This article first appeared in Capital, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on February 12, 2018 - February 18, 2018

Brace yourself guys, Chinese New Year is just around the corner. It’s that time of the year again to meet your nosey relatives who ask too many prying questions.

“Have you gained weight?” “How much money are you making?” “When are you getting promoted?” “What car are you driving? New Year got buy new car or not?”

But I suppose the most painfully awkward questions would be the never-ending ones on relationships.

“Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?”

If you tell them no, they will follow up with “Ah Boy/Ah Girl, why you so picky? You are not young already, you know?”

If you are still single, worry not because according to social media, there are several young men out there who are offering themselves as pretend-partners for Chinese New Year.

In fact, Singaporean Bill Tan’s boyfriend-for-hire post was shared more than 9,000 times on Facebook at the time of writing. The 21-year-old DJ and rugby player says he used to have a six-pack.

His rates are S$88 per day or S$1,888 for the entire Chinese New Year (15 days).

(The latter amounts to $125.87 per day, which is actually 43% more expensive than the former. Shouldn’t it be cheaper? Oh well.)

Of course, the risk is that masculine guys like Bill might not get along well with your family members and relatives.

Well, he could, at the very least, ease your sorrows since Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day fall during the same week this year.

Now, going back to the relationship questions.

If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, the next imminent question is, when is your turn to give ang pow? — which is an indirect way of asking, when are you getting married?

And it doesn’t stop there.

If you think the best thing about getting married is that nosey relatives will stop asking you when you are getting married, think again. They will just start asking you, when are you having children?

And even if you already have children, you will not get away from, when are you going to have more?

Walao eh! Don’t they realise the true cost of raising a child in Malaysia today?

According to insurer AIA Bhd, the total cost, including delivery cost, childcare, schooling cost and university fees, adds up to between RM400,000 and RM1.1 million, depending on your hopes and aspirations for your little one.

Speaking of having children, I have always wondered why the world is facing an overpopulation problem when birth rates are declining, especially in developed countries such as the US, Japan and Europe.

Downsizing, a sci-fi comedy-drama movie starring Matt Damon, is now showing in the cinemas. It tells the story of an experimental community whose answer to overpopulation and a high cost of living is to shrink humans.

Last year, there was this Netflix movie called What Happened to Monday. It was a sci-fi thriller about a future dystopian government facing an overpopulation crisis, resulting in the enforcement of a strict one-child policy. In the movie, when multiple children are born to one mother, all but the eldest are put into cryosleep.

If your aunties and uncles continue to bother you with the “When are you having children?” question during Chinese New Year, you may want to recommend these two movies to them and warn them about overpopulation.

Meanwhile, pay heed to Mydin boss Datuk Wira Ameer Ali Mydin’s opinion on why hypermarket sales are contracting, although our economy is growing strongly. “I think people just don’t have money.”

There you go.

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