Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
Hello everybody, welcome to a special spring festival edition of Roundtable.
I'm He Young. On today's show, we shed light on one slice of the economy during the Chinese New Year.
Spring festival consumption, which includes shopping, tourism, entertainment and more.
In China, while the cold spell may be settling in, it's actually a hot time for shopping.
The spring festival period is always a golden season for the country's consumption market.
For those traveling across the country to reunite with their families, you certainly can't arrive empty -handed, right?
People come home with presents, bringing with them the memories of the past year and the hopes for the new one.
With the much -anticipated week -long holiday, folks are making the most of their precious day off to have fun, travel, and indulge in entertainment.
Let's take a closer look at the consumption trends during this festive period.
Joining me in this discussion are Steve Hatherly and Yushan.
So, what is the deal with spring festival shopping?
When does the shopping period begin?
I mean, if you ask when exactly it begins, to me, it sounds like it's from early January, where the la ba occurred, right?
I think that's on January the 7th.
And I remember I was on the show that day.
But before I went on the show, I ordered a hot bucket of la ba porridge as a way of spending that day.
And also, you know, just incorporating a little bit of our cultural identity into that.
but in the meantime also warms my stomach before going on the show.
So what is Laba? It's actually usually considered as a prelude to spring festival in the mind of the Chinese.
That's something to mark the beginning of the spring festival season in our culture.
So usually how we celebrate it is through a bowl of Laba porridge that has different kinds of beans and grains in it.
on that day uh i got a text message from my wife it was a photo of a bowl of porridge and the message said we have to eat this today and i said why and she said i'm not sure but it's a thing here in china and i just know that we're supposed to eat this today so this is the lava porridge And that is all
about the beginning of the spring festival season.
Thank you. I was wondering that up until now.
Oh, that's so lovely.
It was delicious, by the way.
We both enjoyed it very much.
Oh, I'm glad. Well, Laba literally means the eighth day of the 12th month of the traditional Chinese calendar.
And also, the Laba porridge comes in this color of purple.
Yes. But it's actually very appetizing.
I promise you. So that's when the shopping period starts.
What are everyone rushing to buy?
I mean, during the spring festival season, we know that most of the market will already be closed as the market owners themselves are going back home to celebrate with their families.
So usually when you shop, you shop before they close.
So you shop prior to the spring festival celebration.
And what, for example, for my family's case, what we bought include like food, like fishes and pre -cooked chicken that's already a dish by itself.
It's already prepared for serving.
And also there's like numerous bags of nuts, peanuts, candy and melon seed.
I'm not sure if you guys eat it in Canada, but we call it melon seed.
It's a dried kind of seed from sunflowers, I suppose.
And it's flavored and very suitable for having a big crowd of people sitting together.
Yeah, cracking it. And you hear the sound and people chit -chatting.
It's lovely. So the shopping period actually kicks off well before the holiday then.
I would have thought typically maybe a week or two before something like that.
But it's a good three weeks before the holiday that people start to get their shopping done.
so that means people are very aware of how busy the season is going to be they're very aware that many shops will be closed and they want to be as prepared as possible i guess yeah ever since the beginning of january i think it's already starting gradually right so is it kind of like um people getting
their christmas shopping done ahead of time gosh you know my mom is a little bit of a different character if she sees something that she thinks she can buy for christmas in may she'll buy it you know oh i think this would be perfect for you know my sister for a christmas gift so she'll buy it at any time
during the year but yeah typically i think in canada and america maybe at the end of november um beginning of december that's kind of when the shopping season starts.
So I guess you're right.
It's kind of the same thing because in that case, it's about three full weeks, maybe a little bit more before the actual holiday.
And I guess now that I'm saying it out loud, I think part of the reason might be for preparation, but also part of the reason might be because this is the biggest holiday of the year, right, in the country.
So people are excited and they want to get preparing because they're motivated to do so.
Yeah. And for some families if you're not traveling and you know you're going to be staying home for many days then you also want to stock up with food supplies and preferably something tasty like proper cooking will happen and therefore you know this shopping has to be done ahead of time got it and plan well
and also these days so much of consumption happens online for the chinese people um this year we've seen some online promotional events as well.
