The Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is still three weeks off, but decorations are starting to appear at the hotel. There are also decorations in streets and shops. Interestingly enough there are still a lot of Christmas decorations up in shops around the area. These are finally disappearing as the New Year decorations go up.

The Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, so is a different date than our Western New Year that is based on the solar calendar.

There is now a tree in the lobby at the hotel that is hung with traditional paper cuttings and is surrounded by representations of fireworks and other New Year items.

Here is a view down one of the side streets of Nanjing Road. Can you tell what the animal is for the New Year? Next year is the Year of the Monkey.

Here is a shopping area where you can buy decorations. You can see the large number of lanterns on display.

Here are boxes of red lanterns. They are nicely compressed into the smallest possible packages so that they are easy to transport.

In the Yuyuan Tourist Mart there is a large display of children who are celebrating the New Year. At least this is my interpretation 🙂 The New Year is a time of good fortune and the children are playing on a pot full of gold.

One of the New Year traditions is giving out red packets of money to others. Of course there are all kinds of traditional foods that are prepared. The Spring Festival lasts for 15 days and each day has some special meaning.

Another big tradition is shooting off firecrackers and Fireworks. I am sure that I will be hearing plenty of noise in my neighborhood as many of my neighbors celebrate the Lunar New Year.

I may celebrate this year the same way that I celebrated last year by going and having a Chinese New Year Lunch.

Steven