A Chinese Woman Dumped Her Boyfriend Because His New Year's Feast Sucked

There are all kinds of reasons to break up with someone. Some things are non-negotiable, after all: sex, religion, politics.

But for one young woman in Shanghai, it was all about food. Specifically, the food her boyfriend's parents served her for Chinese New Year. It just wasn't up to snuff.

And now the story has gone viral. First covered on the Weibo page of online network KDSlife, What's on Weibo reports the story began when a 26-year-old human resources executive from Shanghai posted a description of her visit to her boyfriend's family home to celebrate the New Year in his hometown of Jiangxi.

She wrote:

"I want to break up —I am a pure Shanghainese, born in 1988, I look normal, and work in a foreign company's HR department. My dad is retired after working at a state-owned enterprise, my mum is a teacher and will retire in two years. Our living standard is pretty good. I've been seeing this guy for a year, and he's not from Shanghai. He's a good worker and I like his looks, but since his family's not well off, he won't be able to buy a house for the coming years. My parents really disliked me going out with someone from another place, especially because he's quite poor—that's what my mum said. After all, parents only want the best for their own daughter. I'm also a bit shaken over this, especially since I joined my boyfriend for Chinese New Year this year after he had asked me over and over to come with him. If I wouldn't have gone, I wouldn't have known, but now that I went I was really shocked. This is what was first put on the table for us to eat when we arrived today."

Then she posted a screenshot of the "inadequate" meal.

What followed? The Internet, naturally, had an opinion or two. As of yesterday, some threads on the issue are said to have almost 100,000 comments.

The girl is now being labelled a "leftover women." This categorization appears to be a media creation that applies to educated, urban, working women over the age of 25 in China—the entire group has been labeled too demanding and materialistic to ever get married. Others are calling our picky girlfriend a "princess" or "fu er dai"—a second-generation rich kid.

Commenters are all over this:

"There is fish and there is meat, your mother-in-law must have really done her best for this," one writer—obviously not a fan—comments. "What a bitch," says another. "You don't need your parents to fall in love with a guy. And that you immediately break up over his family's living conditions is deplorable."

According to a later post by the woman, which also was posted to the KDS Weibo account, she did, in fact, break up with her boyfriend—all because of the culinary inferiority of the food on his family's table.

"I don't know if you noticed, but there are all wooden chopsticks on the table," one Weibo user comments: "The only steel ones are those in her bowl, because they wanted her to have the best ones. Argh, I really cannot stand this!"

Looks like this lady is living proof that a way to a woman's heart is also through her stomach.