Yeah, exactly. I think I read this on xinhuanews .com that China actually launched a month -long online shopping event for festive goods that's ahead of the festival.
And this very event, it was initiated by the Ministry of Commerce.
And it was organized under the guidance of several governmental departments.
And it ran for a quite long time from January the 7th to February the 5th.
So I think this is particularly good for people who are stocking up things.
And I've already seen advertisements from basically all of the major online shopping platforms as well that's sending you text messages and just jumping out little windows when you open other apps that has nothing to do with shopping.
Making sure everyone's aware of it, right?
They even held a launch ceremony on the 7th of January, which is the Laba Porridge Day, featuring a series of activities, including displays of festive goods and exhibitions, and highlighting, too, intangible cultural heritage.
And various Chinese regions and e -commerce platforms also hosted their own event to celebrate the Spring Festival, including one that started on January the 22nd, So just a week ago, right, this one was hosted in Shanghai, and it's under the theme of Silk Road e -commerce spring festival.
And this event is aimed to promote tourism products from visitors traveling to China for the spring festival.
And by Silk Road, I actually did a little bit of research on this one.
They mean to promote the goods and commodities from countries that's participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.
So you'll see tropical fruits from Vietnam and essential oil from Indonesia and also spices, cooking spices from Singapore in Shanghai.
And speaking of tourism, well, you've got a whole bunch of people who are traveling for the fixed dates to make sure that they get home.
And you also get people who are like, we're going to go out and celebrate.
We're going to travel.
So tourism apparently is a big part of the Spring Festival economy too.
Yes, I would definitely agree with you on that because it was already estimated in, I think, early January, according to news report, that the online travel platforms such as SeaTrip and Flygi saw like a peak in passenger flow around January the 20th during this year's spring festival travel rush, which lasts
from January the 14th to February the 22nd.
And the peak would continue until January the 28th.
So by January the 30s, there was a concentrated outbreak of demand for holiday travel, with family travel becoming the main mode this year for Chinese people to just, you know, enjoying some time during the holiday to travel around.
So, would this holiday be a lot of domestic travel for citizens of the country, or would this be a time that would be popular to perhaps go overseas somewhere or to another country?
So, for some Chinese people, I guess you'd either even, you know, celebrate the Chinese New Year's Eve in a different place from your home, or you go after the New Year's Eve.
It also depends on the tickets as well, right?
Sure. when you kind of anticipate you know that the ticket price is gonna be higher than usual as so many people have the time to enjoy themselves some people would want to go to a different part of the country and others they want to go to a different country where spring festival might not be a mainstream
celebration and that means well maybe the price can be a little bit lower if they're not anticipating huge inflows of tourists.
I got it. Yeah, traveling during major holidays is something that maybe is becoming more commonplace than it used to be in the past, and I think we're seeing that in different countries too.
And this is popular with my family too.
When I was a kid, I remember for one Christmas, we went on a family cruise around Puerto Rico and south of that in the Caribbean.
It was very strange to feel those temperatures on December 25th and the week before with Christmas trees on the boat and things like that.
But it was an opportunity to take advantage of the holiday in a different way.
And I guess that's what some families here in China do as well, is that, sure, you have the people who will travel domestically, you'll have the people who stay home, but then the group of people who want to still celebrate the holiday, but just maybe not in the quote unquote traditional sense.
Exactly, for outbound travel, there's been multiple discounted routes for the Chinese families who want to travel outside of China, such as direct flights from Shanghai to Jeju Island started at a minimum of 284 yuan, which equals around the 38 US dollars.
So it's so cheap that's beyond my expectations that you can just travel to somewhere outside of China.
Simple as that. And apart from that, there's also several destinations that's listed as the hottest overseas destinations this year during the Spring Festival ticket booking season.
And that includes Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Singapore.
Hmm. $38 or 284, under 300 yuan to travel internationally.
Goodness me, you don't often hear of prices like that.
Is this kind of a regular thing during Spring Festival time that we see the decrease in prices like this?
Or is this maybe something that's unprecedented?
