Name: How much does Lunar New Year cost? | CNBC International
Uploaded: 2019-02-16T03:16:40.000Z
Duration: 4 min 42 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Lunar New Year, it's one of Asia's most important festivals.

Think of it as the Asian Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one.

Adverbs of manner

You probably also know it as Chinese New Year,

but it's not just China that celebrates it.

Many Asian countries like Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia

celebrate the Lunar New Year as a national holiday.

you can bet their wallets are getting a great workout.

Lunar New Year is about hanging out with your family, but it's also all about the food.

Chinese New Year snacks don't come cheap.

A box of pineapple tarts easily costs about U.S. $15,

The most expensive and popular Chinese New Year snack though

is likely to be this sweet pork jerky, also known as bak kwa.

Bak kwa prices start from about $38 a kilogram.

Food prices go up before Lunar New Year all over Asia,

and contribute to hefty spending over the season.

In Singapore, the average expected expenditure

per person is $1,890 for the festive season.

In Indonesia and Malaysia, the intended spend per person last year was $800,

while the average Malaysian respondent expects to spend about $1,000.

For a bit of context, Americans said they planned to spend an average

of about $900 on Christmas presents last December.

In all three Southeast Asian countries, consumers expect to spend money

Called hongbao in Chinese, they're one of  Chinese New Year's best-known traditions.

Red packets are gifts of money given by married people to unmarried people.

So if you have a large family. you have to give money

to all your younger and unmarried relatives.

In Singapore, the going rate is between $6 and $10.

So you may get asked by relatives when you're getting married,

In China, many people are starting to give digital red packets

through the Chinese mobile social platform, WeChat.

WeChat only introduced electronic red packets in 2014,

WeChat recorded 760,000 transactions in one second.

WeChat rival, Alipay, reported that 250 million red packets

were sent on its platform on New Year's Eve,

with an average of $28 in each red packet.

The Chinese tech giants are using these digital red packets

and it's these red packets that have helped to propel WeChat Pay into dominance.

Jack Ma even called WeChat's red packet strategy, “A Pearl Harbor attack”

In China, factories and businesses shut down for the one week public holiday,

resulting in the biggest mass migration of people on Earth.

More than 414 million Chinese people  will be taking planes and trains.

That's almost the entire population of the European Union on the move.

Many are migrant workers heading home,  but many choose to go on vacation as well.

Domestic travel spending was up 15.9% last year to $61.5 billion,

with top destinations being Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

But many affluent Chinese travelers are also looking to travel abroad.

with spending amounting to $14.5 billion.

Top destination cities are Hong Kong, Bangkok and Tokyo,

with travelers expected to spend an average of nine days abroad.

Chinese New Year is a major spending season in China.

Last year, Chinese consumers spent $140 billion

in retail and catering services in one week.

While Chinese New Year had little impact outside of China a decade ago,

the size of the Chinese economy now means that it has a huge impact globally.

Stock market trading slows in many Asian countries,

while countries and businesses will be rolling out the red carpet

for the six million Chinese travelers expected this year.

The Chinese New Year is such a big deal, it even impacts trade.

Usually, China has a trade  surplus with the U.S.,

but during Lunar New Year, China buys a lot and exports less.

Last year, the celebrations contributed to China posting

its first monthly trade deficit since 2014.

For the rest of us, it's time to kick back and enjoy the festive season.

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