It’s tough luck for these villages, as they were already having trouble finding wives, and now they can’t even go home.”
In response to this, the village secretary of Jiangjiabao Village stated that while the banner was indeed hung, it was not done by the village committee. Instead, it was a few young people in the village wanting to create content for social media, and the banner has since been taken down.
However, according to a netizen, “Many places are implementing these kinds of rules.” The netizen shared a photo showing a similar banner hanging in Songtang Village, Xiqiao Town, Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province.
A search on the Chinese TikTok platform revealed that many rural areas in China have indeed hung banners with the message “Cannot enter the village without bringing your girlfriend back.” In one video, young villagers from a particular village openly state, “The village chief has tasked us with finding people who can’t find girlfriends.”
In late October last year, data from the “China Statistical Yearbook 2024” showed that China’s birth rate hit a historic low in 2023. India has now surpassed China to become the most populous country in the world. The National Development and Reform Commission of the Chinese Communist Party proposed a series of measures aimed at increasing the birth rate after two consecutive years of population decline and the historic low birth rate in 2023.