The story of a young woman from a well-off Shanghai background and her boyfriend from a poor rural family created a huge online discussion about love during the Lunar New Year.

But unlike in many such romantic stories, love, in this case, did not triumph.

The anonymous woman recently agreed to follow her boyfriend to spend Spring Festival in his hometown - a small village in Jiangxi province. But after one meal at the family's home, the 28-year-old insisted on ending the relationship and returning to her home that same night. She said in her online posts she could stand neither the humble food that the family offered, nor their lowly home.

The couple had dated for a year, with the woman's parents firmly in opposition because the man was a poor outsider in Shanghai who had not been able to purchase an apartment in the city.

The posts caught netizens' attention and received a large number of comments, sparking heated discussions on the common conflicts that arise in relationships between poor men from the countryside and stylish urban women used to the good life.

Some netizens were sympathetic to the woman. A netizen called Sunshine-after-rain said: "It's normal for the woman to flee. She had no obligation to force herself to tolerate or accept the poor situation."

Netizen Daring 90 said: "The dishes are OK compared with what I saw among other similar incidents. Take care."

But some criticized the woman for being impolite and snobbish, with netizen MissTumbler saying the man's family "must have offered you the best" they had, and netizen FinanceQiuer saying that she "should have had better manners and showed basic respect to the man's family".

An Internet user from Jiangxi, where the man is from, posted a long letter to the fleeing Shanghai woman on Saturday, expressing her affection for the province where she was born, brought up and is now living.

"I can understand your fear and anxiety of facing rural life for the first time," the woman said in the letter.

"But in recent years, people in the countryside of Jiangxi have been working hard to change their own fate, as well as the fate of their hometown," the woman wrote, garnering applause from many netizens.

zhaoxinying@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 02/15/2016 page4)