Chinese New Year
 

I am starting to plan for next year's Chinese New Year. My friend, my wife and I are all turning 60 next year. While we are not Chinese, since we are all dragons, and next year is the year of the water dragon, which only occurs every 60 years, we thought it would be neat to celebrate together at a Chinese New Year celebration. (and since this is FT, who really needs a reason to travel? :D )

Now, the question is where. I would love to hear suggestions and the reasons behind them, for choosing a place to celebrate. We don't want to travel during the new year's week, since I've heard it's quite the zoo. So, we'd like to pick a city/area and then stay there, explore and celebrate. I'm assuming that we'll be picking a city in China, and am thinking of Hong Kong since the rest of China is frigid that time of year (Jan. 23 next year) but I'm open to suggestions

Thanks in advance,

For what you want, Hong Kong is probably as good a place as any, maybe best choice of all. On the mainland, Chinese New Year celebrations are not as flamboyant and as they are family-centered, not really accessible to the average traveller. And coming from Winnipeg, it would definitely be nice to head for a warmer location. With a week, you have time to visit outlying HK islands and also Macau (though I'd make reservations for that also if you want to stay overnight rather than a daytrip). It would also be possible (assuming Canadian passports) to pop over to certain locations on the mainland on a short-term special entry border pass--if current regulations remain in force for next year. Though I wouldn't do this for the first 3 days after the actual New Year.

Other options might be someplace like Thailand, which has Bangkok with a pretty vibrant and reasonably-sized Chinatown, and enough Thai-Chinese population to have fun and accessible special events going on during this period...and without the hassle of everything shutting down since it's not a national holiday.

I second previous advice. Hong Kong is a great place with pretty spectatuclar fireworks at Chinese New Years. See if you can afford a hotel in Kowloon with a view of Hong Kong to watch the fireworks - the Kowloon promenade (avenue of stars) gets extremly crowded.

Travelling: Well, there are quieter seasons to take a flight. However, I wouldn't advice against flying to some different place. I've travelled (on leisure) a couple of times during the Chinese New Year's week, and except that flights are full (you need to make advance flight reservations) and you want to avoid trains, nothing else (sights etc) is really crowded. Avoid the one or two days right before and after the holiday week starts.

Harbin has a really nice ice festival, but by definition, it's cold.
Shanghai is very wester, but not really a ton of cultural activity to see; not sure about HK either though since it too is a very western chinese city. If you do HK, you should certainly pop over to the mainland. I think train ride is about 60 minutes.

Beijing may be a good option, but it too is cold. Lots more cultural items there.
Otherwise as jiejie said, check out one of the other nations in SE asia - many have a very large chinese community and will have some celebrations though you'll miss the culture of china and the ability to say you've spent the new year there.

Chinese New Year 2012 is 23 Jan. Keeping in mind that almost anywhere will be warmer than The Peg at that time of year ( :p :D ) I would agree that HKG will be a good place to go. You may also want to check out Hainan Island. I don't think the New Year celebrations will be as vibrant as what you'll get on HKG, but maybe sometime after the 23rd you can head over.

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HK is probably more traditional on chinese new year than the mainland. There's hardly any official celebrations on the mainland. of course lining up 5 or 6 km to get into the Lama temple in beijing can be seen as authentic experience...

Hong Kong and Sanya are both not warm enough in jan for days in the sun or swimming in the sea. Certainly warmer than Heilongjiang, though...

While the spectacle of the first night is arguably worth seeing once, on the whole BJ is a pretty unpleasant place during CNY ime... and the same goes for SH, but to a lesser extent. Think lots and lots of fireworks (any average Joe can stock up on any as many class B shells as he can afford --> dangerous) followed by family gatherings which leave the night time streets deserted, interspersed with frenetic periods (maybe 3-4 days out of the entire festival) of intense firecracker activity.

I'm considering heading out to Xinjiang for the upcoming CNY. I went there during a holiday week once before and it wasn't the least bit crowded.

Not much going on in PVG except what moondog said. Most expats I know head outside the country because it's vacation. All non-locals head home and clog the trains/buses/planes, and locals stay here and just hang out with family. PVG is already kind of empty compared to it's normal bustle.

Head to PVG.

Lastly, I find it funny someone from Winnipeg calling China frigid.

Good advise above!

Just remember that Chinese New Year is a lot like our Christmas. On Chinese New Year Day, people tend to spend time with their loved ones, so not much festivities.

Hong Kong is quite a spectacle for CNY. I was there in 2006 and it was pretty fun. Expect a lot of lines everywhere. I think that one of the reasons for the bustle in HK during this time, is that a lot of mainlanders head to HK for the holidays as a vacation. There is always something to do, and the weather is a lot less harsh than places like Shanghai or Beijing.

Sounds like a great trip!

As I predicted, Xinjiang flights and hotels are really cheap this week. If anyone fancies heading out there, pls drop me an email (not pm).

Thanks
 

Thanks to all of you for your great responses. I think that I've decided that Hong Kong is definitely the place to go for CNY. The fact that it'll be 20 C warmer there than in Beijing or Shanghai, coupled with the more spectacular celebrations, seems to make it the superior choice.

I wouldn't say HK's celebrations are more spectacular than BJ's by any means. More appropriate for tourists, perhaps, but I haven't witnessed many things in my life that approach the spectacle of BJ on NYE. I'll try to take some videos from our roof at midnight. (I never made it out of town, so I'm going to try to make the most of my time here.)

Which building are they going to burn down this time? :p

Well, the fun hasn't even started yet and I've already witnessed two real (as in required guys with hoses to end them) fires. One thing that gives me some comfort is that there are fire extinguishers and big time hoses littered about the courtyard downstairs --> fast response times.

Still a half an hour before midnight and I feel we are in a middle of a war zone with the amount of firecrackers and noisemakers going off near my apartment. My building actually shook on a few of there barrages.

If there are a bunch of revelers drinking and having fun, that is one thing. These guys nearby are just into the explosions.