Chinese people have a lot of stories to tell about the traditional New Year food, but how many people still buy the traditional food for the festival? With changing lifestyles, traditional New Year food is somehow losing its attraction.

Shanghai's age-old commercial center – the Chenghuang Temple area is believed to best preserve the city's old look and traditions. Here, several food kiosks have recently sprung up to sell traditional New Year food, but their business has not been as good as expected, with only a few tourists dropping by from time to time.

Niangao which is made of glutinous rice flour means getting higher and higher, or one year after another in Chinese. Tangyuan, the stuffed dumplings signifies reunion. A saleswoman patiently explains the stories behind the traditional food.

Much of the food consumed for the festival has symbolic meaning, with their names, shapes or colors standing for either happiness or prosperity and good fortune.

But many people are losing interest in these foods.

Frederick Chwang is the senior marketing manager at the Hymall hypermarket chain, which is a joint-venture with Britain's supermarket giant Tesco and China's largest food supplier Ting Hsin International Group. He says holiday shoppers do pay special attention to the traditional foods, but there has been some signs that the demand for the traditional items is decreasing.

"The traditional food such as Niangao and preserved hams are all necessary items for the festival, and they are not selling badly. But in the long run, the demand for them is decreasing, because many young people don't care about buying these foods anymore and we may adjust our stocks in the future," he said.

Food used to play an important part in the Chinese traditional Spring Festival: many families make New Year snacks themselves, and the preparation for the year-end dinner may have started several days before. But the tradition is silently changing, with more and more families choosing to eat the year-end dinner at restaurants, and many more are spending the traditional season for family reunions traveling. Traditional New Year food is also changing its appearance, looking more like highly processed fast food.

Frederick Chwang says what have been selling best in recent years are convenient packages of New Year food, which don't require much cooking.

"Packages of New Year food are half done, all you need to do is heat it up. And sales figures from our chain stores across China show these are getting more and more popular. The new trend of the new year food is convenient and fast."

The two women shoppers say they no longer make the New Year food by themselves, they buy most of it cold from the supermarket. They do not care much about food during the festival, it’s getting together for a happy reunion that is the most important.

(CRI  February 9, 2004)