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I love the new public holiday calendar started in 2008 which we have a few more 3-day long weekends. June 8 2008 is the first time we will celebrate Duanwu Festival (端午节) as public holiday (maybe since I was born) in mainland China, although it has been a public holiday in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan for some years. We will be off on June 9 Monday this year.

Duanwu (端午) as a name is less well-known than Dragon Boat Festival (龙舟节). It is also known as “五月初五” - the fifth day of May in Chinese Luna calendar. Qu Yuan (屈原) and Wu Zixu (伍子胥) are two figures that are highly related to this holiday. Qu Yuan was committed a suicide by jumping to a river called Miluo River (汨罗江) in BC 278, and Wu zixu was ordered to suicide by his respectful King in BC 478. These two great men from 2,000+ years ago died on May 5th, both for patriotic reason: They saw their own countries were in danger but the Kings wouldn’t take their proposals to protect their lands. Duanwu is the day to memorize them - Chinese have the long history to memorize patriots died for the reasons don’t really make sense today.

But the traditional celebrating activities: dragon boat racing and Zongzi eating are for Qu Yuan. Zongzi (粽子) is a kind of bamboo leaf wrapped dumpling made from sticky rice. It was said that people throw this kind of food into Miluo River (汨罗江) where Quyuan died to feed fishes thus to protect Qu Yuan’s body being eaten. They also raced dragon boat on the river to scare away the fishes. I am not a dragon boat fan, but a Zongzi lover.

I still remembered a “joke” circling on emails last year about Zongzi (粽子) :

It is said that a senior manager was relocated to China one month before Duanwu festival. And the company gave Zongzi to all employees as a way to celebrate this traditional holiday. The next day, this senior manager was asked how did he like the Zongzi. And he said:” It is very delicious, but the skin of the dumpling is a little too hard.”

I know sometime it is difficult to figure out how to eat a Chinese dish. It is always a challenge to figure out weather the skin is eatable. [for Zongzi, the answer is no.] And there are always different flavors of Zongzi in South China and North China like dumpling. I grow up in a small city in West Guangdong (广东) and we ate a kind of plate flavor Zongzi that is served with suger powder at side. But in Shanghai, the most popular Zongzi is “Meat Zong“ (肉棕) which has a piece of pork in the middle of sticky rice. A bit north in Henan (河南), people usually eat sweet flavor Zongzi stuffed with green bean or red bean.

The best Zongzi in Shanghai area is the Zongzi from Jiaxin (嘉兴), a small city between Shanghai and Hanzhou (杭州) in Zhejiang province. And the best brand is Wu Fang Zhai (五芳斋), a Zongzi maker since late 19 century. You can buy them from supermakets or visit the stores. Must try it out if you are in China. A twit has anounced that he plans to eat Zongzi for 3 days in the coming long weekend.

Address of all stores in Shanghai:

地址: 上海黄浦区四川中路136号(近广东路)
Add: 136 Sichuan Zhong Rd. (closed to Guangdong Rd.) (tel: 021-63210018)

地址: 上海黄浦区南京东路720号第一食品商店内
Add: 720 Nanjing Dong Rd, inside the First Food Department Store

地址: 上海徐汇区浦北路938号(近虹漕南路)
Add: 938 Pubei Rd (closed to Hongcao Nan Rd)

地址: 上海徐汇区天钥桥路40-90号汇联商厦1楼(近肇嘉浜路)
Add: 40-90 Tianyaoqiao Rd, in Huilian Plaza

地址: 上海静安区大沽路254号(近重庆北路)
Add: 254 Dagu Rd. (closed to Chongqing Bei Rd) (tel: 021-63753085)

Imagine a conversation like this:

Lee (Chinese): Eric, which university did you go to?
Eric (American): I went to UC Berkeley.
Lee: oh, I didn’t know it. Where is it?
Eric: ….

Elliott brought up an idea called”Cultural literacy” the other day as our colleagues in Uptake were very surprised at he telling everybody that he didn’t know about “Liu Xiang” (刘翔), “Lu Xun” (鲁迅) or “Zhe Jiang University” (浙江大学) which is a a top university constantly ranked at top 10 in China. It is the same scenario that a Chinese is asking an American what is “UC Berkeley” while maybe all well-educated American assume people have some knowledge about US will also know about “UC Berkeley”.

