Results tagged “springfestival”

This Lantern Festival, villagers in Nanchuan, China carried out a 500-year tradition - throwing molten iron against a wall to create showers of fireworks. The act, called 打树花 （da shu hua - or beating a tree for flowers), looks dangerous. But the throwers insist that it's not as long as you're not afraid to die.

             

While living in Beijing may have been a little more exciting this Monday, Shanghai was having a relatively uneventful and probably more gleeful 元宵节 (The Lantern Festival). Former Shanghaiist contributor Peijin Chen took these great photos of the city in celebration.

                              

[Monday, 10pm] People are currently aTwitter with news that that Beijing's CCTV headquarters has gone up in flames, and from the following pictures snapped and uploaded by various eyewitnesses (including some amazing on-the-scene photos by real estate tycoon and CEO of Soho China Pan Shiyi), the fire looks pretty damn bad and appears to have engulfed the part of the complex that houses the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Beijing. Given that today is Yuanxiao Jie (元宵节) which marks the culmination of the Lunar New Year festivities, it is not unlikely that stray fireworks were the cause of this disaster. Follow what the China Twitterati is saying at #cctvfire. Videoclips after the jump.

An 11-year-old girl has mysteriously jumped to her death at school this morning, the first day she returned from the Spring Festival vacation. At around 8:50am, right after her first class, the girl jumped off from the sixth floor of Shanghai Children's Dream Experiment School. A teacher told Xinmin.cn that the girl had been unhappy with her mother, and that the two had a “strained relationship” during the winter holiday. Source: Shanghai Daily

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

If you ever find yourself in Ningbo (about a two hour distance from Shanghai), check out their zoo. The staff have reportedly trained a sea lion to write a word in Chinese. Peter, a six-year-old male, can now write 牛 (bull), and sign off on his work with a special "sea lion" stamp. Cute! No word on whether the trainers will teach him anything else, since 牛 took him a good three months to master. Source: Ananova

• Shanghai is the most popular destination for Chinese students returning from abroad. According to the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, 75,000 returnees have chosen to be in Shanghai, and the city also boasts about 4,000 enterprises founded by returnees.
• According to latest statistics released by the municipal government, Shanghai received a whopping 1.57 million tourists in the first three days of the Chinese New Year.
• Japan's NTT Communications will launch a data centre in Shanghai together with China Telecom to provide international wide-area ethernet service.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

Michael Manning of The Opposite End of China finds Osama bin Laden hawking face masks at a Chinese New Year fair at Ditan Park Temple yesterday.

And, of course, Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, continues to relish every opportunity he has to practice his Chinese.

• About 30,000 cleaners swept up 1,200 tonnes of fireworks debris left over from Sunday night's big celebrations.
• Originally scheduled for launch in August 2008, the much-touted luxury hotel Jumeirah HanTang Xintiandi Shanghai, will now be open for business sometime this year.
• Chinese government officials have denied U.S. Treasury secretary nominee Timothy Geithner's allegations that China is manipulating its currency.

Since when did this become a yearly political exercise, we wonder?

For lots of young folk going back to visit their families, the Spring Festival can be a bit of a pressure pot. Many times, Chinese parents like to follow up the customary greeting of "Have you eaten?" with "So when are you getting married?" One 31-year-old in Ningbo was so desperate not to disappoint mom and dad that he posted a notice asking to hire a pretend girlfriend.

This time last year, many people were prevented from going home to celebrate Chinese New Year with their loved ones because of the deadly winter storms. This year, it's the global economic crisis that threatens to dampen the holiday spirit for China's 200 million migrant workers, many of whom are now jobless as factories are shut down and jobs are cut. Kimberly Lim of Reuters speaks to a Shanghai-based couple who are unable to fork out enough money to return home to neighbouring Anhui province. (On a totally unrelated note, we found it interesting to see a cross adorning the wall of their small, bare room.)

Less than three months after the much-touted launch of its four-level store in Shanghai, Marks and Spencer has sacked Richard Sweet, its top man in China. According to Malcolm Moore of the Daily Telegraph, even twenty years of experience opening stores in India, Russia and the Middle East did not prepare him for China -- much of his stock were impounded at Shanghai customs and as a result, rows and rows of shelves were left bare during the opening. Apparently, the 40,000 sq ft store was also deserted during the Christmas season. A quick check by Shanghaiist last Friday evening found the store similarly devoid of shoppers, in spite of an ongoing Spring Festival sale which sees items going for as much as 50% off.

