Lunar New Year

China’s Chongqing municipality celebrated the Lunar New Year with festive “fire-breathing dragons.” The Tongliang dragon dance is staged every year during the Spring Festival. This year the performance was viewed online because of the coronavirus pandemic.  

Poon choi is a staple dish for many people in China, and it is especially common during Chinese New Year.  Hong Kong’s Hyatt Regency Sha Tin executive chef Cheung Hong-man tells Inkstone how he refines the humble Cantonese dish. Was poon choi always a part of your village life? Growing up, poon choi was part of my heritage. In the early 1970s, Hong Kong was not so prosperous.  I remember rain dripped in and flooded the old houses. Back then, poon choi was common. My village wasn’t that big, just 100 to 150 people, but it’s been there for over 100 years. How did they prepare it?  You couldn’t just order out for food then. You called everyone in the village who knew how to cook to help out. 

While Chinese New Year may be a more subdued affair this year, food will still play a central role – even for vegans.  For non-meat-lovers, the menu options to celebrate the Year of the Ox have become more interesting than ever, as chefs aim to create delicious and healthy vegetarian alternatives.  From festival casseroles and vegan poon choi to cakes and pastries, restaurants and food retailers have created an array of culinary delights.  Here’s the Inkstone rundown of some of the best offerings available for vegans. Traditional festive cakes Hong-Kong based retail grocery chain Green Common has developed three vegan Chinese New Year cakes, including turmeric and oat milk and chestnut ca

Yuncheng city’s Yangzhao village, in northern China’s Shanxi province, has a long history of making traditional red lanterns dating back hundreds of years.

To the Chinese, kumquats are a symbol of good luck and prosperity and are an important feature of the Chinese New Year holiday.  But they also pack a powerful health punch.  The small orange citrus superfruit, a popular delicacy during Lunar New Year, are storehouses of nutrition, packed with antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and minerals. As more than a billion people in China and millions are around the world prepare to celebrate Lunar New Year, kumquats will be among the delicacies eaten, or given as gifts.  Kumquat trees adorned with red lai see fong (literally, good fortune envelopes) are auspicious decorations at the start of the Lunar New Year.  Native to China, the fruit is available ar

Every year, we read headlines about the "world's largest human migration" when millions of Chinese people leave their places of work to head home and visit the family during the Lunar New Year.  But this year, a cloud hangs over the holiday period as China continues to battle sporadic outbreaks of Covid-19 across the country.  The 40-day travel season kicked off on Thursday, and the transport ministry estimated 1.2 billion trips would be made over the holiday period. But while that number sounds high, that number would be a 60% drop from 2019, underscoring the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.  The airport reported about a 50% drop in passenger traffic on Thursday compared with the usual

Chinese New Year is undoubtedly the most significant celebration on the Chinese calendar. This year though, company bosses have joined forces with local governments in dangling carrots of money and other gifts in front of residents in a desperate bid to encourage stay-at-home celebrations because of a recent spike in coronavirus cases.  Financial bonuses, shopping vouchers, movie tickets, free entry to local attractions and even food and decorations are just some of the incentives being used to deter what has been described as the world’s largest human migration. Each year, hundreds of millions of Chinese travel across the country – by train, bus and air – to reunite with family and friends

Many people in China stayed home by choice, or by order, over the Lunar New Year holiday because of the widespread coronavirus outbreak which has already infected over 7,700 people as of January 30. Being confined to their homes, some people managed to find ingenious ways to overcome their boredom.

An advertisement from sportswear giant Nike about a girl refusing to accept red packets from her aunt during Lunar New Year has earned praise online.

It is the 2020 Lunar New Year holiday, and 11-year-old Xiaoxiao and her little brother are at home with their grandparents in a remote part of central China. They are anxiously waiting for the Spring Festival reunion dinner when their parents return from their jobs in southern Guangdong province. Like hundreds of millions of rural migrant workers in China, Chen and Liu travel home only once a year. The travel rush over the holiday period, which lasts up to 40 days, is considered the largest annual human migration in the world.