China welcomes the Year of the Rabbit

Wed, 02 Feb 2011

Beijing - China's 1.3 billion people ushered in the traditional lunar Year of the Rabbit with feasting and fireworks Wednesday after hundreds of millions headed home for the annual Spring Festival.

Streets and shopping centers in the capital Beijing were deserted early Wednesday evening as most people began celebrating at home by drinking and eating with friends amid an increasing frequency of firework explosions.

Hundreds of thousands of Beijing residents were expected to take to the streets around midnight to witness the crescendo of whistles, rattles, booms, whizzes and pops from the millions of fireworks that turn Beijing and other Chinese cities into aural war zones each new year.

State media said Beijing police would close dozens of roads to reduce the chances of traffic accidents caused by fireworks, which have grown increasingly powerful in recent years.

Firefighters were on standby for expected accidents and were monitoring 560 government-supervised stands that marketed about 910,000 boxes of fireworks in Beijing, about 14 per cent more than last year, reports said.

Transportation authorities forecast a record number of some 2.5 billion journeys by road, rail, air and ship in the 40-day peak period including the Spring Festival holiday week.

"Sound economic growth is the reason for the increase. Higher incomes and better transport facilities make it easier for people to travel," Xu Guangjian, a professor at People's University in Beijing, told the China Daily newspaper.

Many of the travelers are migrant workers who return home to spend the holiday with their families, while Spring Festival vacations are growing in popularity for affluent urban families.

The government forecast that about 640 million people would try to return to their hometowns for the holiday.

Fog stranded thousands of passengers at the main airport in the south-western city of Chengdu early Wednesday, after a dozen flights were canceled or diverted and 100 others were delayed several hours.

Premier Wen Jiabao issued a new year message before the holiday, saying that the nation's leaders "always have the people's well-being at heart."

"Everything we do, we do for the welfare of the people," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as saying earlier this week.

"We have the confidence and the ability to overcome any difficulties and challenges in handling China's affairs so that the people can live and work in peace and contentment, be free from anxiety, and live with greater happiness and dignity," Wen said.

The rabbit is the fourth of the 12 Chinese animal zodiac signs that operate in a 12-year cycle, and is said to represent longevity, wisdom, calmness and compassion.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/365468,china-welcomes-year-rabbit.html.