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Thursday, March 2, 2017

Three Lunar New Year Displays in Zhongshan

Since the previous post about an advertisement for plastic surgery touched on the topic of the Lunar New Year in Zhongshan, I will take this opportunity to share just a few of the holiday displays I stumbled upon there about a month ago.

The first one includes a large decorated government building.

Lunar New Year decorations at a government building in Zhongshan, China


A variety of government organizations are based there, including the Zhongshan City National People's Congress Standing Committee and the Zhongshan City Committee of the China Association for Promoting Democracy. Yes, they promote "democracy" in China. In fact, "democracy" is one of China's 12 "core socialist values". If this confuses you, I understand. I will say more on this topic later. For now, more holiday displays . . .

The next one was at Yixian Lake Park.

Lunar New Year display at Yixian Lake Park in Zhongshan


As far as I know, no meetings promoting democracy occur here, but the park does have a provocative cartoon museum.

Despite exhibiting fine holiday spirit, neither of the previous two displays include the all important zodiac animal for the new lunar year. The last example resolves this issue with an impressive rooster.

Lunar New Year display with a rooster or phoenix at Zimaling Park in Zhongshan


I considered it might be the mythical fenghuang, which is sometimes used instead of the rooster. But given several rooster-ish features I am going with it being a rooster. Whatever it is, the display stood in front of the South Gate at Zimaling Park. The park has neither any obvious democracy promoting activities nor a cartoon museum. But it does have a tower, a small part of which can be seen behind the display in the photo, offering a bird's-eye view of Zhongshan including both urban areas and tree-covered mountains.

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