We have already seen this on other occasions. Without going any further, the price of a new bridal shower business has started to rise in Spain, given the unstoppable rise in divorces. But the news is different when it comes to China. There, marriages have fallen to a 36-year low and divorces are in the millions per year. An unusual market has emerged.

A “morgue” of wedding photos. In a country where millions of divorces are happening every year, many marriage memories and anecdotes end up in the attic or, in the worst case scenario, thrown away. But millions of couples are getting divorced, and Liu Wei, a former pharmaceutical company employee, saw this golden opportunity.

The man has created a business where he doesn’t have much to do, quite the opposite. As he describes himself: “We are a crematorium for these photographs that have come to the end of their life cycle.” Yes, he and his team have dedicated themselves to destroying the photographs and any trace of happiness and love that once existed between two people.

Inside the story. It actually comes from afar. Between 2016 and 2020, there were over 4 million divorces per year. In 2021, the divorce rate in China was so exaggerated that the government met to find a solution. A law was then passed that would keep unhappy marriages together and force them to have a 30-day “cooling off” period before finalizing the divorce.

Did it work? It worked because the divorce rate dropped below three million per year as of 2021. Right now, to put it in perspective, about 1.3 million Chinese couples have already divorced in the first half of this year. Obviously, that’s still a lot of couples being separated, and not just physically.

They want to end all traces of their marital past.

Photos of XL. What happens when the image of wedding bliss (and all the other things that go with it) is no longer needed? In a country like China, especially in big cities with strict waste separation regulations, throwing away photos is out of the question. Plus: privacy is a highly regarded concern there. And if you’re thinking of just burning the photos, that’s not the case. The “crematorium” of people’s snapshots is highly frowned upon in the country, and is considered bad luck, even for separated spouses, according to Chinese superstition.

And there is an additional problem. Over the long haul, as China grew richer and its middle class expanded, pre-wedding photoshoots went from commonplace to downright monstrous. Couples not only had an album, they also had giant, life-size versions of themselves displayed at the wedding reception and taken home afterward. What do you do with that smiling, stuffy life-size version of your ex-partner?

Mr. Wolf from the wedding photos. This is where the figure of Wei comes in. After apparently running away from his old job in 2022, he set up a business as a professional shredder of documents and other personal information in a factory warehouse in Langfang, south of the capital. But at the beginning of last year, a “light” appeared in the divorce figures.

As he explained to the Washington Post, while posting a promotional video about Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, his colleagues stepped on and jumped over some framed photos to show how durable materials like glass, wood or metal can be very difficult to destroy in the home. “Just send the photos … and we’ll completely destroy them as if they never existed,” he said. The clip has been viewed more than a million times, and Liu’s business has boomed.

The process of destruction of “love”. As he explains, the destruction of photographs now represents more than 95% of his business, and about 80% of those photographs are from weddings, but he also destroys other objects. When the packages arrive at the factory, they record a video of the boxes being opened, the items being counted and weighed, and the price being determined. Along with the photographs, the boxes also contain towels, linens, and even newspapers.

To destroy photos, they first spray-paint faces and distinguishing features such as tattoos, piercings or disabilities with dark paint, in part to protect the client’s privacy and sometimes to ensure a double erasure of memories. Some clients want a specific color, others want patterns as a Taoist talisman to “eliminate toxicity.” What can’t go through the shredder, goes through the sledgehammer.

End of a video. Finally, Liu’s team sends customers a video of the entire process, sometimes accompanied by upbeat music, before the debris is sent to a waste-to-energy facility where it is converted into biofuel. “Everything is handled responsibly,” Liu explains, adding that some customers find “therapeutic value” in the service.

The man also said that some people, especially in small towns, would travel to another city to mail their photos, worried that they would become gossip for neighbors. Divorce remains stigmatized in less developed areas and/or tight-knit communities, especially for women. In other cases, some customers come to the factory to participate in the spray painting themselves and witness the crushing, “perhaps for added emotional catharsis,” Liu explained.

What if someone regrets it? Of course, regret is also possible at the last moment. In these cases, the company stops the process if possible. There have even been cases where an urgent demolition was requested and 24 hours later they received a phone call begging them to stop everything because the couple in question had reconciled in their love affair.

In these cases, we assume that the contracting party does not mention the ongoing process for the sake of future cohabitation.

Image | Bohan, Sigismund von Dobschütz

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