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Festival gets modern
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UNLIKE previous Spring Festivals' programmes as traditional family carnivals, watching TV and visiting relatives and friends with heavy gifts, more and more Chinese people choose to treat themselves to more relaxing ways of spending the seven-day Spring Festival holiday this year.
High-tech development and an increase in income have enabled people to spend a tireless Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year.
In Shenzhen, sending greetings via cell phone has been in fashion during the festival. Instead of calling or emailing, young people choose to send their best wishes through cell phone.
People in the northern Inner Mongolian Region has chosen not to visit friends bearing gifts of fruit or holiday cakes on this special occasion. Instead, they sent e-cards through the Internet, expressing their best wishes and greetings to friends far and near.Though still unfamiliar to senior citizens, many of the youth are used to sending flowers, gifts and even cash through high-tech means to people they do not have time to visit.
Local telecommunication department officials said that 40 families went to telecom offices on January 23 for a home Internet service.
Those who do go out to gather with friends and relatives have changed their choice of gifts. Rather than food and drinks, series of books for children on the basics of science and technology and fresh flowers and tonics for the elders have become the first choice of gifts during the period for Tianjiners.
Families without many people to visit spend the day either in the gymnasium or travelling. A number of entertainment centres in Tianjin have been operating longer hours, or have added more facilities such as badminton, table tennis and bowling facilities to meet the influx of crowds.
Besides, about 300,000 Chinese people had gone to Hainan, China's southern province, to spend the holiday, according to the tourism departments in Hainan.
Another 200,000 people spent the holidays in Guilin in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Chen, from northeast China's Shenyang Province, one of the coldest areas in the country, says he and his family like visiting Hainan Province because the winter there is warm. "It is worthwhile to buy sunshine here," said Chen Bo. "Hainan's winter is attractive."
On the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, 92 more air flights arrived or took off from Hainan's Meilan International Airport to satisfy the growing number of travelers.
Improved living conditions and a higher educational level on average have also brought changes to the Spring Festival in rural areas. The rural people in Beijing have been less inclined to gather to play mah-jong or gamble this year. They have been enjoying themselves by dancing folk dances or playing Peking opera.
(Xinhua)
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