In the land of red lanterns

Expat Siva Sankar shares diary excerpts of spending his first Spring Festival in China.

Since arriving from motherland India in September 2015, I have been working and living in Beijing. On Feb 6, a couple of days before the onset of the Year of the Monkey, I embark on a four-day trip to Shanghai, and a chance to see how life turns vibrant in China around the Lunar New Year's Day.

Festivities begin

Beijing South Railway Station, a gleaming glass-metal-concrete melange, is a sea of humanity and an ocean of trolley suitcases and backpacks. The packed escalators, moving thousands of passengers up or down multiple levels, are a microcosm of the world's largest annual human migration.

The express train starts right on time at 9 am. It is full, passengers of all ages everywhere. No big suitcases in sight. Chinese love to travel light for New Year, I infer.

The beautiful crew in attractive uniforms springs a pleasant surprise: "New Year's Eve on Wheels" as it were, one day in advance. Festive paraphernalia like red banners with white Chinese characters, colorful posters, lanterns and monkey dolls brighten the pantry car. The crew mingle freely with everyone, pose for photographs, distribute souvenirs to kids.

I am amazed by the smooth train ride at 302 kilometers per hour - steady and almost silent. Except where babies are present, there are no sounds. The Chinese are quiet for the long journey - not for them loud, animated conversations.

Instead, it is headphones plugged into smartphones that play movies, downloaded TV shows or card games. They are interested neither in the goings-on outside the train nor in magazines in seat pouches in front of them. Some grab a nap.

Shanghai fades in by 1:30 pm. Some 1,320 km, done in 4.5 hours, with just one stop, Nanjing.

Shanghai subway stations are packed, people traveling in all directions, arriving and departing, dragging their trolley suitcases along. After checking into the hotel, I hit the shopping streets connecting Nanjing East subway station to the Bund.

The tastefully decorated boulevards wear a festive look. Again, people are everywhere, visitors presumably outnumbering Shanghainese, going by the "wow" expressions on faces and the propensity to take selfies against the background of brightly lit shopping arcades.

Around 7 pm, the Bund along the Huangpu River begins to fill up with revelers even as the weather turns freezing cold. Amid the enveloping darkness of the evening and shrieks of children, everyone wants to line up along the Bund's wall and take pictures. The backdrop is picturesque: towers clothed in dynamic, patterned, dazzling lighting, and the Huangpu shimmering with multicolored, wavy reflected light.

New Year's Eve

Bright, sunny, even warm morning. Streets leading to Tianzifang, Shanghai's art-and-crafts enclave in the former French Concession area, wear a deserted look. No buyers in sight at garment stores and eye-catching bouquet shops on bicycles and tricycles at intersections.

Tianzifang is bustling with visitors, a mix of foreigners and Chinese. They devour a variety of beancurd cups. Art and crafts don't seem to set cash registers ringing.

At Xintiandi, another tourist attraction nearby and the site of the first congress of the Communist Party of China, foreigners, mostly Westerners, abound.

Yuyuan Gardens must be the favorite haunt of local residents on Chinese New Year's Eve. It's a riot of colors: Red and yellow lanterns and Chinese flags hang from every conceivable nook and hook. Giant-sized, brightly painted cutouts of characters from Chinese mythology adorn building facades.

Eateries are full of wide-ranging fresh food and hungry eaters. But a store selling exquisite, handmade and expensive crystalware like Buddha figurines has no takers, despite the shopkeeper's seemingly irresistible New Year discounts.

The colorful floats and tableaux depicting various scenes of Chinese mythology draw in huge crowds and inspire a million mobile-cam shots. Some women's fancy floral headwear appears equally multi-hued, while kids seem to love sporting long, pointy antennae-like sticks on their heads.

Back at the hotel, with the 2015-16 Year of the Goat about to pass into the ages, the young Chinese receptionists are busy watching CCTV's live New Year entertainment show. I learn Shanghai police have banned the use of fireworks this year.

New Year's Day

Destination: nearby Suzhou, "Venice of the East". I am stunned to see thousands of Chinese visitors in Tiger Hill, the key tourist attraction, a hilly terrain with a granite-and-brick ancient tower on the hilltop. Appears people prefer some outdoor fun after the New Year's Eve family banquet the previous evening.

I chance upon a pavement performer dressed in a golden monkey costume, complete with a monkey mask. His monkey-like antics delight kids and adults alike.

Red-and-yellow arches, with drawings of monkey cartoons, greet visitors on the red lantern-lined pathways, with "Happy New Year" signs in Chinese and English. Kids and grandparents seem to love the place.

In the Buddhist temple atop the hill, visitors offer prayers, bow in front of three giant golden deities, take pictures, slap the huge metal bell outside that hums dull, muted sounds, and hit the drum with a wooden hammer. A wayside solo harp performance by a female musician dressed like a Santa minus the stocking cap, captivates many.

The tall tower at the center becomes the key backdrop for many family pictures. The vanilla ice-cream cones sell like hot cakes.

At nearby Lingering Gardens, "one of China's four most famous gardens", visitors appear mesmerized by the ponds, the tea house, rock gardens, antique furniture, bonsai, jade and porcelain on display. The budding cherry blossoms on the backyard tree fascinate many who take close-up shots with their mobile-cams or top-end Canons and Nikons.

Shantangjie is a beehive of evening activity as locals and tourists mingle in narrow, decorated lanes on either side of the main road along the boat-rich canal. The shops in the old-fashioned buildings, with intricately carved wooden balconies, glow in their golden illuminations.

Wayside fast food, especially fried crisps, steamed rice cakes and caramelized fruit salad on sticks, feeds many. I notice young dads carrying their little children on their shoulders so the latter could enjoy the sight of the crowded, colorful, balloon- and lantern-filled bazaar from a height.

The Lunar New Year's Day, I sense, is all about going out to meet friends and extended family, exchanging red envelopes containing cash as gifts, bonding and cementing ties.

Day after

The China Art Museum in Shanghai is teeming with visitors before the gates open at 10 am. Entry is free, and serpentine queues form. Takes half-hour to finally enter the humongous building with red beams and pillars.

The grotesque female nude sculptures on the periphery are imaged a lot, with many women posing in front of them and their husbands or boyfriends happily clicking away. But not many visitors really savor the art piece by piece.

Inside, the Indian art gallery on the theme of devotion fascinates many Chinese, especially the wall-mounted sculpture of the flying Hanuman, the monkey-superman of the Hindu pantheon. Maybe because of his resemblance to China's Monkey King.

Back at Nanjing East Road, the shopping areas are chock-a-block with people as families, couples, singles and friends soak in the busy, festive atmosphere, glad to lose themselves in what looks like a happy exodus.

On Shanghai's subway trains, bonny babies dressed in New Year regalia of red or yellow silk suits appear heart-meltingly adorable. Chinese moms love to deck up their dolls for the New Year, don't they?

Contact the writer at siva@chinadaily.com.cn