Lunar New Year Fair
2 min readLunar New Year Fair（ or Flower Market） is a type of fair held annually a few days before Lunar New Year in markets, China, and spread with Cantonese immigration.
The Lunar New Year Fair history can be traced back to the Wanli Emperor age of the Ming Dynasty, By the time, the Pearl River’ s Flower Peasants（ For Chinese, this term is more closed to western peasant than farmer in reality） started selling flowers as a market. The ancient flower market was held everyday, but without a fixed location.
In 1860s, the flower market turned to the modern mode which was held during the Lunar New Year’ s Eve. In 1919， the Lunar New Year Fair got into its biggest time. From the year 1949， when the People’ s Republic of China was founded, lots of Cantonese immigrated to Hong Kong, other Pearl River Delta Areas, and then overseas.
Guangzhou is said to be the source of the Lunar New Year Fair. The Lunar New Year Fair was only be interrupted in a few years during the Cultural Revolution, but being continued in the coming years. Now Guangzhou’ s Fair is not only selling New Year flovers, but also some other goods.
In Guangzhou, there is at least one fair in each district, which became an accustom since 1960s. However, the official records of the Lunar New Year Fairs in Guangdong was found first in 1920s, while the city was under the rule of the Republic of China.
And the official name for the fair in Cantonese is Flower Market， however, the locals tend to use the term Flower Street, referring to the fact the fairs in Guangdong are taking part on the street available for vehicles on normal days, which turned to pedestrian zone only during the days of the fair.
