Festival frenzy

For many solo diners, the most trying times are Chinese festivals and other notable dates.

Late last year, Pu Kunhong decided to conduct a test. On New Year's Eve, the 21-year-old visited a well-known hotpot chain on his own to see how people would react.

Inside the packed restaurant, diners sat around tables, dropping meat, fish balls and vegetables into boiling cauldrons and chatting happily amid the rising steam.

Pu sat opposite a large stuffed teddy bear－placed at his table by the management to act as a companion－and quietly added slices of raw beef to the broth bubbling in his cauldron.

Providing large stuffed toys as companions is just one way the restaurant attempts to put solo diners at ease and reduce the stigma of eating out alone.

"The stuffed bear brought a sense of warmth and security, and I didn't feel embarrassed eating on my own," Pu said.

The resident of Chengdu, Sichuan province, is a popular vlogger, and his reviews of digital appliances have won him more than 124,000 fans on social media.

He had never eaten hotpot alone before. However, he happened to be in Beijing on business and when he heard the restaurant offered stuffed toys as companions for solo diners he decided to visit and produce a vlog so his fans would know how it felt.

Knowing that a large number of unattached people often spend festivals alone, Pu hoped his vlog would help them enjoy their solitude.

Even though he was the only solo diner in the restaurant, Pu said he didn't feel at all awkward eating with a toy companion. The vlog showed him eating casually, occasionally scrolling through his phone, and having a video chat with his family. The restaurant was full of diners, but no one gave him a second glance.

"Overall, it was very enjoyable; the only thing was that I can't eat too much so I only ordered a small amount of food," he said.

However, Pu was not the first person to break the communal hotpot taboo. On Weibo, there are more than 250 hashtags about eating hotpot solo.

The topic "Hotpot can be eaten by one person" has attracted about 56 million hits and more than 17,000 posts.