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Every year, the streets of the Chinese capital empty for two weeks in January or February, when China marks the Lunar New Year. The country's most important holiday, cities and towns empty as some 250 million people employed in cities make the long journey home to their towns and villages to be with their families for the start of the new year.
A performance at the Yuanmingyuan fair. Photo: Ananth Krishnan
This unique annual migration - which one would imagine must be the biggest of its kind anywhere on the planet - can drastically transform life in China's cities for those two weeks. This year, the Lunar New Year fell on January 31. Officially a seven-day holiday, most businesses shut down for close to a fortnight - perhaps the only time of the year when urban Chinese residents pause to realise how invaluable the migrant labour force - from the housekeepers and waiters to the repairmen and delivery boys who often toil silently for low wages - is to sustaining their daily life.
Raising the red lanterns for the new year. Photo: Ananth Krishnan
For those two weeks, Beijing is a city transformed. As disorienting as it can be to survive for a fortnight without your friendly neighbourhood noodle shop in operation, other changes to city life are more welcome. As nearby factories shut down, the normally smoky air makes way for rare blue skies. Commuting around what is usually a congested city becomes a pleasure, affording two rare luxuries usually impossible in Beijing - finding a seat on the sprawling subway system, and successfully hailing a taxi in downtown Beijing.
Folk performers. Photo: Ananth Krishnan
But what does one do in an empty Beijing? The main attraction during the new year week is the temple fair, or miao hui. Around a dozen such fairs are held across the city, in parks and temples. The tradition dates back to more than a 1000 years, rooted in fairs that sprouted up to cater to pilgrims who travelled through the city to visit nearby Taoist and Buddhist temples.
The fairs faded away after the Communist Party came to power in 1949. Some of the arts showcased in the fairs - such as folk songs, traditional dances and dramas that often drew on religious themes - were taboo in the 1960s and 1970s, when the Cultural Revolution rooted out the "four olds" - habits, ideas, customs and culture.
The fairs made a return during the more open 1980. Three decades on after they made a comeback, the fairs have become popular sources of attraction during the new year, attracting tens of thousands of visitors on a single day. Yet today, the fairs are facing a whole new host of challenges, such as sustaining the interest of a new generation often indifferent to their cultural traditions.
Actors dressed as a Qing-era emperor and queen before a show. Photo: Ananth Krishnan
The fair at the Ditan Park, or the temple of earth park in the heart of the city, is one of the most well attended, featuring a range of dance performances, plays, shadow theatre and paper cutting displays. This year, I also visited the fair at the Yuanmingyuan, the sprawling old Summer Palace in northwestern Beijing that was famously razed by British and French troops in the late 19th century.
Some of the performers there said they had to tailor their acts to suit modern sensibilities if they wanted to get booked by the officials who managed events at the Yuanmingyuan. This made for often jarring performances - such as a folk drama acted out by performers dressed in traditional clothes but zooming around on roller skates. There was one troupe that adapted a traditional dance to loud Chinese pop songs.
A performance at the Yuanmingyuan fair. Photo: Ananth Krishnan
Yuanmingyuan received as many as 90,000 visitors on a single day after the new year - one would imagine a great platform for often struggling folk troupes, who today do receive sizeable government support but still often lack a stage to showcase their arts. Shouldn't the festivals do more to showcase older folk arts, rather than serve up the same commercial fare that's already ubiquitous across television channels, I asked one official. "But this is what the young people want to see," she responded, with a shrug of her shoulders.