I would say it's rather surprising and it's not really something you commonly seen would expect it to be because usually when it's say summer holiday season for the schools or during spring festival season that's when the price raises up yeah yeah this is so surprising a few years ago I remember checking
tickets to New Zealand for a trip during spring festival and the price doubled if not tripled right um compared to what it usually is yeah very surprising so look for those deals.
Yeah. If you are looking to travel somewhere and you have somewhere in mind and maybe you see, I don't know, overly expensive prices, then keep digging, I guess, because you don't know what deals you're going to find.
Yeah. Well, Steve, you're not necessarily here with the majority of your family.
Would you consider traveling?
Back home? Or just go to somewhere else?
Or in Beijing? Oh, yes.
Oh, 100%. Oh, absolutely 100%.
Yeah. I mean, that's part of the excitement of being in a new country, is that when you do have the opportunities to go out and explore, either domestically or internationally, I think it's wise, if you can, to take advantage of those times.
But back to Canada, no, it's not long enough, I don't think.
It's a pretty long trip to get to my hometown.
Oh, right. And this is the time to seize the opportunity to explore the area, you know.
And aside from traveling, people are looking for entertainment for this well -deserved vacation, this holiday that they're enjoying.
So what do people usually do here in China?
When I was younger, I remember during the spring festival season, there's always something that follows closely for all the kids to expect.
That is the temple fair, the miao hui.
That's kind of like a cultural gathering place for local children to gather in this fair and maybe just go around, shop around, play around.
There are games in that fair too for you to just have fun with friends and with family.
So that's definitely, in my memory, some entertainment or rather an entertaining event that I would recommend.
But according to a very recent report by CNR News, nowadays, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism launched the 2025 Spring Festival -themed cultural and tourism activities from January the 7th to March the 1st this year.
What's on the list?
So that includes about 27 main activities in seven major categories, covering key areas such as just cultural performances.
So it's not just fairs anymore, but also performances and intangible cultural heritage experience exhibitions and also cultural and entertainment activities, tourism and leisure consumption and cultural and museum exhibition.
I'm kind of looking forward to the museum part because I know it will be free, mostly, I would assume.
Oh, so that's another advantage of the holiday season is that places, not everywhere, obviously, but some places like museums might offer free entry.
Well, usually it would be free.
Oh, I see. But some exhibitions might ask you to get a ticket.
Right. Since it's so cold in Beijing or in the northeastern parts of China, this is also a great time to be engaged in some winter leisure activities.
I know as a fellow Beijinger here, every winter time we'd like to go to Ho Hai.
For skating a little bit?
Yeah, for skating. Where's Ho Hai?
That's in pretty central Beijing.
it's such a signature part of the local Beijing what Beijing people do and it involves skating it involves these ice slides that was a part of the best memories of growing up in Beijing and as a kid I remember going to Houhai and felt that it was like as big as an ocean but now it's actually you know
just a small lake it gets smaller as you got taller I guess so yeah yeah So that's a lake that's located in, what, around the middle of the city somewhere, and people go for an outdoor skate.
That's really kind of fun.
And then there's other activities, too.
I'm assuming that there's maybe some food stalls there for people to have some snacks and stuff.
Definitely. That's a really good time.
And also on the shore, it's a bar area as well.
Oh, cool. Yeah. So go visit in summertime.
It's really nice as well.
Yeah, that's one of the things I like to do.
That's good entertainment but maybe not spending a lot, which is great.
Did you know that there are people breaking the ice and going for a winter swim in previous years?
Oh, these unapologetically, these Beijing older dudes, they're brave.
And they do not shy away from attention.
They might even enjoy it.
They would take a dive into the icy waters sometimes.
On the lake. So they break the ice on the lake to go for a swim.
During wintertime, I think that should be on a different location where people are skating.
Yeah, I would hope.
But it happened and it's quite a view when people do that.
I can imagine it is.
Oh my goodness, they are quite brave, aren't they?
For many different reasons.
Yes, indeed. And we see that during the spring festival holiday, Well, you know that half of the city, those folks who work so hard, live here, work here during the year, they're going to be out going back to their hometowns.
