Feature: Young Taiwan people celebrate Spring Festival on the mainland

BEIJING, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Tuesday marked this year's Spring Festival, and many Taiwan people celebrated the festival on the mainland due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

Hsu Liang-jen, a student who comes from Taoyuan in Taiwan and studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing, was invited to a gathering attended by people from across the Strait.

It is the first time he has celebrated the Spring Festival alone and on the mainland.

He has made a detailed plan to carry him through the holiday. "I'm binge-watching 'Beyond,' a TV series about short track speed skating." He said the drama has cheered him up so much that he can hardly wait to watch the Winter Olympics.

"I will enjoy the TV series, go skiing and watch the Olympic Games. It will be a very full holiday, for sure."

For Kao Shuo-heng, who married a woman from east China's Fujian Province last year, attending a reunion dinner on the mainland was not a problem. "The menu for reunion dinners in Taiwan is very similar to the menu in my wife's hometown," Kao said.

"Fo Tiao Qiang, which literally means 'Buddha Jumps Over the Wall,' as well as mutton hot pot and rice cakes are typical Spring Festival dishes in Taiwan." Many of these dishes can trace their pronunciations back to the southern Fujian dialect of Hokkien.

Some Taiwan people moved into new homes ahead of the Spring Festival. Feng Nien-tsu, an entrepreneur in the liquor industry, moved into an affordable apartment in a community in Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian.

No less than 1,000 such apartments will be provided for Taiwan people working in the city at rents 30 percent below market price. Including Feng, 72 Taiwan people across 45 households landed their chosen apartments on Jan. 18.

"I've received a lot of care since I came to the mainland to start my business," Feng said. "There are preferential policies and subsidies."

Spring Festival greetings are flying across the Strait. In an online comment, one netizen requested a special song for the people in Taiwan and invited them to come back and visit the mainland whenever possible. The post received a huge number of likes on social media.