In this news report from Hunan TV, police opened the luggage compartment of a crowded long-distance bus bringing passengers eager to return home for the Spring Festival and found a huge surprise -- eight people were hidden inside, tucked inconspicuously behind suitcases and packages. With buses and trains fully booked out, and legal tickets hard to come by, some entrepreneurial Chinese bus drivers are welcoming the opportunity to make a quick buck from those desperate enough to get home in time. One young man that was caught in the luggage compartment told reporters that nobody forced them to do this and they were more than willing to travel this way. [h/t Youku Buzz]

• The Spring Festival migration has started in earnest, with an estimated 9.2 million railway passengers having already headed home this past weekend. Follow the latest on Xinhua's new "Travel Rush" website.
• Little-known Chinese car manufacturer BYD has upped the ante in the electric car race with the world's first production plug-in hybrid. The F3DM will be unveiled tomorrow at the International Motor Show in Detroit.
• Land disputes are again cropping up in China: villagers in Jilin are forming an independent farmers' union to collect funds from appropriated lands, while the Economist reports on a potentially "revolutionary" land auction outside Beijing that turns out to be "little more than a typical story of a rural official trying to make money from land." The apparent problem in the latter case is that some 50% of the farmers in the area can't provide evidence of their land rights.

Over 2.3 billion passenger trips are expected to be made via land and water transport over the 40 days of the Lunar New Year season. 188 million trips are expected to be made via railway alone, up 8% from last year. As a result of the global economic crisis which saw many factories going under all over China, waves and waves of migrant workers started going home much earlier this year. Where these people will travel to after the Spring Festival remains a big question mark because most of these people still do not know where their next job will be.

To spread the Lunar New Year cheer, the central government has decided to distribute RMB9 billion worth of hongbao's (or red packets) to 74 million of the poorest residents in cities and villages as one-time disbursements meant to help them tide through the hard times. Villagers will receive RMB100 each, city dwellers RMB150 each, and those on state pensions/subsidies RMB180 each. All this money is coming straight from the Ministry of Finance and the central government has already given strict instructions to governments at all levels to disburse the monies in a "just, fair and transparent" manner.

Shanghaiist was back at Yu Yin Tang after the extended New Year's break. Gigs have been slow to restart after Spring Festival due to announced renovations of their space over by Tianshan Park. Alter-Ego played on Friday and we went down to Saturday's 0093 Rock Showcase.

In Paris, New York City and the Hague:

In Shanghai on the Bund BY RYAN POLLACK

We think we'd be all right if we never, ever watched the CCTV Spring Festival gala again, but we almost regret it this time because we missed out on some real doozies, like Zhang Ziyi's terrible lip-synching episode and as well as the slight faux pas, made by one of the hosts, that China's south was in the midst of an "abundant spring" even though many of the southern provinces are facing the worst winter weather they've seen in decades.

Spring Festival: The holiday is around the corner, and for the first time in years we'll be stuck in Shanghai, undoubtedly huddled under the covers and looking sorrowfully through our phone's address book for anyone who might also be here to help brush away the loneliness. Since our ayi who cooks our grease-ridden meals will also be leaving us for the holiday, we're going to have to trudge out into the snowy wilderness to eat. If any of you similarly cold and lonely souls are willing to join this Shanghaiist to pig out at places both old and new, here's where you'll find us:

Long story short, the place is a zoo, but what'd you expect. Of course, things are made worse by the weather. Here are some pics from the last few days. From what we've been hearing both in the news and in our apartment elevator, the dastardly weather gods have caused big time cancellations and problems. Despite the crowds of cold people and the massive B.O. from the people waiting inside the subway station, things seem more or less ok. Order has been maintained. Lots of places are already sold out, but order has been maintained, in part thanks to the police and PLA.

By James Creegan

Nasty. Nasty. Nasty. If we didn't have to walk the dogs, we'd just stay inside our (semi) warm living room all day. We know the miserable sleet (or is it freezing rain?) and slippery conditions are forcing some offices to send workers home early today. But winter's icy grip on China is far more serious than some missed work or a slip on the sidewalk. Here's a rundown (and, please, feel free to add to this list in a comment):

It's official. It has now rained in Shanghai 3,173 straight days.

Shanghaiist recently stumbled upon a couple of little, somewhat inconspicuous spots that seem perfect for hiding away from the obnoxious cold of Shanghai’s deep winter. We’re planning on being regulars at these places not because the food is mind-blowing, but because they’re cozy and warm and, well, we’re softies like that.