But also you're going to get tourists coming into the city and also those locals who decide to have a staycation.
This is definitely, you know, some good earned rest time for people to do whatever you enjoy.
Hmm. It's one of my observations about living in Beijing in the limited amount of time that I've been here is that people work very, very, very hard.
And there are always people on the go.
And those people for the people who are working, you know, in the especially people who are working outdoors, like delivery people, people who might be driving full time for their living, those people need a break as well.
And it's wonderful that we have this time of year because oftentimes, whenever I get food delivered to the door, I'm just always kind of thinking like, thank you very much, because I know how difficult your job is.
And for this time of year, that's when all those hard working people get to have a break as well.
Yeah, hopefully. And also this Around this time of the year is also a time for cultural indulgence for a lot of people, especially those from outside of China who wants a glimpse of what our culture is like here.
And, you know, after the spring festival, social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of traditional New Year was added on the UNESCO representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity in December 2024.
I would believe that nowadays there are more people that's looking forward to at least get to know what spring festival is all about.
And also the cultural aspects, the activities, the entertainment, the ancient towns traveling and all that interesting routes.
Yeah, it's just about the time that for the world to get a taste of the Spring Festival.
People who are not familiar with it.
But I guess that's probably true for Chinese people, too, because, you know, when you're living in big cities and you're busy all the time, as we just talked about, then you don't.
How do I phrase this?
you don't, you're living more in big city culture daily than you are in traditional culture daily.
So when these holidays come, even for Chinese people, I guess it's a good opportunity to kind of reconnect if that makes sense or experience the way things used to be a little bit, slow down a little bit and reflect on the culture and appreciate it too.
And I would think to correct me if I'm wrong, but I just had this thought, you know, talking about culture and, you know, people coming into China get a chance to experience Chinese culture for the first time.
And big city living people have a chance to reconnect with the culture.
But would it be true to say that even for people from perhaps the northern part of China who travel to the southern part or the southerners who come up to the north, where China is such a massive country, you might have little tiny cultural differences from province to province.
So if you're traveling domestically, is it fair to say that you might have a chance to experience a new culture too if you're traveling to a part of China that you haven't been to for the first time?
Have you ever experienced that before?
Definitely. Every single time I travel to southern part of China, for example, I took two trips to Hangzhou in 2023, each and every single time I was there, I feel like I'm in another, say, part of their culture where the language, the accents, the smell on the street just feels so different from up
here in the north. And every single time, especially if you're traveling via airplane, every time I landed back in Beijing, I step out the airplane, the aircraft and walk into the aisle to get my luggage and everything.
I smell the air and I realized it, recognize immediately that this is the air of Beijing.
This is how it smells like to me.
This is a little bit a mix of coldness in the winter and the dryness, just all over the air and everything.
So in the South, what I feel that's most shocking is the way they talk.
I would assume it almost sounds like another language to me.
You know, the Northern dialects and the accents more or less sounds the same.
I can understand people in Hebei talks.
I can understand the accents from northeastern China.
But in the south, I was asking Yuxin this just yesterday that Yuxin, you know, he's from East China's Jiangsu province.
And another colleague of ours, she's from Shanghai, and they speak very different dialect.
Well, not that kind of a different, but their dialects are different, but they can understand each other in a way that me as a Beijinger would never be able to perceive.
unless I spend a decent amount of time in their respective regions or cities.
That's so cool. So that's something that's so unique that even for Chinese, it's really interesting to learn every time I travel around.
Canada's not like that, I don't think.
And I wonder if it's because China is quite vertical.
It's not narrow and vertical, but it's tall, is what I mean.
But Canada's long, but it's not that tall.
so we don't really have that drastic temperature variations going from Vancouver on the west coast to Newfoundland or Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island on the east coast it might feel a little bit different but not really as a matter of fact.
So I just find that kind of fascinating that you have that opportunity you're still within your own country but yet you can get that different vibe and different culture there.
This spring festival the world is truly connected Whether it's celebrating at home with family or exploring the vibrant cultural landscape of China, the spirit of the holiday brings people together, transcending borders and creating memories that could last a lifetime.
