China chic: Chinese embrace Spring Festival with rising cultural confidence

Visiting temple fairs, wearing traditional Chinese clothes, experiencing traditional folk arts, and going to museums and theaters: Chinese people are embracing the Lunar Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, with more traditional cultural activities and Chinese elements.

In northwest China's Xi'an City, around 20 groups of lanterns stretching for nearly 20 kilometers shine on the city wall, which boasts a history of more than 600 years. In addition to the gorgeous lantern shows, the city wall scenic area also entertains visitors with multiple artistic performances. 

"We hope to let visitors have a bigger traditional cultural feast during the Spring Festival," said Ma Jinjiang, a staff worker at the scenic area. 

In south China's Guangdong Province, a total of 385 museums have opened more than 1,000 exhibitions and 400 cultural activities, including ancient Chinese calligraphy.  

The efforts have paid off. The number of daily appointments during the ongoing Spring Festival holiday is full, according to a staff worker, who asks to remain anonymous, at the Guangdong Museum. 

In Beijing, a major tourist hotspot during the Spring Festival holiday, more than 15 parks, including the Temple of Heaven and Beihai Park, greet visitors with folk art activities such as lantern-making and sugar-figurine blowing. 

While traditional cultural activities become a crowd-pleaser, the "new Chinese style" of clothing, which blends traditional and modern elements, outshines other clothes during this year's Spring Festival holiday.

Visitors dressed in new Chinese-style clothing have frequently been spotted at popular tourist attractions, restaurants, department stores and temple fairs. They donned outfits such as quilted vests featuring dragon and phoenix motifs, Song brocade jackets with traditional Chinese frog buttons, as well as Chinese traditional horse-face skirts.

What was formerly popular only among the older generation has now transformed into a fashion trend among the younger generation, thanks to the artful and bold combination of traditional Chinese elements and modern design. Many social media users refer to this trend as "bloodline awakening."

Following the tradition of wearing new clothes for the new year, an Anhui Province resident surnamed Zhang bought her daughter a bright red set of Chinese New Year's clothing ahead of the Spring Festival.

"This year, I intentionally bought my child the popular Chinese-style horse-face skirt ensemble. This clothing is thick and warm, while also making my child look both festive and adorable when wearing it," Zhang said.

According to e-commerce data from Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, videos with hashtags like "China-chic" or "new Chinese-style outfit" garnered more than 500 million views amid a shopping festival that ran from January 13 to 28 this year.

Besides, on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese lifestyle-sharing platform, the number of posts in relation to the "new Chinese-style" clothing has reached more than 2.5 million, of which the most popular one has received 150,000 likes as of February 3.

Zhu Chen, a 24-year-old woman, recently developed an interest in new Chinese-style clothing.

From her perspective, this fashion trend is a manifestation of cultural confidence.

"In the past, people might have thought that wearing designer brands was the only way to show good taste. However, nowadays, many prefer to wear clothing that represents Chinese culture when going out – even when traveling abroad,"  Zhu said.

Zhu added that she had seen people wearing new Chinese-style clothes while visiting the British Museum as well as when traveling in the United States. "It looks great!" she exclaimed.

As customers' sense of identification with and pride in traditional culture continues to strengthen, traditional culture will continuously empower new forms of consumption and activate new consumption dynamics, said Wei Pengju, a culture and communications professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics.

(With input from Xinhua)