People bought New Year goods and looked for the taste of the New Year

On January 24th, residents choose Spring Festival decorations in Jiaji town, Qionghai City. Photo by special correspondent Meng Zhongde.

When you were a child, what were your expectations for the New Year? Perhaps it is the new clothes on the first day of the New Year, the red lanterns hanging at the door, the laughter of the whole family watching the Spring Festival Gala and eating sunflower seeds. For many Chinese, the anticipation for the New Year begins the moment they go shopping.

"After the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is the New Year." Since entering the twelfth month, the flavor of the New Year has become stronger all over Hainan, and every household has been busy buying New Year goods, adding a "sense of ceremony" to the coming New Year.

Where to buy Spring Festival goods? What are you buying for the New Year? Today, the answers are more diverse. As the Spring Festival approaches, you may wish to take advantage of the fine weather to walk around the crowded market in Hainan, look at the list of New Year goods of Hainan people, and feel the "Hainan New Year flavor".

The "rhythm" of preparing New Year goods

"When I was young, I looked forward to going to the market with my parents." "After 80" Xia Nan grew up in Qionghai, she remembers that every time the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the home to buy New Year's goods on the agenda. On the back of the bike, I followed my parents to the market and couldn't take my eyes off the sunflower seeds, peanuts, candy and fireworks on the stalls.

Hainanese food pursuit fresh, for the New Year to eat chicken, cattle, sheep, fish, shrimp and other fresh food, they will not buy many days in advance, but they will be prepared. Chen Weidong, who lives in Dongshan Town, Xiuying District, Haikou, told reporters that brothers and sisters will go home for the Spring Festival. During the lunar month, my parents would buy five or six live chickens from nearby villages and raise them together with their own chickens. They usually kill two chickens on New Year's Eve, and on the second and fifth days. "Whatever they could not finish, they killed, washed, and brought back to us in the city."

Seafood is one of the main dishes of the Hainan New Year, in order to buy authentic and affordable seafood, some people will even drive to the port, the dock "try their luck". Mr. Fu, who lives in Haikou Zhenxing South Road, told reporters that his hometown is Wanning, and went to Wanning Wuchang on the 20th special month to buy mackerel. "The mackerel is cold, and the boatman keeps it in foam boxes with ice, big and small." He introduced that near the Spring Festival, fresh mackerel that has just arrived on the shore is very popular, and the larger mackerel is sold for one or two thousand yuan.

Dried seafood is also a hot item in Hainan New Year's market. Entering the Dongmen market located in South Bo Ai Road, Haikou, shrimp and so on are placed in the most prominent position. They are the soup and porridge cooking "fresh artifact", with a small sprinkle, the kitchen will be full of umami. There are many kinds of dried fish, dried mackerel, dried red fish, dried whitebait, dried shark and other meat is firm, or steamed, or stir-fried, or stewed soup, you can make a mellow taste of delicacies at will.

After the 24th of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar (Little New Year), the pace of Hainan people buying New Year goods has accelerated significantly. Shops on the streets played Spring Festive-themed songs, and a wave of people bought candy, lanterns, boxed cookies and fireworks.

From the 27th to the 29th of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, people seize the last little time to enter the farmers' markets and supermarkets to "sweep goods" to prepare for the New Year's Eve dinner. Chicken, pork, beef and mutton sell well, as do fish, shrimp and crabs. "The seafood at the end of the year is divided into several grades, the more affordable giant tiger prawn,metapenaeusensis, mid-range mantis shrimp and local love to eat blue crab, high-end Boston lobster; The fish that are selling more are mackerel, turbot and grouper." Haikou Zhenxing market a seafood stall owner told reporters.

New Year goods and "three-piece set"

Recently, the reporter walked into the Qionghai Cultural and Sports Center Spring flower fair, a pot of kumquat neatly arranged, the golden kumquat fruit in the sunlight appears particularly festive. In the market, there are many tourists who go to buy kumquats, and sales staff are busy loading POTS of kumquats onto trucks and cars.

Hainan people like to buy some flowers and green plants to decorate the house inside and outside the New Year, through this way to welcome the New Year into the home. Because "jiu" and "ji" homophonic meaning of "auspicious", kumquat is the most popular bonsai at the end of the year. In addition, rich bamboo, money tree, anthurium, green flowers, hydrangea, lily, etc. are also hot bonsai.