Definition of “cultural literacy” from wikipedia:

Cultural literacy is the ability to converse fluently in the idioms, allusions and informal content which creates and constitutes a dominant culture. From being familiar with street signs to knowing historical reference to understanding the most recent slang, literacy demands interaction with the culture and reflection of it. A knowledge of a canonical set of literature is not valuable when engaging with others in a society if the knowledge stops at the end of the text - as life is interwoven with art, expression, history and experience, cultural literacy requires the broad range of trivia and the use of that trivia in the creation of a communal language and a collective knowledge. Cultural literacy stresses the knowledge of those pieces of information which content creators will assume the audience already possesses.

I hope the following list of Chinese University Ranking can help you out of embarrassment from the conversation at the beginning, when your Chinese friends expect you to know they are from big names but all you have to say is “I don’t know about it.” This list is from a <2008中国大学评价> (2008 China University Review) by Wu Shulian (武书连).Wu is leading a group to evaluate universities in China Academy of Management Science (中国管理科学研究院). This review and ranking has been running for 12 years in 2008. The completed list is published as a guidebook for high school students to choose colleges every year.

As in the West, there are many different ranking every year, each ranking has different approach or measurement. Knowing university in No. 10 or No. 15 is less important than having the idea that it is a pretty well-known top 20 U.

Top 30 China Universities in 2008

1. Tsinghua University (清华大学): Beijing
2. Beijing University (北京大学): Beijing
3. Zhejiang University (浙江大学): Hanzhou, Zhejiang
4. Shanghai Jiaotong University (上海交通大学): Shanghai
5. Nanjing Univerity (南京大学): Nanjing, Jiangsu
6. Fudan University (复旦大学): Shanghai
7. University of Science and Technology of China (中国科学技术大学): Hefei, Anhui
8. Huazhong University of Science and Technology (华中科技大学):Wuhan, Hubei
9. Wuhan University (武汉大学):Wuhan, Hubei
10. Xi’an Jiaotong University (西安交通大学): Xi’an, Shanxi
11. Jilin University (吉林大学): Changchun, Jilin
12. Zhongshan University (中山大学)：Guangzhou, Guangdong
13. Sichuan University (四川大学): Chengdu, Sichuan
14. Harbin Institute of Technology (哈尔滨工业大学): Harbin, Heilongjiang
15. Shandong University (山东大学):Jinan, Shandong
16. Nankai University (南开大学): Tianjin
17. Tianjin University (天津大学): Tianjin
18. Beijing Normal University (北京师范大学): Beijing
19. Central South University (中南大学): Changsha, Hunan
20. Southeast Unversity (东南大学) : Nanjing, Jiangsu
21. Xiamen University (厦门大学): Xiamen, Fujian
22. Renmin University (中国人民大学): Beijing
23. Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics (北京航空航天大学): Beijing
24. Dalian University of Technology (大连理工大学): Dalian, Liaoning
25. Northwest Polytechnical University (西北工业大学): Xi’an, Shanxi
26. Tongji University (同济大学): Shanghai
27. South China University of Technology (华南理工大学): Guangzhou, Guangdong
28. Chongqing University (重庆大学): Chongqing
29. East China Normal University (华东师范大学): Shanghai
30. Lanzhou University (兰州大学): Lanzhou, Gansu

There is almost at least one top university in the provinces along our coast line, from Liaoning to Guangdong, except of Guangxi and Hainan (which was part of Guangdong). Xian and Nanjing were the capital cities for many dynasties in China history. The advantages in politics and economy attracts more talents for these areas.

One defect of this ranking is that it didn’t include the specialized universities for language, medical and law, etc. And the private colleges are not included either. It’s more focus on the “research capability” of a university.　But all the above 30 universities with other 20 universities are “the universities that Education Dept. invests directly to build and development” (教育部重点建设高校) which I understand as “these 50 universities get more funding from the government”. And a freshgraduate from the top 50 universities will have a greater chance to get a Shanghai Hukou (户口) according the Hukou application score system.

Check out here to visit the websites of these universities.

复旦光华, from West Lake in Hangzhou.

A groundswell of information is being shared and produced about the devastating Sichuan earthquake yesterday that hit south-west China near Chengdu, Sichuan. Coverage all over the place but check IfGogo.com, Shanghaiist, Danwei, GlobalVoices. If you are on Twitter, you can follow the people that account ChinaList follows and that’s a start at tapping into some of the people in China. Or you can use Summize to search Twitter for the term: 地震 or earthquake. People’s Daily coverage here and reports Premier Wen heading out to the affected region. CNN reports 3,000 dead, 900 buried in quake, according to Xinhua.

