Coronavirus: Chinese revellers pack public squares to see off 2022 and 3 years of zero-Covid
- Merrymakers, many freshly recovered from Covid-19, join official countdowns or hold their own in rapturous return to zero-Covid ways
- Infections have peaked in major cities, as wave after wave of Covid-19 sweeps across the country following the lifting of the strict pandemic policy
Many revellers braved the winter rain or strong winds to join open-air celebrations, as others packed into bars and restaurants.
University student Sun Minyan saw out 2022 at a bar in Dalian, a coastal city in northeastern Liaoning province.
It was a full house, the 23-year-old said, with people “singing, dancing, drinking and counting down together to midnight”.
“There were so many more people compared to last year and the year before,” she added.
“It is understandable since we are not only celebrating the passing of 2022 and welcoming 2023, we are announcing an end to all three years of the Covid era.”
The Dalian government organised street markets and live performances in the historical block of Tianjin Street as part of official New Year celebrations, along with traditional Chinese dragon dance and firework displays.
“It was noisy and crowded,” said Gong Caixuan, 23, another Dalian resident visiting the pedestrian area lined with retail and dining stops.
“The street market was flooded with people. I could barely see the show because there were too many people in front of the stage,” he said.
“Many had even climbed onto a crane to have a better view before the host told them to get down for safety reasons.”
State broadcaster CCTV said the scenes represented a vibrant return to normalcy.
“Old streets and alleys are the arteries of cultural heritage. What is happening in Tianjin Street represents the potential vitality and prosperity across China,” it said in a report.
In the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, more than 100,000 people braved the rain to gather in downtown Jiefangbei Square, the central business district and conventional place for New Year countdowns. There was also a heavy police presence for crowd control.
“This is probably the place with the most umbrellas in the world right now,” an internet user called Yunxiao wrote in Xiaohongshu, a social media and e-commerce platform.
She also posted a bird’s-eye view photo of the huge crowds, swarming around a monument at the centre of the square that marks the end of the Sino-Japanese war and gives the square its name.
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Apart from officially organised celebrations, crowds also gathered spontaneously to join New Year’s countdowns in popular spots such as the Bund in Shanghai and the Sanlitun entertainment district in Beijing.
More than 470,000 people in all visited the Shanghai Bund on December 31, the crowds peaking at 74,000 at one point, according to the state-run Guangming Daily.
Some 176,000 visited the Jade Garden, a tourist attraction that had put on a lantern show.
The crowds were so big that armed police had to form human chains at intersections to control the flow of people, the paper said.
A viral clip on Xiaohongshu showed security guards in the downtown Taikoo Li area of Sanlitun repeatedly shouting, “no formal [countdown] activities will be held here, please leave in an orderly way”, as the crowd paid little heed.
The announcements “did not dampen the public excitement at all”, wrote the user who posted the video.
“People just turned on the torches on their mobile phones and started counting down, overcome with excitement.”
