Post 130 — Traditional Chinese new year is changing — and the UK needs to catch up

130-Luxury-9–43147

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With a rise in Chinese people travelling abroad in the festive season, shopping is proving more popular than lion dances

Chinese new year begins today and this weekend London, like cities across the west, will be hosting a series of colourful events in and around Chinatown, a veritable carnival of “lively parades, martial arts displays and immersive family experiences” to welcome the year of the dog.

But while Londoners enjoy immersing themselves in lion dances or playing dress-up in traditional Han costumes, Chinese tourists hitting the capital are indulging in a different kind of new year tradition: shopping on Oxford Street.

The West End of London is expecting a flurry of visitors over the next fortnight as China’s national holiday starts. Some forecasts based on flight bookings suggest visitor numbers may even double.

For well-to-do urbanites, travelling beyond Asia has become a key aspiration. So it pays — literally — to be hospitable to the Chinese, if only as a thank you for spending on average three times as much as tourists from other countries.

But the celebrations featuring dancing lions that many Brits grew up seeing, and the cries of “kung hei fat choy”, will fail to resonate with many Chinese onlookers. As someone who spent her childhood in Beijing and the last four spring festivals in China, I don’t recall ever seeing a lion dance outside the UK. Nor do I understand “kung hei fat choy”, a Cantonese phrase that I’m told means happy new year.

Partly, it’s just that in a competition between their own traditions and a Burberry trench coat, the latter increasingly wins out. And partly it’s that the traditions tourists see when they get here don’t have an awful lot to do with them.

The dancing lions at the parade this weekend are a southern Chinese tradition, made iconic by the Cantonese diaspora that, until a decade ago, was the dominant Chinese presence in the UK. But the students and tourists of today are primarily from non-Cantonese speaking regions — “mainlanders” whose first language is Mandarin. In the central and northern provinces of China, you are more likely to see a child in plaits and a red outfit dancing than a dragon or lion propped up by grown men.

In any case, visitors hitting the shops this weekend might not be the strictest adherents to tradition, given that it’s considered somewhat sacrilegious to spend the start of the new year away from elders. But for the younger generation of urban Chinese who can’t wait to get away quick enough, such formalities may be worth dispensing with to avoid the outbound rush.

“I’m at the airport transferring to Madrid,” a 24-year-old family friend replied when I asked what she was up to a few days ago on WeChat (the superior alternative to WhatsApp). She and her mother are travelling, as they have done for the last two new years. It’s already become a bit of a tradition, she tells me.

Thankfully, not every Chinese traveller is neglecting their filial duties — the peak travel period remains the days after New Year’s Day, once family commitments are out of the way. And domestic and international travel is soaring. One article from the People’s Daily called the need for people to travel during the spring festival “a rigid demand”.

Which is why Bicester Village, a luxury goods outlet in Oxfordshire, is likely to see a surge in shoppers in the coming week. A haven of discounted brands, Bicester’s popularity with the Chinese is partly what makes it the second-most visited attraction in the UK, with 6.2 million visitors, topped only by the British Museum, with 6.24 million.

While the trend for travel is mostly down to increasing wealth, it’s also been attributed to a sense of loss. On social media, users bemoan the lack of “festive atmosphere” in celebrations at home, which makes going away more appealing. Foods that were once considered seasonal delicacies are available all year round; combined with widespread bans on fireworks, it seems the new year has lost some of its sheen.

As the trend towards international travel becomes the norm for China’s middle class, Britain will need to shift its perception of Chinese culture just as quickly, especially since other countries are already doing it better. The People’s Daily praised Paris for brewing a rich new year “flavour” with its planned art and heritage performances. London needs to offer more than antiquated traditions and Burberry overcoats, while also learning to wish its visitors “Xīn nián kuài lè”.

While the trend for travel is mostly down to increasing wealth, it’s also been attributed to a sense of loss. On social media, users bemoan the lack of “festive atmosphere” in celebrations at home, which makes going away more appealing. Foods that were once considered seasonal delicacies are available all year round; combined with widespread bans on fireworks, it seems the new year has lost some of its sheen.

As the trend towards international travel becomes the norm for China’s middle class, Britain will need to shift its perception of Chinese culture just as quickly, especially since other countries are already doing it better. The People’s Daily praised Paris for brewing a rich new year “flavour” with its planned art and heritage performances. London needs to offer more than antiquated traditions and Burberry overcoats, while also learning to wish its visitors “Xīn nián kuài lè”.

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