Other CNReviews coverage: China earthquake donation guide

Photo on Sina (h/t fuzheado)

IfGoGo also provided many photos on the Sichuan earthquake.

IfGoGo.com provided many images about the 7.8 Sichuan earthquake. Above image of “people in Sichuan (maybe) from Hainei.com. (more…)

Happy Labor Day!

I remember I stayed at home (Shanghai) for 7 days watching all the Desperate Housewives episodes last year. LOL. It is not that I don’t want to explore our beautiful western provinces - Yunnan (云南), Sichuan(四川), Tibet (西藏) and Qinghai (青海), I was afraid that the overwhelming crowds would ruin the beautiful natural scenery. Year 2008 is the first year that the eight-year-old “7-day-Golden-Week” is cut to 3 days. Still, I can’t go out to explore the far-away Wild Wild West. What’s worst, my friend from Suzhou told me that a nice hotel in Suzhou is very difficult to book (= more expensive) in the coming few days. So, I guess I will have to stay at home to watch LOST this time (like other Chinese fans of US TV shows).

According to a news report from Qianglong(千龙网), tour bookings are only 50% of what they were in year 2007, especially long distance tours to more remote destinations, such as Hainan (海南) and Lijiang Yunnan (丽江，云南). Self-driving packages are most popular.

So, if you are coming to China, I suggest you schedule your trip to avoid our public holidays. My take is: avoid visiting big cities in 3-day long weekends, and avoid the remote destinations during national holiday and Chinese New Year. Check out the calendar below and bookmark it.

In Summary:

1. We have 11 days public holidays, and minimal 5 days paid leave according to Labor Contract Law.
2. The government wants us to take advantage of the public holidays to drive travel industry, so a holiday usually make a 3-day long weekend. For example, we will have to work in the coming Sunday (May 4) because we are off on Friday (May 2).
3. So, What are these holidays?

• Jan. 1 : New Year Day (元旦)
• Chinese Calendar Jan. 1: Chinese New Year (春节)
• April. 5: Qingming (清明). People usually go to ceremonies to “sweep the tomb” (lit 扫墓) of their ancestors. The act of clean-up the tomb, and bringing some flowers, food and wine to the tomb is to show respect and memory to our passed family members. So you don’t need to say “happy holiday” to your Chinese friends on Qingming.
• May. 1: International Labor’s Day (劳动节). I guess it is a public holiday in all “communist” countries (though it originated from a labor dispute in the United States).
• Chinese Calendar May. 5: Duanwu (端午). It is a day to memorize one of our ancient patriot Quyuan (屈原). People eat a kind of food called zongzi 粽子(sticky rice “cake” wrapped with leaf). That day, dragon boat races are also held.
• Chinese Calendar Aug. 15: Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节). A festival to appreciate the most rounded moon in a year and eat moon cakes.
• Oct. 1: National Day (国庆节). The day Chairman Mao announced that People’s Republic of China was founded in front of Tiananmen Square in 1949.

If you’ve been watching the officialspeak lately, the word 华人 (hua ren), which means — quite simply — “Chinese” — has been floating around more often than nationality-related terms, such as “PRC citizen”. Those who are joining the “Heart China” MSN movement are no longer “just” citizens of the People’s Republic — they included Chinese of foreign nationalities, which would include yours truly — a Swiss citizen of Chinese descent. The unifying factor here is more related to blood and ethnic ties than it does with what kind of passport you have.

There is this term that has been floating around for some time — it’s a term that makes folks who are Chinese by descent but of foreign nationalities feel both “at home” and at the same time “alienated”. It’s the term 外籍华人 (wai ji hua ren), or “Chinese with foreign nationalities (citizenships)”. The “at home” bit is the 华人 (huaren) bit, which means “Chinese” (quite literally). The bit of “alienation” is the 外籍 (waiji) bit, which implies that you do not have Chinese citizenship (ie legal citizenship).

Most Chinese with foreign citizenships are World-friendly. Born in an international environment, they appreciate the best of both cultures — Chinese and Western (or Chinese and plain-vanilla “foreign”). Their eyes on the World are wider than the average 5 minute “world news” bit on Chinese TV (to make an understatement). It seems, then, that the term is “good”.

