And now, on to our regularly scheduled program!
In our last episode, we covered a critical aspect of Chinese business culture, the Annual Party. In today's episode, we share our (well most of our, except for Cherry anyway) first experience with Chinese New Year in China!
Chinese New Year is easily the biggest holiday of the year in China. And yet, in large cities like Shanghai, it's surprisingly low key. This is because a large population of Shanghai consists of "out of towners" who live and work in Shanghai but who return to their hometowns for the holiday. That said, we still celebrated Chinese New Year and got a small taste of the festivities.
We invited Cherry's family to spend Chinese New Year's Eve with us in Shanghai. (instead of at their village). This was done partly because they'd never experienced it in the city before (and we wanted to take advantage of our riverside view) and partly because hosting it in the village usually involves a LOT of work cooking and cleaning - we thought it would be nice to spare the family of that this year.
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| Happy New Year! |
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| Uncle Ming |
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| Extended family chows down on New Year snacks |
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| Our spread of New Year snacks - another Chinese New Year tradition |
Instead, we made reservations at one of our go-to restaurants in Shanghai - the Ashley buffet at the Super Brand Mall - which was great for several reasons: 1) All-you-can-eat-and-drink, 2) superb riverside view, 3) Reasonable pricing!
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| Shanghai's previously dark skyline (due to the Stampede on Western New Year's Eve) renewed its lights nicely on Chinese New Year's Eve. The air was very cooperative too! |
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| All You Can Eat and Drink - the best way to eat! |
After dinner, we took a brief walk to enjoy the newly re-lit Riverside, which had been largely dark ever since the Stampede on Western New Year's Eve:
After we got home, we engaged in one of the stranger customs of Chinese New Year - it seems these days a lot of families simply gather around the TV to watch the so-called New Year Extravaganza, a program consisting of some skits and performances - some good, others quite cheesy!
And finally the fireworks. At first, I wasn't sure if we would see fireworks at all since technically they are illegal - especially in the financial district where we live. But fear not, this law is clearly not very strictly enforced!
The next day, I half expected the air quality to have suffered immensely due to the amount of exploding things set off the night before. But alas, the sky was beautiful, so we visited the famous Luxun (formerly Hongkou) park, a small, but quite clean, park in the Hongkou district:
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| Luxun was a very influential writer based in Shanghai in the early 20th century - this park is dedicated to hi, |
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| Lovely Spring Blooms in time for Spring Festival |
A few days later, we headed to Cherry's family's village to attend some more the traditional new year's meals with friends:
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| Another New Year Snack spread |
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| And the traditional banquet! |
And with that, we concluded our festivities for my first Chinese New Year in China!
