Officials hope that this long holiday will increase the consumption of people amid the economic instability that worries people.
“The whole place is not very good,” said Liu Zhenqiang, 38, who works in technology. “I have a lot of friends around me who are not working right now. So if you have a job yourself, you really need to appreciate them.”
For others, the poignancy was captured by the plush toy that became popular after a sewing error by a Chinese merchant created a “whining horse,” which greets the new year with a mournful scowl.
In the grand Chinese tradition of wordplay for the Spring Festival, another unlikely mascot has appeared: “Harry Potter” character Draco Malfoy. Some families decorate their doors with pictures of a smiling Malfoy — played by English actor Tom Felton — because of the cute Chinese version of his character’s name, “maer fu,” which includes the words “horse” and “luck.”
This year is not just the Year of the Horse but the Year of the Fire Horse, which in Chinese astrology is associated with momentum, decisive action and excitement – or chaos.
Letao Wang, an astrologer from Hong Kong, compared a fiery horse to a sports car.
“I think the fire horse here, in a good way, tells us that there is more to come,” he said.
“It’s about speed. It’s about momentum. It’s about quick movement,” Wang said. “But at the same time, we have to know how to focus on the road, so to speak, and how to balance ourselves to drive the horse instead of falling.”
Chinese companies are trying to capture that momentum before the holiday season begins, with tech giants engaged in a “red envelope war” as they compete for users of their AI assistants.
Tencent and Baidu are giving away 1.5 billion yuan ($217 million) in digital red envelopes, which are small cash gifts usually given for the new year. Alibaba is spending 3 billion yuan ($431 million) on marketing a discount boba tea for its Qwen chat that generated 10 million orders in the first nine hours, supermarkets and delivery riders and crashing servers.
A year after China’s DeepSeek shook up the global tech industry with the Spring Festival release of its cheap AI model, new models are also expected from DeepSeek and others. It includes Seedance 2.0, an AI video generator from TikTok owner ByteDance released on Monday.
Although China has changed a lot in recent decades — with special foods and new clothes that were once rare for the holidays now a daily purchase for many middle-class people — Xu said some aspects of the New Year celebration have not changed.
“We still greet our elders and greet the New Year; those traditions are still there,” he said. “We also have a set menu of what you’re going to eat each day.”
“And we still buy new clothes – no matter what, everyone in the family wears new clothes on the first day of the Lunar New Year.”
Liu Fang, an office clerk in Shandong province, said he thinks 2026 “could be better than before,” despite the tough economy.
“Although robots will replace some workers, new industries and jobs will be created,” he said.
“In the end, it comes down to hard work and personal skill.”
Janis Mackey Frayer, Dawn Liu and Erin Tan reported from Beijing, and Jennifer Jett reported from Hong Kong.