Except for the fact that it has the 外籍 (waiji) part. This bit is alienating. You feel ever so close to China, yet the fact that you don’t have their citizenship is a real bummer. PRC law bans dual nationalities, so if you want to be Chinese by law, you have to stop being Swiss (or American). And Chinese passports don’t grant you visa-free access to the US, Europe or even Taiwan, so…

But what if you’re Chinese by ethnicity and have a more World-oriented outlook? Here’s where I drop in a new term, 国际华人 (guoji huaren), which simply means “international Chinese”. This term is a good one, because it shows that the Chinese are World-oriented as in they care about what happens beyond their national frontiers. In this day and age, there’s the need to know what’s going on in Beijing, Bangkok and Berlin.

The 国际华人 (guoji huaren) bit also reflects well on the Chinese as a whole, as it shows that the Chinese are more “international” (the 国际 (guoji) bit stands out really well) and hence gives you this feeling that they’re more active on the World stage. It showcases their might and the fact that they’re ready to embrace the World. They can talk with folks around the planet. They can communicate with folks around the World. And yes, you can use this term regardless of nationality, as long as you have Chinese blood or are Chinese by ethnicity, and you’ve lived around the World. It includes both 华侨 (hua qiao; overseas Chinese) and the 外籍华人 (Chinese with foreign nationalities).

The International Chinese is part of this great family people — people, purely people at that — people who are just as equal as the guy or gal next to you. They are all individuals on the planet. They are free to, and in fact, should, mix and mingle with folks of different cultures and nationalities. If you’ve heard of the word “World Citizen”, you can count the International Chinese in as a World Citizen. The only “bit” that they have that makes them a tad different is their heritage. Theoretically (and legally) speaking, though, they are — when all is said and done — just another human being on the surface of the Earth, when it comes right down to the fundamentals.

The International Chinese should be open to different cultures and ways of thinking, while at the same time preserving — and yes, bravely reforming (when needed) their own culture. The bits and pieces that make Chinese culture — well, Chinese culture — should be kept intact. At the same time, they should be free to use “this and that” from all other cultures. This is, after all, what’s supposed to constitute a World Citizen.

The International Chinese can be anyone: theoretically speaking, the average farmer with access to the Internet, who sells his produce to buyers overseas can be considered an “International Chinese” because he interacts with the rest of the globe. The taxi driver who reads the news every day and takes a keen interest on what happens outside the PRC is also a good candidate for an “International Chinese”. If a formula was to be formulated, it’d look something like this: Chinese by descent + frequent ties to the World = International Chinese. (But then again, this is no strict formula.) And for those who are more “domestic” (as in they’ve never travelled outside the country and have only limited knowledge of the outside World), they’ve an equal opportunity to become an International Chinese by getting to know the outside World more and more. Theoretically, every student that goes through the 9-year minimum education has the knowledge to become an International Chinese. It’s just how deeply they’re involved with the rest of the planet that distinguishes this guy from the guy sitting next to him.

I’m tossing the word 国际华人 into the lexicon while relinquishing any rights. Go ahead, use it. It’s “my bit” for the rest of us.

Zhang Liming (张黎明) from Beijing Morning Post (北京晨报) has a report titled as “Tencent learned from Korean Model to Hire a 3000-people Human Flesh Search Army” (腾讯参照韩国模式招三千人肉搜索军团) on April. 10, 2008 on Sina Tech. The author learned the news from industry insiders and quoted quite some comments from CEO Huateng Ma (马化腾) of Tencent Inc.- the largest and most used Internet service portal in China with annual revenue of $520 MM in 2007, about this big bet action. Here is the summarized translation of the report.

Tencent Inc. (QQ.com) is building a 3,000-person search result editor team. The employees will be/are hired as engineers but in fact, their job nature is to edit search results of its search engine called SOSO (搜搜, means “search search” in Chinese) soso.com (which was launched in Dec. 2005).

CEO Huateng Ma (马化腾) didn’t comment on the size of the editor team directly, but compared with the practice in Korean search engine industry: “a 700-person search result editor team in Korea is very common.”

Ma continued to explain why “it is common”: “for example, 20 users might search one same key term, and what they need might be the same information in two paragraphs. But nobody locks the two paragraphs (on the top of search result thus enables a more efficient search for majority of users). So actually people want editing of search results.”

