5 things you shouldn’t miss during the Chinese New Year

Many people travel to experience the local culture and lifestyle. Visiting China during the Chinese New Year is a great idea to experience the unique Chinese culture. The Chinese New Year is also called Spring Festival. It is the first day of the lunar year. If you only use the Calendar year, the date of Spring Festival is usually between the end of January and the middle of February (The Spring Festival for 2017 is on 28 Jan 2017). For Chinese people, the festival season usually begins at one week before the lunar new year day and ends after one or two weeks after that.

The Spring Festival is the most important festival for Chinese people. Like the Christmas for Western people, Chinese New Year is the family reunion event for Chinese people. Therefore, you will see rather empty streets and quite shopping malls during the festival. Many shops, restaurants and business don’t open during the Festival.

As a visitor, you might feel it is a bit boring and disappointing. Well, that’s probably because you go to the wrong places! If you follow my advice and visit the places I recommend, I can guarantee you with a cool, authentic, unforgettable traditional Chinese New Year!

1. Visiting the fair (庙会 Miào huì)

During the Chinese New Year, many cities will hold fairs for the festival. Similar to the Christmas market, you can find food and all kinds of goods, see traditional performance and play games at the Spring Festival fairs.

Image from: club.china.com

Unlike the Christmas market, the Spring Festival fair usually starts after the New Year’s Eve and last for one week or so. Imagine all the snacks, cute things and funny performance that you can find in a Christmas market, you can also find those in the Spring Festival fair, but in Chinese version! Take Beijing as an example, every year several big Spring Festival fairs will be hold in the city. Here are the opening time and address of the most famous ones in 2017:

(1) 北京地坛庙会 (Běijīng Dìtán Miàohuì)

From: 28 Jan to 1 Feb

Address: 安定门外大街地坛公园 (Ditan Park, An’dingmenwai st, Beijing)

Public transport: Subway line 2, An’dingmen Station

Price: 10 yuan

(2) 北京陶然亭厂甸庙会 (Běijīng Táorántíng Chǎngdiān Miàohuì)

From: 28 Jan to 2 Feb

Address: 西城区太平街19号陶然亭公园 (19th Taoranting Park, Taiping st, Xicheng district, Beijing)

Price: 10 yuan

Public transport: Subway line 4, Taoranting Station

(3) 大观园红楼庙会 (Dàguānyuán Hónglóu Miàohuì)

From: 28 Jan to 1 Feb

Address: 西城区南菜园街12号大观园 (Daguanyuan, 12th Nancai st, Xicheng district, Beijing)

Price: 40 yuan

You can see a performance of a scene from the famous Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber (link)

Public transport: Bus 56, 59, 122, 351 at Daguanyuan Station

Image from: mh.bisu.edu.cn

(4) 朝阳国际风情节 (Chaoyang International Spring Carnival)

From: 28 Jan to 2 Feb

Address: 朝阳公园 (Chaoyang park)

Price: 5

Public transport: Bus 117, 419, 621 at Chaoyang Gongyuan Nanmen Station

2. Going to the temple

Chinese people go to the temple for the first day of Chinese New Year to pray for good luck for the coming year. It is also interesting to visit a temple for the first day of Chinese New Year to experience this authentic Chinese tradition. However, you should be ware that it will be very crowded at the famous temples. I once went to Yonghegong, the royal temple of Beijing, with my parents in the Chinese New Year of 2015. We spent half a day waiting outside before we got the chance to enter… Thus, it is important to check the local news before you depart. But it is an interesting event to see if you are interest in Chinese culture and Chinese people’s religions.

Image from: http://static.jstv.com/

3. Ordering a traditional New year’s Eve dinner

A big family reunion dinner is one of the most important things that Chinese people do for the Chinese New Year. As a foreigner traveler, you may not know any local people to invite you for the New Year’s Eve dinner. But luckily, many big restaurants provide traditional New Year’s Eve dinner. It is a great opportunity to experience the amazing Chinese food culture. You can have many special dishes especially for the Spring Festival, which is super cool and delicious. However, be aware that not all restaurants open at New Year’s Eve and most restaurants require reservation (usually at least 15 days ahead). If you don’t do reservation and just go dinner like usual, you will probably end up getting nothing on the Chinese New Year’s Eve.

4. Checking the events in nearby small towns

The traditional small towns in China are often considered to have the most traditional style Chinese New Year. If you are interested, you can search the following towns, they all have very unique traditions for the Chinese New Year.

(1) 乌镇 Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province

Wuzhen is a traditional southeast China town, where the rivers and canals go along with the street. The most special Chinese New Year tradition at Wuzhen is the joined-together outdoor dinner with the neighbors. You’ll be amazed by the variety of food and hospitality of locals.

Image from: wuzhen.com.cn

(2) 蔚县 Wei County, Hebei Province

In this small town, you can see the highly skilled and dangerous performance of 打铁花 Dǎ Tiěhuā. The artists use the melt iron water to light fireworks and create an amazing scene.

Image from: photo.tuchong.com

Image from: http://static01.lvye.com/

(3) 平遥 Pingyao, Shanxi Province

Pingyao is a traditional Chinese town in Northern China. The whole town has been kept well since Ming and Qing dynasty. Every Chinese New Year, there will have traditional celebration events that carry on the old Northern China tradition.

5. Going to the Lantern Festival

The 15th day after Chinese New Year day, it’s called 元宵节 Yuanxiao jie (Lantern Festival). It is considered as the end of the festival season. At the night of this day, there will be lanterns almost everywhere. In the major parks and attractions, there are many beautiful lanterns, traditional performances and games for people.

Image from: ceh.com.cn

Those are things that I recommend for you if you travel in China during the Spring Festival period. If you have any questions or other recommendations, please leave your comment and we’d like to know!