Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine February 2015 | Page 94

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Travel | Shanghai

First built in 242 AD, the
Longhua Temple is one of the
oldest and most authentic
temple complexes in Shanghai.
During Chinese New Year it is
filled with countless worshippers
and dense incense smoke.

The fun and celebrations last no mere
evening but continue for 15 days over
a period known as the Spring Festival,
during which families get together for
enormous banquets, lions and dragons
dance in the streets, and firework displays
light up the night sky. The last day of
celebrations, the Lantern Festival, is a good
excuse for a final round of partying under
the glow of lucky red lanterns.
There’s good reason to head to Shanghai
for the Spring Festival and New Year’s Eve
(February 18), which ushers in the Year of
the Goat. The city knows how to celebrate,
and does so with energy. Neighbourhood
temples are jammed, neon lights wink to
entice shoppers into spending money on
New Year goodies, and fireworks explode.
In curious contrast though, Shanghai can be
relatively peaceful at this time of year too.
Construction work often ceases, and there
are fewer people on the streets as migrant
workers return to their home towns for

family celebrations. As crowds and traffic
thin, it’s a great time to explore the city.
Chinese New Year is about hope, happiness
and renewal, and its most important focus
is the family. Much of the festivity takes
place out of sight in family homes, which are
decorated for the occasion with tangerines,
symbolic of enduring friendship. But you
might see ‘trays of togetherness’ containing
tangerines, lychees (harmony) and candied
melon (good health) gracing restaurants
and your hotel lobby.
The city also turns red for the month: red
has long been considered a lucky colour in
Chinese societies, representing good luck
and happiness. It’s for this reason that the
Chinese get married in red, and keep carp
and goldfish as pets. Over the Spring Festival,
the thresholds of Shanghai’s houses and
apartments are hung with strips of red paper
on which prayers or poems celebrating
spring are written. The giant red Chinese
characters for ‘spring’ and ‘luck’ proliferate.

© Peter Adams / Getty Images; © Holger Leue / Getty Images; © Simon A - Flickr.jpg

While virtually all societies
around the world celebrate
some form of new year,
surely none do so more
heartily than the Chinese.