It is a common convention that almost every festival begins with a grand shopping. To celebrate Christmas, you would buy Christmas trees, foods, and presents for your family. What do Guangzhou’s residents buy before the Spring Festival? This article will give you a glimpse of their must-buy goods!

Foods

You won’t miss sausages, pan-fried turnip cake, sweet fried egg twists, fried glutinous rice ball, and sweet fried dumplings on the New Year’s table of a Lao Guang!

A woman is selecting sausages.

Turnip cake.

Sweet fried egg twists.

Panda and fried glutinous rice ball.

Sweet fried dumplings.

Flowers

Also known as ‘the Flower City’, Guangzhou boasts a long history of planting and appreciating flowers among its people. When Spring Festival is approaching, people in Guangzhou will gather family members and head for the flower market to buy bunches of flowers and tangerine trees to decorate their homes.

Tangerine trees

In Cantonese, 桔(tangerine) and 吉（Auspiciousness）are homophonous. People buy tangerine trees in hope of good luck in the new year.

Spring Festival couplets

Ahead of Spring Festival or at the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, people will paste red colored decorations on the door to add festive atmosphere and wish for good health, luck, and fortune. Spring Festival couplets consist of the two strolls hanging on the left and right side of the door, and a shorter horizontal scroll, with a Chinese character ‘Fu’ (blessing) in the middle of the door.

The left and right scroll of the Spring Festival couplets.

The horizontal scroll.

Chinese character ‘Fu'.

Red packets

Parents and relatives will give children ‘New Year’s money’wrapped in red packets to protect them from the monster ‘Nian’.

Author: Hannah, Zero (Intern)

Editor: Steven