Tag: Lunar New Year

Snow and Rain Disrupt China’s Lunar New Year Travel Rush

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Snow and freezing rain in China were disrupting travel on Monday and had already caused hundreds of rail and flight cancellations, as millions of people traveled across the country before lunar new year holiday begins this weekend. For many years, heavy travel within and into China ahead of the holiday, known as Spring Festival in Chinese, produced the world’s largest annual migration. During the coronavirus pandemic, fear of lockdowns, quarantines and other rules deterred many from traveling. Last year, the authorities abruptly lifted those rules weeks before lunar new year…

Apple Will Discount iPhones by $70 in China Starting Thursday

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Ever bought a discounted new phone from Apple? For most people, the answer is no. That’s because Apple doesn’t really do discounts. But in China, Apple is slashing the price of some of its latest iPhones by $70 amid worries that Chinese consumers have cooled on the brand. That would save a buyer about 6 to 8 percent, based on prices on Apple’s China website. It has also knocked $112 off the price of some MacBook Air laptops. The sale will start on Thursday and run through Sunday. Cutting prices…

In China, It’s Time to Splurge Again, and the Luxury Industry Is Relieved

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This time last year, Shanghai — China’s capital of fashion and luxury — was in the throes of a ruthlessly enforced Covid lockdown. The city’s glittering high-end malls and avenues lined with flagship stores stood practically empty. Today it is a different story. Huge crowds on a recent weekend flocked to top retail destinations on or near Nanjing Road, the hub of glamour in China ever since the country’s first large department stores began to open there in 1917. “I splurge more extravagantly,” Sunny Zhang, 24, said as she waited…

Flowers, Fresh Fish and Movies: China Is Spending Again, Cautiously

Chin@Strategy

In downtown Nanjing, China, a fishmonger sold a lot more ribbon fish than usual for Lunar New Year family gatherings two weeks ago. A florist in a run-down shopping mall on the south side of the city sold more roses. But a lamp vendor a few steps away in the mall has seen no recovery in sales. And at an Infiniti car dealership on Nanjing’s edge, customer visits have jumped 20 or 30 percent, but have not yet translated into extra car sales. “The economic impact of the epidemic lingers…

China’s Covid Tsunami Recedes, Bringing Relief, Grief and Anxiety

Chin@Strategy

When China abruptly abandoned “zero Covid,” accelerating an onslaught of infections and deaths, many feared a prolonged tide rippling from cities into villages. Now, two months later, the worst seems to have passed, and the government is eager to shift attention to economic recovery. Doctors who were mobilized across China to treat a rush of Covid patients say in phone interviews that the number of patients they are now seeing has fallen. Towns and villages that had hunkered down under the surge of infections and funerals are stirring to life.…

Polar Vortex Drives a Cold Snap in Asia

Chin@Strategy

Mohe, China’s northernmost city, recorded a temperature of minus 63.4 degrees Fahrenheit this week. That was the coldest in its recorded history, and cold enough to cause hypothermia within minutes in anyone who wasn’t dressed properly. “It has never been this cold,” Zhang Hong, 53, who runs a pancake shop in Mohe and has lived in the city for 30 years, said by phone on Friday. “It was so frosty outside,” she added. “The wind was so brisk that it felt as though it was shaving your nose and face.”…

Your Tuesday Briefing: California Mourns, as Death Toll Rises

Chin@Strategy

The death toll rises in a mass shooting Another victim of the recent mass shooting in a thriving Chinese American suburb of Los Angeles died at a hospital yesterday, bringing the death toll to 11. Investigators continued to seek the gunman’s motive in the attack, which took place during a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park. Here are updates. The victims of the massacre were in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Officials have identified two victims, My Nhan and Lilan Li, and details about the others are still emerging.…

Lunar new year brings China out from under pall of Covid

Chin@Strategy

People across China have rung in the lunar new year with family gatherings and crowds visiting temples after the government lifted its strict zero-Covid policy, marking the biggest festive celebration since the pandemic began three years ago. The lunar new year is the most important annual holiday in China. Each year is named after one of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac in a repeating cycle, with this year being the year of the rabbit. For the past three years celebrations were muted in the shadow of the pandemic.…

China Celebrates Lunar New Year After ‘Zero Covid’ With Caution

Chin@Strategy

Sheng Chun had not visited his parents in their mountain village in southern China for more than three years because China’s “zero Covid” restrictions made travel difficult. Then the country abandoned its stringent pandemic rules, and he decided to take a long-anticipated road trip. With his son and wife, Mr. Sheng, 43, embarked on a two-week journey from Beijing that would cover more than 1,000 miles, through cultural spots like a Ming dynasty village and temples, then finally home for the Lunar New Year. He hoped to later drive his…