The premise of See You Again, a Chinese online reality television series that sends three married couples contemplating divorce away on an 18-day roadtrip, is designed to contrive an emotional spectacle. It is still raw viewing when it delivers.
The show’s key dynamics are universal: power games, family dramas, division of assets; the empty loss as love devolves into hate. In one scene, the husband breaks down sobbing while behind the steering wheel, during a heated discussion with his wife about custody of their son and daughter.
Yet the extent to which See You Again has struck a chord in China has also ignited fierce debate about divorce, which is still widely considered a taboo issue in the country.
The show has been a major breakout success, streamed 2.5bn times since the premiere of season four in mid-October. It has spawned more than 100 associated trending topics on Weibo and the latest season is still trending in the new year.
Psychologists, sociologists and influencers are invited on each episode as guest observers to provide a running commentary. Several of these commentators have speculated the show’s frenzied popularity is due to the emotional challenges explored in the show being so recognisable and familiar to couples across the country.
Shen Yifei, one of the guest observers, and an associate professor in sociology at Fudan University, described the challenges faced by show participants as “encountering someone who constantly demands emotional reciprocation that we cannot provide”.
Shen, also an active social media influencer, claims this dynamic is evident in many relationships among Chinese audiences. “It is precisely because the situation is so common that it resonates deeply and draws so much emotional investment from everyone,” she says on the show.
Two of the three couples on See You Again ultimately decided to end their marriages. Outside the show, the divorce rate in China has also been climbing since 2003. It reached a record high of 4.7m divorces in 2019, up 74% from 2010.
In response to this growing rate, authorities introduced a 30-day “cooling-off period” in 2021 before couples could apply for divorce. China is grappling with a falling birthrate and an ageing population, related trends that are causing a headache for policymakers who have tried various measures to encourage people to have more children, with limited success.
Wang Pan, associate professor in Chinese and Asian studies at the University of New South Wales, believes the cooling-off period has failed to stop the upward trend of the divorce rate in China.
Wang believes the phenomenal popularity of See You Again has, “to some extent destigmatised the practice of divorce” as they “de-privatised and normalised divorce”.
Despite a lack of official data on the gender of who initiates divorces, Wang is confident that more divorces in China are being initiated by women.
“With increases to Chinese women’s financial and personal independence, as well as the changing gender norms, women have become less tolerant of unhappy or dissatisfied marriages,” she said.
Guo Jia, a 40-year-old who got divorced four years ago, founded a women’s club on social media last year. The club offers events for divorced women, including parenting support for single mothers, basic legal advice, and dating services.
Guo said the hardest challenge faced by the women in the club is explaining divorce to their children. “Though I can’t say that divorce caused no harm to my child, I don’t agree with staying in an unhappy marriage just to avoid ‘jeopardising their children’s future’. That’s merely an excuse.”
Researchers from Shandong University have also observed that more divorced young adults in China are taking to digital platforms as a “refuge to avoid stigmatisation and discover social support and a sense of community.
“As society is endowed with ample resources for singles and single lifestyles,” Wang said, “more and more people rather see divorce as a fresh start of another chapter of life.”
