"Spring Festival" is what the Chinese citizens call Chinese New Year. About 2 weeks prior to the Lunar New Years Day, decorations start appearing and quickly become plentiful where ever you go. Red and Gold are the predominant colors, as you can read about in my Picture of the Day post from January 12th. I thought I would share a variety of pictures I've taken at places that have a larger amount of decorations up, whether just for viewing or for sale. I've covered quite a few of the meanings of specific decorations in my "Picture A Day" posts.
This is just one end of the section of decorations for sale at the Walmart store in Shekou, Shenzhen: Lanterns, couplets, and papercut designs!
A long row of hanging decorations, most with knots at the top and tassels at the bottom, and in between.... lots of fish, yuanbao, hot peppers and good wishes for the New Year.
This is the display of decorations for sale at our local Spar supermarket. A smaller display, but, a little bit of all the most common decorations!
This shows decorations that are throughout our local Spar supermarket.
This shows numerous small shops at the He Sheng Stationery Market in Dongguan.
Light shining through the lanterns at a small shop at the Stationery Market.
These items were for sale at a shop in Hong Kong where they had quite a bit of licensed characters on the New Years items.
Chinese new Year 2016 will bring in the year of the Monkey, so monkeys are quite common in this years decorations, and a lot of different styles of plush monkeys are for sale! This is a display at an RT Mart supermarket in our neighboring town of Dalang.
This is a display in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in Shekou, Shenzhen. Monkeys and fireworks! Sounds noisy! That's the way the Chinese celebrate!
Just like how the weeks leading up to Christmas are filled with parties in many countries, in China, Spring Festival parties are traditional in businesses. Here is a beer drinking game at the Spring Festival dinner party that my husband attended for his department at work.
This time in China can easily be compared to the Christmas season in many countries, and just the same, signs of the season can be seen just about everywhere!