The Sichuan provincial government has said it will try to ensure all quake-affected residents move to new permanent houses in the new year.

Locals perform folk dances celebrating the Spring Festival in Pengzhou, a quake-hit city of southwest China's Sichuan Province, Jan. 25, 2009. Quake zone residents in west China had made their own ways to welcome the Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year. [Xinhua]

"Grandma, please bless our whole family with a safe new year," another villager Chen Zhihua said before the tomb of her grandma as she mourned her on Sunday.

The 32-year-old woman, an ethnic Qiang, said none of her relatives died in the quake but she lost her house. "We had had too much fear with the tremors last year; to pray the safety of our whole family is the best wish for the new year."

In Lueyang County, Shaanxi Province, about 200,000 residents were affected by the Sichuan quake.

Zhang Yueyin, in Guozhenjie Village, Lueyang, moved to her new house and replaced an old black and white TV with a color one.

"With a government subsidy of 30,000 yuan and 20,000 yuan of bank loan, I built the new house," said Zhang. The villager said her husband would go to find work in cities shortly after the Spring Festival so as to return the loans as early as possible.

SPECIAL NEW YEAR GREETINGS

On Sunday, more than ten Tibetan residents in traditional costume in Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, came to Yi Qibing's barber shop to express New Year greetings.

Yi's shop was looted in last March riots in Lhasa. He rebuilt it under the help and support from government and ethnic Tibetan residents.

A man sticks a paper-cut of Chinese character of "Fu", meaning "good fortune", onto the window at a cafe to celebrate the Spring Festival in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Jan. 25, 2009. [Xinhua]

"It is the Tibetan residents who helped me when my shop was in difficulties," said Yi, an ethnic Han.

The Tibetans and Yi's family and shop staff held a dinner together to celebrate the Lunar New Year's eve.

Spring Festival celebrations take various forms in different places. In the capital Beijing, dozens of temple fairs featuring cultural activities and folk customs shows began on Sunday.

(Xinhua News Agency January 26, 2009)