Let the Games -- and other things -- begin
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BEIJING -- The Olympic Games aren’t the only thing that is scheduled to begin Friday. More than 16,400 couples will also be starting their married life together that day, Beijing’s municipal bureau of civil affairs told the English-language newspaper China Daily.
Friday is the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year -- 08-08-08. And to the Chinese, the number eight is believed to bring happiness and fortune. That’s why the Games are opening that day and, presumably, why so many people registered to be married on that day.
Once the marriage applications are processed, the newspaper said, the couples simply have to show up at the relevant office to collect their certificate. In some offices where marriage documents will be handed out, more than 100 extra workers will be called in to handle the extra load. And there will be an express lane for prospective spouses who are also working as Olympic staff or volunteers.
A press official with the bureau told the paper that just 3,390 couples applied to be wed on Aug. 8, 2007.
‘Eight is such as auspicious number and with the opening of the Beijing Olympics, the whole nation will be celebrating with us,’ Li Jun, who will be getting married Friday, told the newspaper. ‘And having 2008-08-08 stamped on my marriage certificiate will make it extra special.’
-- Kevin Baxter