China is Getting Creative to Celebrate Valentine’s Day During Coronavirus Lockdown

With many people in China still in their homes taking preventative measures against the coronavirus Covid-19, and with Valentine’s Day suddenly here, the internet is welcoming the holiday with humor, community, and sarcasm.

The hashtag #Valentine’sDayGiftRankingList is going viral on Chinese social media after netizens jokingly made Valentine’s Day gift lists with items like surgical masks and disinfectant. One highly-viewed meme reads, “Break-up tier: anything that says, ‘moved to tears.’ Good tier: everything in their Taobao shopping cart. Top tier: forget everything else, surgical masks have my heart.”

One popular comment reads, “The most romantic gift is not ninety-nine roses, but ninety-nine masks.”

With surgical masks in short supply, the item has become a natural target for Valentine’s Day memes:

User 猫猫细 writes: “February 14th is coming. This year’s luxury bouquet should be 999 masks. If you have the money and generosity, I’ll marry you.”

Also out there: Valentine’s Day makeup looks, all mask-friendly. So you can look special for your loved one and stay safe. Eye makeup only, of course.

Meanwhile, gaming companies are rolling out Valentine’s Day promotions, offering users newly-released storylines in popular games like Love and Producer, 100 Sleeping Princes, and The Kingdom of Dreams.

With not much to do at home besides watching plague movies and playing plague mobile games, people are turning to technology for boredom relief, and the gaming sector in particular has been spared during a wider economic downturn. Honor of Kings, a Tencent-produced clone of League of Legends, reached a new all-time record in daily average users in the week of January 30th, while other companies, like Plague, Inc. producer NDemic Creations, were forced offline by the unexpected boom in traffic.

Finally, one meme circulating is made up to look like the ubiquitous official notices found all over China and states that Valentine’s Day has been cancelled and instead will be moved to International Women’s Day, on March 8: