Stay-put Spring Festival
Print Edition
Usually, the weeklong Spring Festival holiday leaves Shanghai empty as millions of people travel abroad or reunite with their out-of-town families. This year, the city was surprisingly busy as many opted to stay put because of COVID-19 concerns — but that’s not to say the staycationers didn’t enjoy the festivities in Shanghai.
In downtown Jing’an, festive decorations were hung in the streets, shopping malls and tourist attractions.
Tables for nianyefan (Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner), the most important family banquet of the year, were fully booked very early so restaurants offered semi-prepared food packages for people to cook at home.
The venerable Meilongzhen Restaurant on Nanjing Road W. offered semi-prepared food packages for the first time.
The 11 packages included the restaurant’s recommended pork, beef and shrimp. Xinzhenjiang Restaurant, just 30 meters away from its rival, enjoyed twice the sales than it did last year thanks to semi-prepared and take-out food.
Stay-in-the-city residents flocked to parks to enjoy the early spring blossoms.
Magnolia trees in Zhabei Park have bloomed earlier than the seasonal norm.
Some kanhi-zakura cherry blossoms, a known early bloomer, flowered at Daning Park before a sea of tulip blossoms, while Jing’an Sculpture Park is filled with plum blossoms
Staycationing consumers spent 230 million yuan (US$35.63 million), a 150 percent year-on-year rise, in 23 major shopping sites in Jing’an over the weeklong holiday.
Daning Music Plaza saw a rise of 746 percent, Sincere Plaza, 631 percent and Imix Park of 378 percent.
Local subdistricts, labor unions and social organizations sent staycation migrant workers holiday gifts to thank them for their contributions.
Jing’ansi Subdistrict, Jing’an-based Elite Union and local companies sent 8,000 gift packages, such as food, scarves and coupons, to migrant workers, including deliverymen, street cleaners and construction workers.
Song, a driver from an online ride-hailing company, has been working in Shanghai for three years.
“My love for this open and inclusive city grows every day. Here, I can see bright prospects,” he said.
Jing’an Party Building Service Center organized an event for migrant workers, with a variety of traditional holiday activities on offer, such as couplets writing and paper cutting.
Local sanitation worker Jiang Yuqing said, “Though I failed to reunite with my family, I felt like I was at home here. I had fun and I really enjoyed it.”
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