The traditional Spring Festival is still valued by the majority of the Chinese in an increasingly diversified world, an online poll has found.
In the ongoing survey launched over the weekend by China's major portal www.sina.com., 70 percent of the nearly 11,000 voluntary respondents said they will choose to travel back to their parents' home for the lunar new year celebrations.
When asked if they consider "going home for the festival" something that doesn't matter much, 77 percent said "No."
Those who don't return home for a family reunions cited various reasons including tight work schedules and difficulties in buying a ticket due to the travel rush. They also stressed such a decision was made "very reluctantly".
In an affiliated poll on what traditions to observe during the festival, nearly half of the 1,418 respondents said they will light firecrackers for good luck, and 17 percent chose not to have a haircut in the first month the festival onward as an old belief has it that one's uncle will die if one does so.
Modern technologies bring change to some old traditions. Another affiliated poll showed that nearly half of the 3,917 respondents will give the new year's best wishes to relatives and friends through mobile phone short messages.
The Spring Festival, the most important traditional festival for the Chinese, falls on Jan. 26 this year.
(Xinhua News Agency January 12, 2009)