Long Yao is a family carnival, and the mountains and seas are bright to welcome the New YearThe afterglow of the Spring Festival holiday is still strong, the flavor of the New Year has not disappeared, and people are still immersed in the joyful atmosphere of the New Year. However, this year's New Year's post-holiday scene is significantly different from the past. Traditionally, "the year of 100 festivals is the first, and the first month is the year", which means that the New Year is not really coming to an end until the Lantern Festival, so even after the statutory holidays, the streets and alleys are still filled with a strong New Year's atmosphere, and many shops on the street often choose to resume business later.
This year, however, broke the mold with five striking "anomalies". After the Spring Festival holiday, these phenomena are in stark contrast to the usual patterns of the past, and how they have changed has become a new topic of attention. Although the article does not enumerate these five phenomena in detail, it is clear that they are enough to portray the unique social landscape of this year's New Year.
Although there has been a general feeling of "money bag tightening" in recent years, especially in 2023, the boom in the tourism market seems to tell a different economic story. During the Spring Festival and the peak of travel during the winter vacation, although everyone knows that the consumption level is rising at this time, the major tourist hotspots are still crowded and lively.
Take my experience of visiting Xi'an with my son during the Spring Festival as an example, the Tang Dynasty city that never sleeps there can be described as shoulder to shoulder and bustling, vividly reproducing the prosperity of the ancient capital. The two food districts of Muslim Street and Yongxingfang are even more crowded, gathering tourists from all over the world and speaking various dialects. In the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum, it is almost impossible to squeeze close to the edge of the pit to see the thousand-year-old miracle without zooming in on the details with the help of a mobile phone lens.
When many friends around returned after the festival to share their travel experience, they all mentioned that everywhere they went was a spectacular scene, as if during this holiday, people have poured out of their nests, choosing travel as a way to release pressure and enjoy life, showing a strong consumption vitality and leisure willingness.
In previous years, the streets are always bustling with activity, with a variety of gift boxes and beautifully packaged fruits becoming popular choices. From the second day of the Lunar New Year, vendors set up stalls selling all kinds of tempting drinks and festive gifts to passers-by. However, this year's Chinese New Year is a little different, as the street vendors seem to have disappeared, and the busy sales scenes of previous years are gone.
During this year's Chinese New Year, there seem to have been some subtle changes in the custom of visiting relatives and friends. People seem to be more inclined to go to the homes of their elders empty-handed, and only close friends and relatives visit in person. Even with friends in general, many people no longer send New Year's greetings, as if they feel that such a form has lost its meaning.
Perhaps this is because it has become widely accepted that carrying a few cartons of milk or fruit around during the Chinese New Year is no longer a necessary ritual. In today's material abundance, these traditional gifts are no longer scarce, and being able to visit relatives and friends in person seems to have become a way to complete the tasks of the Spring Festival.
Even when I go to work after the new year, the unit is no longer full of souvenirs brought back by colleagues from all over the world as in previous years. Colleagues seem to have little enthusiasm to share these delicacies, which makes one wonder if this represents a kind of social progress, or is we gradually losing the value and inheritance of traditional culture?
Years ago, the green leafy vegetable market experienced a round of climbing, and it was originally expected that with the end of the New Year's holiday, the ** of this type of vegetables will decline. However, unexpectedly, not only did not see **, but a new round of ** trend appeared after the year.
Under current market conditions, varieties of vegetables such as cabbage, radishes and potatoes that are easy to store in the winter** are relatively stable. However, seasonal leafy greens such as lettuce, shallots and spinach are selling at high prices, in sharp contrast to pork and fish products, which remain stable and do not sell well.
The occurrence of this phenomenon may be related to the continuous low temperature weather after the year, which caused the yield of green leafy vegetables to be affected. In addition, during the Spring Festival, people's diet is generally greasy, and they have sought green leafy vegetables to clear the intestines and relieve greasy after the New Year, and the market demand has increased; At the same time, the loss of green leafy vegetables in the process of picking, transportation and storage is large, which further pushes up its market**.
In previous years, after the Spring Festival holiday, the service industry often faced the dilemma of employment shortage, because many non-local employees chose to change jobs or stay in their hometowns instead of going out to work. This year, however, this phenomenon does not seem to be happening. Many employees have said that even during the Chinese New Year, they are willing to stick to their posts and no longer rush back to their hometowns as in previous years. Behind this, in addition to the generous benefits provided by the unit, the employees themselves also realized that there was little point in going home for the New Year.
For example, in a restaurant I frequent, the chef has chosen to stay at work for the Chinese New Year for two years in a row. According to him, the cost of a trip home is equivalent to months of hard work wasted. Therefore, after weighing the pros and cons, he decided not to go home for the New Year. He even reached an agreement with his parents that he planned to return to his hometown after the Chinese New Year, which would save a lot of money and avoid the tedious activities of visiting relatives and friends during the Spring Festival.
At the end of each year, the sales of new clothes and shoes will usher in a climax, because wearing new clothes has become a deeply rooted tradition for the Chinese New Year. In the past, when people returned to work after the new year, people changed into new clothes, and if someone was still wearing the old clothes from the previous year, it was inevitable to feel a little embarrassed and out of place.
However, after the Spring Festival holiday this year, there is a different scene: it is rare to see people around them wearing new clothes, most of them still follow the style of dressing from the previous year, or even just buy a set of red underwear to show the joy of the New Year, as for the outer clothes, they have not considered upgrading.
Many people around me have expressed a new perception of consumption about this phenomenon: they think that buying new clothes during the Chinese New Year is not economical. The reason for this is that the temperature is still low during the first month, so the winter clothes you buy can only be worn for a short period of about a month, and then you have to put them on the shelf and wait for the next winter. In view of this, the winter clothes you buy may become outdated due to a year of shelf, so it is better not to buy them for now. This may be seen as a major manifestation of the evolution of consumer attitudes.
Just after the Spring Festival holiday, the taste of the year has not dissipated, this year's five "abnormal" phenomena are indeed very different from previous years, I don't know if you have found it?