May 20 isn't a particularly significant day for Americans. But in China, the date is often referred to as the country's "online Valentine's Day," or "5/20."
As Digit explains, the unofficial holiday started because the number "520" is similar to the words "I love you" in Mandarin. Retailers love to take advantage of the holiday, and couples love to celebrate the day, too. And this year, online retail giant Alibaba decided to take an interesting approach to help its single shoppers enjoy the day, using its virtual reality technology.
In the Taobao app, Alibaba shoppers can buy things in virtual reality (wearing a Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear headset). But on 5/20, Alibaba took things even further: In conjunction with the festivities, users could go on a virtual reality date just by scanning a QR code.
The virtual "boyfriends" and "girlfriends" weren't just any characters, either — the male character was played by Chinese actor Yang Yang, while Chinese actress Dilraba played the virtual "girlfriend." The "dates" even included Yang and Dilraba's characters cooking breakfast for the VR users in the morning.
Alibaba is no stranger to using unofficial Chinese holidays for its own profit, CNET notes. On China's "Single's Day" in November, Alibaba raked in $1 billion in sales in less than 10 minutes. We're definitely curious to see what Alibaba has in store when that holiday rolls around this year. Virtual speed dating?
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