| |
 |
Dinning at New Year's Eve
|
Song Yingwen
TRADITIONALLY the dinner on Chinese New Year's Eve, or the night before the Spring Festival, is considered a special family time. However in recent years, it has become increasingly fashionable to dine out on that important occasion.
The private rooms of countless local restaurants, from five-star establishments to greasy spoon kitchens, are booked solid, and some of them, like the Oriental Regent Hotel and the Hai Shang Huang Restaurant, are only able to offer tables in hallways after 8 pm on Spring Festival Eve.
Restaurants of all cuisine styles have all joined the trend, catering to people seeking an unusual dinner. Zui Weng Ting, an Anhui cuisine restaurant, reports its reservation book was full a week before the Spring Festival. Some restaurants are even demanding a down payment for reservations.
Such a restaurant rush would have been inconceivable just 10 years ago. Back then, most of the city's migrants chose to go home to join their family for the Spring Festival, leaving the otherwise energetic city silent and empty. Some locals say most of the families at that time chose to buy more practical consumer products, such as TV sets and refrigerators, as rewards to a year's hard work. It didn't occur to anyone to have a grand dinner at a fancy restaurant for New Year's Eve. But the people in charge of local restaurants are not surprised at all.
"More and more people prefer to celebrate the Spring Festival in Shenzhen for its friendly climate and favourable living conditions. Instead of returning home, they invite their friends and families to come and visit. That's given us an excellent opportunity," Mr Wu, manager of the Banxi Hotel, told Shenzhen Daily.
Apparently undeterred by the expense of dining out, growing numbers of locals are heading to restaurants to celebrete the most important festival of the year. "One or two thousand yuan is not much considering all the time and effort a New Year's Eve dinner might cost. It's only once a year after all," said Sun Chen, an IT manager who has chosen to dine out this year.
|
|
|
|
