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It is the annual Christmas season in China and South Korea, where people traditionally travel across the country for family reunions. But things are different this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Straits Times correspondents in Beijing and Seoul report.
The ‘Golden Week’ revives hopes of a tourist boom
Minnie Liu, a self-confessed “travel junkie,” goes on vacation, the first of the year, during the “Golden Week” holidays next month.
The 28-year-old financial executive, who made eight trips last year, wanted to do better this year, but her plans were thwarted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Now that the situation seems more stable, my friends and I are spending all the money we saved on a week-long vacation in Qinghai and Gansu,” he said.
You are not alone: the battered tourism sector is betting on its recovery in the week-long holidays, which begin on October 1. The industry expects to see its first boom of the year next week, making this the biggest vacation period yet.
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Covid-19 affects Korean Thanksgiving Day
For the first time in nine years, housewife Yvonne Park will relax with chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving, instead of working at the sink “washing a mountain of dishes the size of Mount Everest.”
Washing dishes and preparing food is the responsibility of first daughters-in-law like her, when the extended family gathers each fall to pray to the ancestors and catch up on a feast of traditional food such as jeon (Korean pancakes) and songpyeon (crescent). shaped rice cake).
The annual festival in South Korea, which takes place on October 1 this year, is known to be immensely stressful for married women who have to work for hours in the kitchen, while young people fear nosy relatives who try meddling in their personal lives.
But this year, with the Covid-19 pandemic and social distancing rules still in place, Ms Park, 31, said her husband has decided not to visit family with their three children, ages three to nine. .
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