Xi ( 囍 ), in Chinese, means "two happy events at the same time" and is mostly used on walls at wedding celebrations to express the joy of both parties.

I painted the word upside down on the wall and used bleach to pour it down to try and remove the red colour from the word. In China, red is often synonymous with joyful blessing. Yet, in the 2021 survey, 20% of Chinese women regret having married, compared to 7% of men. In divorce disputes, 73.40% of complainants were women, and the percentage of cases where only one spouse wanted a divorce was 91.09%. The percentage of women who are unhappy in their marriage is 12%, while only 20% choose to divorce. My mother was one of them. I witnessed her unhappiness in marriage, which made me turn away from marriage and ask myself many questions about the institution of marriage, the purpose of marriage and marriage itself. When I saw my cousin, who I grew up with, getting married, the 囍 posted on the wall made me cringe and I felt the impending blood flooding the walls.