“Tencent is experimenting with ‘human+search’ model. In domestic market, Baidu Zhidao (百度知道) is a similar model, but its editor team is not strong enough.”

When continuing to compare SOSO with other human-powered search engines in Korea, Ma admitted that “one key reason that Korean local search engines beat Google and Yahoo to win the local market is that there are relatively less pages in Korean Internet (for Google and Yahoo to crawl). So I don’t know if human-powered search engine will be successful or not in China. I have a question mark for this model. But Tencent has a portal (qq.com), the edited search results are valuable to the portal anyway (so it worth a try).”

Other posts about Tencent (QQ.com) and SoSo here:

• Techcrunch: Soso.com partnered with Google
• Kaiser Kuo from Ogilvyy Digital Watch: Coin of the Realm, revisited
• Paul M. Denlinger from China Vortex: Understanding China’s Youth Through Tencent’s QQ: A New Must-Read Report

UPDATE Elliott: 4/14 made minor edits

After about two week at one of my newer gigs, the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall, I’ve a good idea what the average Chinese, born in the 1980s, uses on the Web. I also have an idea of what the more “internationalized” mainland surfer uses.

So, here’s what the Chinese Netizenry uses, Web 2.0-wise…

• Xiaonei: A lot.

The number one SNS in mainland China is not Facebook, but what they’ve resorted to calling “China’s Facebook”, with or without the controversial-it-may-be “copy” moniker.

Indeed, Xiaonei is all the rage. Its primary targets — students and white-collar workers — are pretty much the bulk of contacts for yours truly, which is why he’s in touch with 23 (and counting!) fellow uni and workplace colleagues.

There are other SNS networks around, such as Wealink and Hainei, but for David Feng, Xiaonei is the biggest mainland SNS on his radar right now. It’s just that he doesn’t check in all too often.

But a lot more these days.

• Facebook: Not everyone, but quite a few.

Facebook is home to more expats and folks outside China than mainland Chinese, mainly because of its interface, which is mainly English (although they’ve a Chinese translation underway), and because its servers are outside China. If you’ve known the Chinese Internet for any period of time, it’s strikingly similar to a massive intranet.

Facebook has a few of David’s friends. Mostly, they’re probably overseas Chinese or Chinese bloggers who’ve “made it” to the “big, outside World”. Not every Chinese blogger is there, but the “bigs” are almost guaranteed there.

• Twitter: “Internationalized” folks and the well-known (mostly).

Microblogging hasn’t taken off big-time in China (you’ll see that as we move on). Those tweeting along aren’t in China — yours truly is the obvious exception. Producing just under 500 tweets a week, David must be one of the more prolific tweeters around China — or in the Twittersphere (a guess only, though!).

Oddly eough, local services such as Jiwai.de or Fanfou are still pretty much “in the dark”. Few people I’ve spoken to are on those services — except for those I’ve met at Tweetups.

• LinkedIn: Expats only?

LinkedIn is very much “foreign language” in the Chinese Internet sphere, according to yours truly. He knows like about one or two mainland users on LinkedIn. And that’s about all.

Why? Language factor, servers outside nation, plus the “complexity” and “pro-ity” of the service are big bets here. Also, a lack of users from China — especially mainland users — make LinkedIn all that “new” and “strange” to locals.

I’ve also met very few mainlanders who use other services considered “pro-ish” such as Xing and Dopplr. It’s an odd, pro world here. Very few “compatriots”. All “expats”. Hmm…

• MSN (Windows Live Messenger): A lot.

On to more familiar territory, though: a lot of people use MSN (Windows Live Messenger). People who use MSN, though, are more likely to be people working at “white-collar enterprises”, be they at HP, Apple, or state-owned enterprises.

MSN is big. I’ve pretty much the bulk of my “recent contacts” on MSN. In fact, MSN is such a big part of Web life and real life (indeed!) that the China Merchants Bank released an MSN-themed credit card a few years ago.

• QQ: Just about everyone.

Finally, we move on to the very mundane. QQ is common currency in the Chinese Internet. Just about everyone I’ve met uses QQ, which finally also has an official Mac version.

QQ is big. QQ is like a Web republic in its own right. It uses QQ currency, gives you a QQ second life, and has a news center. QQ is “it” for a lot of people. It’s got everything they want.

QQ is probably less “biz” and more “life” as in MSN is thought more of belonging to office desk, while QQ is probably what romantic couples use at home (or even solo people!).

