Photo Essay - Guangzhou Welcomes the Chinese New Year with Annual Flower Fair

By Bella HUANG, Xinyi

Attracting more than one million citizens, Liwan Flower Fair was held from February 2 to February 4 in Guangzhou, China. It is one of the 13 flower fairs held in different districts in the city to celebrate Chinese New Year, one of the most important festivals to Chinese people. This year marks the 65th edition of Liwan Flower Fair with 76 florists selling a variety of flowers. Chen Yanxia and her family are among these florists. They spend the whole year planting flowers and count their living expenses on these three days.

Guangzhou Flower Fair dates back to the Southern Song Dynasty in the 13th century and was consummated during the Ming Dynasty. After the founding of China, the governors of Guangzhou organize flower fairs every year.

Red lanterns are a symbol of good fortune, which can be seen all over the city during Chinese New Year. Around 800 lanterns were displayed in the flower fair, according to a police officer called Deng Chaoxiong.

Chen Yanxia and her family are from Foshan, a city to the east of Guangzhou. They arrived here at 7 am to prepare her stall for a day of sales and would work until midnight.

Chen Yanxia’s daughter Liang Shuxia, 21 (left) and her niece, Liang Yongshan, 15 (right) came to help her sell the flowers. Shuxia is currently a university student in Dongguan, a city close to Guangzhou, and Yongshan is a secondary school student. Normally the whole family of the florist would come to assist the sales in the flower fair.

Liang Guihai, 43, was originally from Jiangmen, a city 91 kilometres from Guangzhou. He stayed inside the stall and needed to wrap around 300 flowers everyday.

For visitors to walk around comfortably, the flower fair has strict regulations on how much space flowers can be placed around the stall. Police asked Yanxia and her family to move the bucket back as they have taken up too much space.

The temperature this year during the festival was exceptionally high, affecting sales because "some flowers have withered even before the festival," Yanxia said. According to Climate and Agricultural Meteorological Center of Guangzhou Meteorological Bureau, the average temperature of the city in January was 15.1°C, 1.4°C higher than usual.

A buyer visiting Yanxia's stall. Local Guangzhou people have the tradition of buying fresh flowers for Chinese New Year, especially peach blossoms, orchids and orange trees, representing "promising future", "prosperity" and "good luck" respectively.

Customers bargaining with Chen Yanxia in front of her stall. In Guangzhou, prices of flowers often include the digits “3”, “8”, and “9” during Chinese New Year, standing for “vigor”, “prosperity” “forever and always” separately.

In the flower fair, every stall would provide a QR code for customers to scan and pay via Wechat Pay or Alipay, the most common payment methods in mainland China.

Shuxia said she likes helping with the sales because it makes her happy when surrounded by fresh flowers and the atmosphere of festival.

To save time and money, Yanxia's family only ate steamed bun.

The slogan above the stall reads “closely unit around the Communist Party of China under the leadership of Xi Jinping”. The flower fair also broadcast such slogans together with popular Chinese New Year songs.

Yanxia was worried about this year’s sales.They normally can earn 25,000 RMB (29,069 HKD), but the revenue this year is about 20,000 RMB (22,727 HKD), which means that they would be more dependent on past year savings. However, her daughter was still satisfied and said "compared to other stalls, we have already done a good job."