China, September 10: Tens of thousands of Chinese couples rushed to tie the knot across the country to mark Wednesday’s special date 09/09/09, hoping that the ‘triple 9 day’ will bring them luck and eternal love.
In Mandarin Chinese, the number ‘9’ is pronounced the same as the word ‘jiu’ which means ‘forever, perpetual or eternal’.
In Beijing alone, 18,979 couples stood in long queues to register for marriage Wednesday, setting a one-day record in six decades. The figure was many times the daily average and exceeded the previous record of 15,646 seen Aug 8, 2008, a ‘triple 8 day’ when the 29th Olympic Games opened in Beijing.
At the marriage register office in the city’s Chaoyang district, clerks began working and issuing marriage certificates after midnight Tuesday to cope with the surge of marriage applications.
Similar scenes were also seen in many other cities as well. In the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, more than 6,000 couples applied to the city’s 24 marriage register offices, and the figure was about 3,000 for the eastern city of Nanjing, according to local authorities.
In some cities, many couples and their families had to queue outside the marriage register offices from Tuesday afternoon. Authorities in different cities had to increase staff, work long hours and open more offices to cope.
‘What a good day it is! We are very lucky that we got married today. The auspicious number stands for our eternal love,’ said a young man Zhang Peng with his girlfriend at a register office in Gaoxin district in the southwestern city of Chengdu.
‘We came here yesterday (Tuesday) to see the location of the register office, hoping to get the certificate sooner today (Wednesday),’ he said.
Huang Shan, a clerk, said at least 140 couples were in a queue within an hour of the opening of the office at 7 a.m.
In the eastern city of Qingdao, a total of 3,086 couples obtained their marriage certificates Wednesday. The figure was 16 times that of the daily average.
China saw a peak of marriage registrations and weddings Aug 8, 2008. Tens of thousands of couples across the nation chose the ‘triple 8 day,’ or 08/08/08, to tie the knot, as ‘8’ is also an auspicious number among Chinese that is believed to bring wealth, fortune and luck for people.
The northwestern city of Urumqi that is still recovering from a riot in July also witnessed a surge of marriage registrations Wednesday.
‘I specially asked for leave to come here for marriage registration,’ said a 27-year-old woman of the Uygur ethnic group.
As the lucky days of 08/08/08 and 09/09/09 have passed, many young people began to eye 10/10/10, which means perfection in everything, and 11/11/11, which means wholeheartedness.
But sociologists have warned young people against blindly following the trend, as ‘rushed marriages’ have led to ‘rushed divorces’ in some cities.
‘An auspicious date cannot guarantee an eternal marriage,’ said Hu Guangwei, deputy director of the Social Studies Institute of the Sichuan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.
‘Lucky number day is mainly a psychological comfort, and couples better not simply follow suit to get married in a rush without truly knowing each other,’ he said.
IANS
Most diabetics falling short on healthy eating
Most Americans with diabetes are eating too much fat and sodium, and not enough fruits, vegetables, grains and low-fat dairy, a new study suggests.
The results, say researchers, indicate that many people with diabetes may need more education about the importance of nutrition in managing their condition.
Excess weight is one of the major risk factors for type 2 diabetes, a disorder in which the body can no longer properly use the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin. Diet, exercise and weight loss are key to managing the disorder, and in some cases, weight loss can reverse the condition.
Yet in the new study, researchers found that of nearly 2,800 middle- aged and older U.S. adults with type 2 diabetes, nearly all were exceeding the daily recommended fat intake. When it came to artery-clogging saturated fat, 85 percent were consuming too much.
Similarly, 92 percent of study participants were consuming too much sodium, which can raise blood pressure and contribute to diabetics’ already elevated risks of heart disease and kidney disease. (See related Reuters Health story today.)
The researchers used a number of nutritional yardsticks, including the Food Guide Pyramid and recommendations by the Institute of Medicine. For example, experts recommend that adults get no more than 20 percent to 35 percent of their daily calories from fat, with less than 10 percent coming from saturated fat.
And if most study participants were getting too much of those nutrients, many were also not getting enough of certain healthy foods, the researchers report in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
Less than half were getting the minimum recommended servings of fruits, vegetables, dairy and grains each day.
“I thought we were going to find people who, because they have a chronic disease, were more educated about and more motivated than the average American to eat healthy, but that’s not the case,” lead researcher Dr. Mara C. Vitolins, of Wake-Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said in a written statement.
The “most important thing” in managing type 2 diabetes, Vitolins noted, is balancing calories in and calories out to help shed pounds or at least avoid weight gain. The choice of foods is also vital in getting enough beneficial nutrients—like antioxidants and “good”
unsaturated fats—and helping to control blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol.
But many people in this study were not making healthy diet choices, even if they had long-standing diabetes, the researchers found.
“The findings clearly illustrate a need to provide ongoing nutrition education for people with diabetes regardless of the amount of time they’ve had the disease,” Vitolins said.
“These people have, within their cupboards and refrigerators, the potential to really manage their diabetes well,” she added. “Day to day, the foods they are eating should be considered a vital part of their treatment.”
–Agencies