This time of year Singapore (and a lot of Asia) is alight with festivities, as people get ready to welcome in the New Year - the year of the pig. Last year we were here for CNY, and had seen the heart of Chinatown clogged with people on New Year's Eve, so this year we went and had a look a week early.
You can see from the picture on the left that it was still packed with people doing some last minute shopping, much like we would do for Christmas. Visiting relatives is an important part of Chinese New Year, and people buy snacks that they can offer to people when they receive visitors. Much of the preparations are very similar to what we do for Christmas, with everyone dashing out at the last minute to stock up, and shops shutting on Chinese New Year's day itself, and the day after.
Some of the most interesting stores are the dried meat stores, that have all kinds of Chinese sausages, chicken, and other meats hanging up to be eaten during the holidays. Peanuts, sweets, barbequed pork, and other such things are crammed into shopping bags, ready to be distributed to guests. Apart from food and snacks, people buy decorations to hang around the house, fake firecrackers (real ones are banned), and generally come to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere.
Something else that people do is stock up on flowers at home, and we went down to the garden centre on Sunday night to do some stocking up ourselves. Unfortunately, so had everyone else. Here’s me with a tree - related to the kumquat tree, I think. These type of trees are very common at Chinese New Year, and businesses put them up in the lobbies and so on. The oranges signify luck, which we can all use from time to time! One thing that was pretty cool (forgive the pun) was a cold room that had roses and other flowers (lilies, tulips, eustomas, gladiolia, etc) that need a cooler climate. The room itself was a cold enough to give brass monkeys a shock, but the flowers were nice and it was almost like going round a garden centre back home.
You can see from the picture on the left that it was still packed with people doing some last minute shopping, much like we would do for Christmas. Visiting relatives is an important part of Chinese New Year, and people buy snacks that they can offer to people when they receive visitors. Much of the preparations are very similar to what we do for Christmas, with everyone dashing out at the last minute to stock up, and shops shutting on Chinese New Year's day itself, and the day after. 
Some of the most interesting stores are the dried meat stores, that have all kinds of Chinese sausages, chicken, and other meats hanging up to be eaten during the holidays. Peanuts, sweets, barbequed pork, and other such things are crammed into shopping bags, ready to be distributed to guests. Apart from food and snacks, people buy decorations to hang around the house, fake firecrackers (real ones are banned), and generally come to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere. 
Something else that people do is stock up on flowers at home, and we went down to the garden centre on Sunday night to do some stocking up ourselves. Unfortunately, so had everyone else. Here’s me with a tree - related to the kumquat tree, I think. These type of trees are very common at Chinese New Year, and businesses put them up in the lobbies and so on. The oranges signify luck, which we can all use from time to time! One thing that was pretty cool (forgive the pun) was a cold room that had roses and other flowers (lilies, tulips, eustomas, gladiolia, etc) that need a cooler climate. The room itself was a cold enough to give brass monkeys a shock, but the flowers were nice and it was almost like going round a garden centre back home.
No comments:
Post a Comment