Chris cheung Walton @ LocalHood Website Content Volunteer Team
- Jan 24, 2022

A personal recount of my Chinese New Year shopping adventure

Chinese New Year is also called Spring Festival or the Lunar New Year. It is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar, it's also said to honor the coming of spring when crops start to be planted.

Chinese new year is one of the most important festivals in the Chinese culture. The whole festival covers in total 16 days, starting from Chinese new year eve and ending on the 15th day of Chinese new year ( lantern festival).

Chinese new year this year starts on Feb 1st. According to the Chinese zodiac, 2022 is the Year of the Tiger. Those born in the Year of the Tiger are said to be brave, competitive, unpredictable and confident.

Chinese people believe in different years of animals, they will need to shop for different objects for luck or to clear "the evil". Those objects can be as small as a key ring or as big as a Christmas tree. People running the Chinese new year shops normally give u good suggestions of what to buy depending on your zodiac. Generally, people also go for new clothes, gifts for relatives, foods, snacks, spring couplets, lanterns or decorations to put in the house...

If you are not yet ready with your CNY shopping, don't waste a second! Let the commercial sale festival start😁😁.

As a HK Islander, I was so looking forward to the Victoria park Chinese new year fair in late Jan, but unfortunately, I just received the bad news about it being canceled! Thank god, for a young Chinese mother wanting to get going with her CNY shopping, there are still markets on HK island where you can purchase Chinese new year goodies.

Here are some of the popular markets:

1.Li Yuen street east/west in central

2,Tai Yuen Street in Wan chai

3, Jardine's Crescent in causeway bay

4,Chun Yeung street in North point.

Today, I'll be taking you to explore Tai Yuen street in Wan Chai! At the arrival of Tai Yuen street, I know I can stay here forever, everything I can think of and things I don't have in my mind are all here: clothes, decorations, cushions, plants, food…

While I'm fascinated with traditional Chinese clothes, my daughter is trying to drag me to the snacks....

I don't know where to look in front of hundreds of these Chinese new year snacks, full of red and gold colour!! In Chinese culture, these colours represent fortune. As u can see the chocolates come in different shapes and some of them are designed as a shape of tael, both are to represent the luck of money.

They also sell some traditional Chinese new year snacks such as smiley balls(represent happiness),sugared winter melons, water lily roots, water lily seeds, carrots(represent sweetness),and fried dumplings (represent good money).

My husband was born in the year of the tiger and I'm told that the color of gold is good for him, Let me get some gold coin chocolates!

Someone looks content eating different shapes of coin chocolates 😁!! So now, she is happy going

back to the clothes shops and doing some try outs for her new outfit 😊.

I can't keep my eyes off these fusion styles of Chinese traditional dress. This shop has a good collection. I know I'm gonna spend a fortune. The shop owner told me rose red is one of the lucky colors for my girl (year of the monkey) this year.

Huge collections for new year decorations I feel. Is it because, thanks to Corona, we will be spending CNY mostly at home I wonder? Whatever the reason, the decorations are so lovely that I want to bring the whole market to our house.

I love the designs of the lions, they look so fancy and sharp! As it is the year of the tiger, we are surely going to buy some tiger hanging decorations.

I know lots of people are so disappointed that the Victoria park fair is closed and it's a bit too inconvenient to go all the way to Mong Kok market for the plants for Chinese new year. Here in Tai Yuen street market, there are a few choices…I'm struggling a bit to decide if I should bring the red flower plant home as I’m told the color red and the shape of flower are both lucky for me (year of the rat) in the year of the tiger!