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The Economist-20200606期「Asia」Marriage in Japan: Knot happy
02 中文導讀 由討厭消費、沒有幹勁、不想結婚的日本年輕人組成的社會被稱為「低欲望社會」，常年的低結婚率甚至興起了日本單身經濟。但是災難似乎會打破天平，海嘯、地震和核電站洩漏事故發生後，人們在個人生活層面的意識形態會改變，找伴侶「過沒有風險的生活」成了內心的情結。疫情中悄然興起的線上相親十分火爆，困在家中的日本人開始渴望婚姻，不過這份熱情也許不會持續太久。03 原文閱讀 431 wordsMarriage in Japan: Knot happy
Lockdown begets thoughts of settling down
>> knot n. (線、繩等的)結；(裝飾用的)花結，蝴蝶結。標題Knot happy（喜結連理）和 not happy諧音
下文中tie the knot: tie the knot: (informal) to get married 結婚；結成夫妻 SYN get hitched.
在很多地方，新郎新娘服飾打結是許多婚禮的傳統特徵，象徵著他們的結合。Tying knots in items of clothing or ribbons worn by the bride and groom is a traditional feature of many wedding ceremonies, symbolizing their unity.
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HE HAD ALWAYS imagined he would get married someday. Then covid-19 hit. Yuto (not his real name), a 31-year-old hotel employee from the southern city of Kumamoto, found himself confined to his home, alone. He decided to accelerate his wedding plans, and signed up for an online match-making service to find the love of his life—fast.
Yuto is not alone. Since the pandemic broke out, more Japanese singles have been on the hunt for spouses. Sunmarie, a match-making agency, reported a 30% rise in inquiries in April compared with the year before. Both Sunmarie and O-net, a rival agency, have tried to adapt to the times, offering an online rendez-vous service since early April, when the government began curbing gatherings in much of the country. LMO, another firm, offers drive-through meetings, in which singletons can introduce themselves from their cars, in the empty car parks of wedding halls.
Cooped up in their homes alone for an extended period, singles are getting lonely—hence the surge in business for match-makers, explains Amano Kanako of NLI Research Institute, a think-tank. With covid-19 dominating the news, lonely hearts are also increasingly anxious about the future: they want a partner with whom to face the unknown. 「Those who vaguely thought about getting married one day are realising that the time is now,」 says Kobayashi Jun of Seikei University.參考翻譯及翻譯思路語音講解見【精讀社區】）
>> hence: (formal) for this reason 因此；由此 SYN therefore.
<We suspect they are trying to hide something, hence the need for an independent inquiry.> 我們懷疑他們在企圖隱瞞什麼事,因此有必要進行獨立調查。
hence後面可以直接放上一個名詞成分，形成一個沒有謂語動詞的特殊句型，表示「因為前面說過的緣故，所以有了…」。
eg.Hence my surprise. 所以我感到驚訝。
Hence the fact that... 因此…
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This marks the reversal of a long trend. Marriage has been in decline for decades. More than 1m couples tied the knot each year in the early 1970s, but only 583,000 did last year. This is not just because the proportion of Japanese in their 20s and 30s (the age at which people most commonly wed) has fallen sharply. In 1970 only 2% of men and 3% of women had never married by 50. By 2015 those shares had climbed to 23% and 14%, respectively.
Interest in matrimony also surged after a terrible earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011. Memberships at match-making agencies soared. The steady decline in weddings was interrupted in 2012, when there were 7,000 more than the year before. The nature and scale of the earthquake and pandemic may differ, but their effect on the unmarried has been comparable, says Nagaoka Masamitsu of O-net. 「People are stuck at home and have a lot of time to think about their future.」
Yuto from Kumamoto is already thinking about settling down with a 43-year-old Tokyoite he met online two months ago. Yet the rush to the altar (or shrine) may be short-lived. After the spike of 2012, there were 8,200 fewer weddings in 2013.
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