The Chinese New Year was celebrated on January 29 this year, and surprisingly, there's not much that goes on. In fact, Beijing pretty much shuts down. The closest thing I can equate this holiday with in the US is Christmas, but without the same level of commercialization. Granted there's plenty of people buying little paper dogs and other various decor.
For the most part people travel to their homes to visit their families and the company I have been consulting for shuts down for a week. Apparently that's pretty common.
One of the most classic examples of Chinese New Year is the lantern. I visited the lantern festival in Chaoyang park this week and took a bunch of pictures. Some of the lanterns are as large as a parade float!! Traditionally, the lanterns would have been lit with candles, but that's quite dangerous this day in age, so they're all lit with light bulbs nowadays. One of the coolest lanterns was themed on the 2008 olympics. There was even a dog playing baseball!
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