Ask China: A day with a marriage and divorce registrar

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According to Chinese folk tales, people are destined to fall in love with their perfectly matched lover, and it is the matchmaking god looking down from heaven – Yue Lao, or "The Old Man under the Moon" – who ties the knot between destined couples with an invisible red string.

In modern China, marriage registrars play the role of Yue Lao by witnessing where a couple’s relationship begins and ends.

Xu Zongyi, a public servant working in central Beijing’s Xicheng District Marriage Registry, has been handling marriage registration for cheerful couples - and also requests for divorce - for four years.

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Xu usually wears a patient, reassuring smile while presiding over two of a person’s most emotional life-changing moments – getting married or divorced.

Witnessing unity and separation

In 2016, nearly 11.5 million couples registered for legal marriage, and more than four million couples applied to get divorced in China, according to the country’s Civil Affairs Administration Bureau. That equates to a lot of work for Xu and his colleagues.

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“My office once helped almost 1,000 couples to register within one day,” he said.

Peaks like this are happening more and more often in China nowadays, due to the number of auspicious occasions – many actually created by canny marketers – ripe for weddings. Valentine’s Day has been joined by more modern festivities like May 20 (5.20 is a homophone for "I Love You" in Chinese).

Couples registering on these days are believed to enjoy a harmonious and long marriage. Registrars in turn enjoy a long day in the office.

Nevertheless, Xu said he likes the job.

“This work has brought me lots of positive energy, especially at the moment when I issue marriage certificates to newly registered couples,” he added.

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In return, Xu passes his “positive energy” to the love birds, offering thoughtful services with a genial smile time and again.

“Me and my coworkers have been through the repetitive checks and marriage registration procedures thousands of times. But it’s always the first time for the people that come to us to get a marriage certificate,” said Xu.

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Besides the happy moments, taking pressure off broken couples is also part of Xu’s routine. It is quite usual for him to see soon-to-be divorcees cry, bicker or even physically fight with each other.

Seeing such heartbreaking scenes is not the worst part of the job – sometimes Xu has to issue a divorce certificate to the same couple that he presented a marriage certificate to just a few years ago.

“I know bittersweet like nobody else,” Xu told CGTN with a wry smile.

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Daily duties for him, epic moments for them

Besides being recognized as a registrar, Xu is also a Communist Party of China (CPC) member. To him, CPC membership means self-discipline, prioritizing public requests and providing better services.

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Thanks to the dedication of many registrars like Xu Zongyi, Xicheng District Marriage Registry achieved the top rank in the Beijing Registration Service Competition in 2013 and was accredited as a “level-4A” marriage registry.

However, staff at the Xicheng facility have never ceased in their efforts. They’re gunning for the highest “level-5A” accreditation this year.

CGTN Photo