Monkey business booming as Spring Festival nears
Print Edition
THOUGH the Chinese New Year is still almost a month away, people are already going ape for the Year of the Monkey.
Last week, Tian Meng, 62, stayed up until midnight in order to make an online reservation for a set of commemorative coins issued by the central bank.
“I usually go to sleep early, but I wanted the coins,” said the resident of Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province.
The People’s Bank of China will issue the coins on Saturday, but began taking orders at midnight on Thursday. In just a few hours, all of the available coins had been reserved.
The Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, this year falls on February 8. The monkey is ninth in the 12-animal rotation, following the sheep and preceding the rooster. The others are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, dog and pig.
According to tradition, people born in the Year of the Monkey are smart, lively and playful.
Chinese stores, offices, homes and cars will be decorated with themed trinkets weeks before the new year, offering a boom for businesses.
In Yiwu, east China’s Zhejiang Province, it’s high season at the Festival Commodities Market — the world’s largest for small consumer goods — which is awash with monkey-themed paintings, scrolls with traditional couplets, toys and lucky charms.
The scene is similar in the nearby city of Jinhua, where businesses are busy selling their latest monkey products.
“This year’s major products are lucky paper and couplets on scrolls,” a businesswoman surnamed Lu at the city’s Dongyang Mall.
“Gold ingots with monkey images are also popular,” she said.
Even foreign businesses are cashing in on the fervor, adding primates to imported watches, chocolates and charm bracelets found on taobao.com.
Meanwhile, a trailer for the film “Monkey King 2” starring Hong Kong actor Louis Koo has just been released. The sequel to one of China’s most successful films will open on February 8.
Enthusiasm for monkey products shows people’s excitement for the country’s biggest holiday, which is generally celebrated with family reunions and is a time of happiness, courage and hope, said Wang Kaiyu, a researcher at the Anhui Academy of Social Sciences.
Zhou Hua, a kindergarten teacher from Hefei, has just finished embroidering a monkey for her daughter.
“My daughter was born in the Year of the Monkey, and a I hope she’ll be as happy and lively as one,” she said.
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