TOP 5 CHINESE NEW YEAR TRIPS

Kung Hei Fat Choy!  That’s Happy New Year – Happy Chinese New Year, of course!  January 23^rd marks the Lunar New Year in 2012, and this is when the majority of the people on the planet  – that’s billions! – rings in the New Year.

China is not alone in celebrating the arrival of the Year of the Dragon.  Here’s my top 5 list of places in the world to celebrate Chinese New Year:

1. CHINA:  I know, Duh!  but if you’ve never been to China, make it a 2012 resolution to get there.  When I was last in China, the joke making the rounds was, “What’s the national bird of China?”  “The crane.”  It’s the clever play on words locals use to answer traveLlers’ awed comments about the jungle of building cranes atop buildings the Jetsons would feel at home in.  Shanghai, for example, had not one skyscraper 50 years ago, and now has double the number of New York City!  The frenzied development and stunning architecture of the new China look even more futuristic beside the rickshaws still plying courtyard neighbourhoods and the regal grace of orchestrated communal tai chi on Shanghai’s Bundt riverside park.

2. HONG KONG:  In another blog, I shared my favourite ways to celebrate Chinese New Year in Hong Kong. But maybe I didn’t mention why I love Hong Kong so much.  The energy is so condensed in this tiny outpost of land, it’s like it has erupted into that magnificent city skyline (easily one of the top 5 city skylines in the world!) across Victoria Harbour.  Activity in the harbour is symbolic of life in Hong Kong itself:  traditional junks, the iconic colonial-era Star Ferry, luxurious cruise liners, and massive industrial ships cross paths, all busy, all going somewhere, but with a sense of harmonious purpose.

3. SINGAPORE: This former British colonial island, now an independent city-state with a large population of Chinese origin, was a fabled outpost of the British East India Company, and is now one of the booming ‘Asian Tiger’ economies.  Sounds a lot like Hong Kong, right?  Where Hong Kong is explosively energetic, Singapore is constrained, orderly, pristine to the point of feeling sanitized.  Sort of Hong Kong in a straight jacket.  New, fantastically futuristic buildings like the (highly regulated) casino (that looks like giant aliens re-building Stonehenge) are upping the ante from what used to be a cityscape of manicured tropical colonial buildings and sedate modern high rises, but you still feel like you’re visiting your great-aunt, and have to sit carefully and not touch anything.   Chinese New Year is celebrated here, of course, but don’t get carried away!  This is a country that outlaws chewing gum!

4. VIETNAM:  Surprised?  It’s true that Vietnam has rich cultural traditions of its own, but the Lunar New Year celebrations here have been influenced over centuries by neighbouring China.  Even in remote places like the Mekong Delta,  far to the south of Vietnam’s border with China, Chinese New Year elements creep into the local atmosphere.  Here, life is lived on the water:  school, shopping, even funerals!   We visited Cai Be’s floating market a couple of weeks before the Lunar New Year, and vendors peddled the same things from their boats that appear in the markets of China, Hong Kong, Singapore and other Chinese communities around the world:  potted orange and kumquat trees,  potted yellow flowers, all symbols of good fortune for Chinese New Years.

5. YOUR OWN BACKYARD!  Without getting jet lag, you can still celebrate Chinese New Year in style!  Depending where you live, it might be a mini-escape to your local Chinatown to pick up some red paper lanterns and maybe a small potted orange tree, have some dim sum, and absorb the ambiance of China-away-from-China. No Chinatown in your neck of the woods?  No excuses, even most small towns have a Chinese restaurant. And the Chinese restaurant chains that thrive in our suburbs highlight Chinese New Years with red and gold décor, special items on the menu and themed dishes.  OK, they may be westernized versions of recipes that wouldn’t be recognized by main land Chinese people, but it’s less about strict accuracy and more about an excuse to celebrate!

Welcome to the Year of the Dragon!

HEY SHIP2SHORE FANS!! BE SURE TO CATCH OUR CHINESE NEW YEAR PROGRAMS ON TRAVEL+ESCAPE THIS WEEKEND! OUR SPECIAL SHIP2SHORE MARATHON BEGINS THIS SUNDAY, JAN. 22 AT 11 A.M. AND AGAIN AT 11 P.M. ET/PT!

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