That’s pretty much a quickie intro based on what I’ve seen on the Chinese Web 2.0 scene. Note the presence of IM as a “1.0″ aspect. China is moving quickly to Web 2.0, but it’s not forgetting its 1.0 roots, either.

Caught this GOOD Magazine feature by Thomas P.M. Barnett via China Law Blog and felt violently compelled to share this with as many people as possible. Sure, it doesn’t cover everything, but it should be a required reading for a basic foundation of non-idiocy for everyone (especially Americans) when it comes to understanding the relevance and importance of China. 

Put down your rifle (no offense, Mr. Heston), pick out another cold one, and get your read on:

10. Because Nixon went to China and your world was born.

9. Because China may be an ancient civilization, but it’s a young society that’s growing up very quickly-and unevenly.

8. Because China’s transformation echoes much of America’s past: not only the good, but plenty of the bad, and the ugly too.

7. Because China’s rapid and deep integration into manufacturing means that Chinese products permeate your life-at some risk.

6. Because China’s demand for resources is altering global markets in ways both profound and perverse.

5. Because the panda “huggers” versus “sluggers” debate is a lot of hot air-until Washington scares Beijing into raising your mortgage interest rate five points overnight.

4. Because as China builds out its infrastructure, it can set a good or a bad example to developing economies struggling to deal with fragile environments.

3. Because China is globalization’s general contractor: always happy to take the job and your money, but hard to get on the phone once you discover problems.

2. Because China will not be our biggest future enemy but our most important ally.

1. Because we’re less than five years from a new generation of Chinese leaders with whom a far stronger relationship may well be built.

I’m particularly amused that the list ends with something that could be construed as a point of hope.  

Kai Pan, frequent CN Reviews commenter and Shanghai entrepreneur, joins CN Reviews with a guest post.  Kai also works in the advertising industry in Shanghai.  In my discussions with Kai, who grew up in California, I’ve learned a lot from his observations about life in China from his point of view as a Chinese-American, expat, and social critic! - Elliott

The 80,000-seat Shanghai Stadium played host to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Promotional Concert Tour last Saturday, replete with (mostly) minor celebrities providing wholesome entertainment to get everyone’s patriotic juices flowing. Hometown Shanghai Olympic athletes, Sun Wen (women’s soccer football) and Le Jingyi (women’s swimming) both made appearances, but commercial darlings Liu Xiang (110 metre hurdles world-record holder) and Yao Ming (really tall Chinese guy on the NBA’s Houston Rockets) were notably absent. Despite the hosts repeatedly emphasizing “80,000 seats” to the cameras, at least 75,000 members of the audience were also absent. 

Personal highlights for the show included watching the audience members that weren’t absent disregard their assigned seats to move front and center, and the excellent music video that accompanied pop-rock band Blue Garden’s performance…until I realized it was just a bunch of Warcraft III cut-scenes with their lyrics overlaid.

Nonetheless and with all sincerity, there were plenty of worthwhile performances and personalities. Nothing quite guilts you into being inspired like appearances by 2007 Special Olympics participants. Plus, my ticket was completely free.

Hell, I would’ve even paid the 5 RMB the ticket scalpers were asking for outside.

More:
- Sohu.com coverage here (video, Chinese).
- QQ.com coverage here (text, Chinese, distracting scantily-clad ladies in sidebar).

We had an internal contest on “Planning Your Chinese New Year” in Kango before Chinese New Year - we want to share with the US team that how Chinese people celebrate this annual holiday. One of my colleague Xu from Hubei said he was going to visit a Temple Fair (庙会，miàohuì) and I was very exciting about it since I’ve never been to a temple fair so asked for some images. Here are some great ones Xu shared with me.

Can you tell how many red lantern in this super lantern?

Another challenge of counting how many lantern are hanging on the tree!

年年有余（鱼）: Have fish （saving）evey year!

Hope to give you a sense of what the people like in China in a temple fair.

I don’t have an idea about of what’s the yellow stuff? Xu, can you tell us?

Temple fair is a traditional CNY event with long history. Today, it is a market fair that people can see Chinese New year decoration, buy stuff, eat local snacks and also see traditional folk performance. It is also an opportunity to feel the happiness of Chinese New Year from the crowds. Meg went to a temple fair in Beijing this Chinese New Year, check out her Baiyunguan Temple Fair trip.