'Do as Chinese Do When You're in China for the Spring Festival'

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, February 19, 2002

'Do as Chinese Do When You're in China for the Spring Festival'

Russian girl Katusha, 19, experienced an exciting week in Beijing during the China's Lunar New Year celebration. Starting February 12, when the Year of the Horse galloped in, she tasted various Chinese snacks, visited the Forbidden City and Great Wall, and took pictures wearing Chinese-style jackets.

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Chinese Spend Lunar New Year Eve with Smiles And Cheerful Tears

Foreigners enjoy the festival in Beijing

Russian girl Katusha, 19, experienced an exciting week in Beijing during the China's Lunar New Year celebration.

Starting February 12, when the Year of the Horse galloped in, she tasted various Chinese snacks, visited the Forbidden City and Great Wall, and took pictures wearing Chinese-style jackets.

Katusha is not the only foreign merrymaker here to "do as Chinese do when you're in China" during this age-old celebration.

More overseas tourists come to Beijing for the festival

The capital city has reported a surge of overseas tourist arrivals in the last few weeks. More than 13,000 tourists from abroad arrived here on February 9 alone. Compared with last year, the figure was more than triple in the three days prior to Spring Festival, February 12. Apart from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, visitors came from European countries and Russia.

Exotic Fair Adds To Festival Attraction

While the Chinese embrace Western cultural elements to celebrate the traditional holiday, foreigners here enjoy all Chinese things. They dress in Chinese-style jackets, which have become popular since the APEC leaders in Shanghai adopted them as informal wear.

Meanwhile, foreigners put up paper-cuts and the character "fu", or ``happiness", on windows and doors where they are living. Dumplings have become their favorite food, and they even learned to say "Xinnian hao", or ``Happy new year", in Chinese.

About eight out of the 40,000 foreigners who live in Beijing stay here to celebrate the Chinese New Year, according to statistics from the capital's Public Security Bureau.

Temple fairs attractive for foreigners

Yvonne, a French girl working for a foreign-funded company here, said she likes the temple fairs best.

A New Way to Spend Festival

As traditional cultural events featuring all kinds of Chinese folk art, temple fairs are held every year around Spring Festival and attract thousands of visitors from both at home and abroad.

She said, "I really enjoy the feeling of dialog with Beijing's history when attending a temple fair."

In addition, Western-style restaurants were in a holiday mood, with traditional costumes for servers, and red tassels and lanterns for diners to enjoy. Paper-cuts have been put up in Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's, and Motorola and Coca Cola have launched new advertisements making reference to the Lunar New Year.

Chinese Spend Lunar New Year Eve with Smiles And Cheerful Tears

It is the unusual time for the world's largest population who eye the Year of Horse in the Chinese lunar calendar as a year for greater advancement.

The lunar New Year Eve arrives Monday and it will usher in the traditional Spring Festival, which is featured with family reunions throughout the country, as well as fireworks, songs and smiles. Full Story

Chinese Spring Festival in 2002

Bi Keren, 59, a music teacher at Qinghua University, spent 2,400 yuan (about 289 U.S. dollars) Sunday on six Chinese-style jackets for her family at Ruifuxiang, a century-old silk shop in downtown Beijing.

She specially ordered the style that was worn by world leaders attending the 2001 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Shanghai, to get in on a new fashion trend and so that her family can spruce up for the Spring Festival, which falls on February 12. Full Story

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