Chinese Spring Festival
Chinese Spring Festival is a message of happiness and hope
Spring Festival or the Chinese New Year, is the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar and an occasion for family reunions. China is a large country with a great culture and great civilization, in which all the ethnic groups are practical examples of unity, brotherhood, patriotism and tolerance. On the occasion of traditional festivals, the enthusiasm of the Chinese people is at its peak and happiness is celebrated together. Spring Festival is the occasion when members of a family usually sit together and enjoy happy moments, houses are decorated, delicious food is enjoyed, fireworks are done, a dominant color of collective activities including full entertainment can be seen.
This year 2023, the Spring Festival and the New Lunar Year have just started from January 22, and at this time the Spring Festival is being celebrated with great enthusiasm across the country. In the Chinese zodiac scheme, each year is represented by an animal in a 12-year rotating cycle. The 12 animals, are rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, etc. Going by this scheme, the Chinese New Year celebrations this year ring in the Year of the Rabbit, representing the fourth animal in the zodiac cycle. And people born in this year are referred to as the rabbit people. Chinese folk tales also offer insights on the personality traits of people born in a certain year. For example, people with the Chinese Zodiac Rabbit are elegant and affable in personality, and they love a comfortable environment, but a bit of turbulence can make them fussy.
On this occasion of Spring Festival, people also witness the world’s largest travelling activity. In this regard, travel activities have been going on since January 07 and it will continue for 40 days and will end on February 15. In the last three years, travel activities in China have been slightly limited due to the severe epidemic situation. In the wake of the pandemic, the Chinese government had urged people not to travel “unnecessarily” to their hometowns during festival holidays and spend annual holidays at their workplaces to prevent the spread of the virus, which is why Chinese citizens in the last three years could not enjoy the traditional joys of the Spring Festival. But now the Covid situation has changed and after continuous improvement in COVID-19 prevention and control policies, the negative effects of the epidemic are gradually disappearing and all areas are recovering.
Today, after the improved anti-epidemic situation and policy adjustments in the country, Chinese citizens travelled to their hometowns with great joy and happiness and are celebrate spring celebrations in the “Year of the Rabbit” with their loved ones. In this regard, China’s transport authorities have made full preparations to ensure smooth transportation and logistics of travel activities during the Spring Festival. It is worth noting that the passenger travel rush is expected to increase by 99.5 percent compared to last year, which can reach about 2.1 billion. This number will be 70.3 percent of the number seen in 2019 before the epidemic. In order to deal with this situation, China’s railway authorities have adopted flexible operating plans to increase transportation efficiency and better meet the travel needs of the people. China has already started work on about 4,100 kilometers of new railway lines in 2022, more than half of which are high-speed railways. Similarly, China’s Civil Aviation Administration says the average number of daily flights during the holidays will be increased to 11,000, which is equivalent to 73 percent of pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Domestic airlines are being encouraged to further increase flights on popular routes to meet passenger demand during the travel rush.
Seeing the rush of people at tourist places, it is well understood that the trend of consumption is growing strongly and tourism opportunities are also expanding. The monitoring system shows that the number of people at tourist places has increased significantly in major cities of the country, including cities such as Shanghai, Chongqing, Xi’an, Beijing and Shenzhen etc. Chinese citizens are flocking to coastal destinations, enjoying winter sports and winter scenery, the hotel industry is also making tremendous progress and hotels are fully booked at most tourist destinations. Along with the tourism and hotel industry, the catering sector is also getting tremendous growth during the ongoing Spring Festival holidays. Bookings for catering orders across the country have seen a huge boom, indicating that Chinese citizens want to come out of their homes and have some food & have fun moments with their families. Many restaurants are also introducing new dish packages to meet the requirements associated with household community activities.
It is hoped that during the ongoing Spring Festival holidays, where entertainment activities will be further promoted across the country, economic activities will also see a new boom and the world will also be able to see the diverse & beautiful colors of Chinese culture.