According to tradition, every Spring Festival, every family will stick Spring couplets to express their good hopes for the New Year. In today's printed Spring couplets can be seen everywhere, many Hainan people still like handwritten Spring couplets. They think that compared with printed Spring couplets, handwritten Spring couplets have more flexibility and personality expression, and writing Spring couplets is also a pleasure for the New Year.

On the morning of January 24, in the memorial park of the Red Detachment of Women, a long queue formed in the front row of the booth of the "blessing full of Spring Festival couplets". Many citizens and tourists received the written Spring Festival couplets at the scene.

In fact, every year on the eve of the Spring Festival, such scenes are relatively common across Hainan. In the lunar month, calligraphy associations of cities and counties organize public welfare activities to write Spring couplets and send Spring couplets. The members of the association create "customized" Spring couplets according to the needs of the masses, and send New Year wishes to the grassroots with ink incense. "My family has already bought good luck characters, lanterns, Spring couplets, Chinese knots and other New Year goods." Haikou resident Zhou Xingxing said, "The New Year to buy things to decorate the home, make it prosperous, so that there is a Chinese New Year flavor."

In recent years, in addition to the categories of New Year goods based on traditional customs, many "New Year goods" have been welcomed by the market. Young people pay more and more attention to the emotional value of New Year's goods when they buy them. For example, with the rise of online Spring Festival consumption, the sales of fitness products represented by sports watches have soared, creative ornaments, cash tree high goods are hot, and food ingredients such as Thai durian, Yunnan blueberry, Chilean cherry, and Russian king crab are also very popular. On January 23, the reporter saw in the old street of Arcade in Haikou that several citizens were selecting rattan ornaments for the Spring Festival in an arts and crafts store.

Recently, Li Liying, who works in Beijing, returned to Hainan for the Spring Festival. She told reporters that the New Year want to treat themselves, has bought several new clothes in the Haikou business circle. Many women also mentioned to reporters that doing manicures, perms, eyelashes are the "three sets" that girls must complete before the year.

People choose from the old street to buy online

The pace of the Spring Festival is approaching, and the New Year's goods markets around Hainan are bustling. If you want to ask Hainanese where to prepare for the New Year, old streets, farmers' markets and supermarkets are naturally more fixed locations. From the perspective of the whole province, the old Street of Arcade in Haikou, the pedestrian street of Jiefang Road in Sanya, and the Red Flag Street in Danzhou are the old streets that people choose to go to for the New Year.

"I just went shopping in the old street and bought a lot of things." Recently, 63-year-old Aunt Zhao returned from Haikou Dongmen Market loaded with fruits, nuts, sausage and other kinds of New Year goods. Every year before the Spring Festival, Aunt Zhao will carefully make a list of New Year's goods, and then go to the old street two or three times to buy. "The old street has a full range of things, and the prices are affordable." Aunt Zhao said that she pays more attention to the sense of ceremony, and feels that "the New Year should have the flavor of the New Year." She does not like to eat out during the Spring Festival, so she will prepare a lot of ingredients, including beef and mutton, aquatic products, cured meat and so on.

With the development of mobile Internet, more and more young people tend to shop online for the Spring Festival. In the past month, major e-commerce platforms have "made big moves", launched large red envelopes, official immediate reduction, "10 billion subsidies" and other concessions to stimulate consumers' enthusiasm for shopping. It is worth mentioning that some e-commerce platforms undertake preferential policies to set up "national subsidies" special areas, subsidies covering household appliances, digital and other categories, and further promote the sales of online New Year goods.

"When I was young, my parents took me to Haikou Pearl Square to buy clothes and spring couplets. Now a lot of things are ordered online, and going to the mall is mainly for dinner and entertainment." "After 90" Li Liying introduced that she had just bought a coconut chicken (prepared dish) online, and also bought a washing and drying machine for her parents. "Spring in Haikou is too wet, clothes can not be dried, the New Year, I hope to improve their lives a little."

Whether it is shopping, carrying large bags and small bags, or placing orders online shops and broadcast rooms, whether it is buying traditional New Year goods, or buying scientific and technological products, cultural and creative tide play, buying New Year goods has passed a strong flavor and has long become a part of the Spring Festival. (Reporter Chen Ziyi)