A muted Lunar New Year, inside and outside Olympic bubble

BEIJING (AP) — China's capital city returned to work Monday after a weeklong Lunar New Year holiday that was muted by the pandemic — especially for the thousands of people inside the Winter Olympics bubble.

For volunteers and competitors at the Games, there’s no hong bao – red envelopes – with gifts of cash, no lucky tang yuan rice cakes with sesame filling, no dramatically-choreographed lion dance.

“I really wish that we could gather outside and watch some fireworks or something but due to the pandemic, we can’t really gather and do that stuff unfortunately,” said Vincent Zhou, a Chinese-American figure skater with deep ties to Beijing.

Across China, the pandemic has meant a subdued Lunar New Year for the third year in a row. The government discouraged residents of the capital from traveling home to visit family to limit the spread of the virus. Those who did needed two negative virus tests before heading back to Beijing and a third test within 72 hours of returning.

Jing Kefei, a 28-year-old webpage designer, said he had just taken the third test before heading back to work. The Beijing subway was crowded again and the roads congested with commuters.

“It’s the same as normal working days, except that we were ordered to take the nucleic acid test,” he said.

Also known as the Spring Festival, the new year's holiday that fell on February 1 this year is the most important in China. Locally, it is faithfully celebrated with a singular focus of spending time with family for a week, though the celebration actually lasts most of the month, including the traditional Lantern Festival on February 15.

Chinese New Year is framed around one of the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac. This year is the Year of the Tiger, an especially lucky animal in Chinese culture.

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