Tag: chinese new year
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One day left till the year of the Snake
It seems so appropriate for the year to end and a new one to begin with a blanket of fresh snow, a clean slate, a new start. A stillness fell over the city today as more than half the population leaves for their homes away from Shanghai or to holiday destinations leaving a haunting sense…
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Day Three Hundred Fifty Three, January 10, 2012
Happy faces and big smiles adorn the streets the closer we get to the Chinese New Year of the Dragon. The most important holiday of the year, the happiest day for many is around the corner. Celebrations start to manifest all around the place as more than 10 million people get ready to leave Shanghai…
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Day Forty, March 3, 2011
I remember when we moved to Shanghai five years ago being completely taken off guard by sellers in markets wishing me a ‘Melly Kissmas’ in early June! Now, after years of living here, I am totally used to seeing huge Merry Christmas signs, Christmas trees and lights all around Shanghai late into the Spring. As…
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Day Twenty Six, February 17, 2011
Today the Chinese New Year festivities come to an end with a big boom! It is the Lantern Festival’s main celebration. I went to Yu Yuan (Yu Gardens) in Puxi to witness the festivities and now as I write this, the sky is on fire with millions of fireworks that are going off all over…
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Day Twenty Five, February 16, 2011
It is the time for the lantern festival (Yuan Xiao) that falls 15 days after the Chinese New Year. In preparation, Chinese people hold different festivities around the place from dances, theaters, lantern watching, lantern flying, the eating of special rice dumplings that look like moons (tangyuan), and different sugar candies. The one above is…
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Day Sixteen, February 7, 2011
Today we took the long trip back from Boracay to Shanghai and straight into the loud fireworks and street festivities of the Chinese New Year of the rabbit. I took an evening walk along Yunnan Xi Lu, the street that gets decorated with thousands of colored lanterns every Chinese New Year. After about a hundred…
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Day three, January 25, 2011
On the third day, I was caught by all the lanterns that keep appearing around the city in preparation for the most important day of the year in China—Chinese New Year. This coming year is starting on the 3rd of February and it will be the year of the Rabbit. This lantern was near the…
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Xīn nián kuài lè
The fireworks in Shanghai on Chinese New Year’s eve are the strangest I have ever seen. I took a walk over midnight around the streets and witnessed a frenzy of fireworks lit up by people in every corner of the city. It is not the usual big fireworks show I saw 2 years ago in…