Restaurants across China are embracing a surge in reservations for the Lunar New Year's Eve dinner with the traditional Spring Festival around the corner.
In Suzhou City of east China's Jiangsu Province, staff of a long-standing restaurant said that all private rooms and hall tables at its six Suzhou branches are fully booked for the "Lesser New Year", which falls on the 23rd day of the last lunar month in northern China and the 24th in southern China, and for New Year's Eve, the last day of the lunar year.
In response to the influx of reservation requests, the restaurant has re-planned the hall area to add more dining spots.
"With more 'new citizens' choosing to stay in Suzhou for the New Year's Eve, we've adjusted our menu and introduced a smaller meal combo for four to six people. We've also focused on promoting our signature dishes like Squirrel Fish, as well as seasonal winter vegetables like winter bamboo shoots and Suzhou cabbage," said Ha Chengxiong, a staffer of the restaurant, attributing the surge to the fact that more "new citizens", those who migrated from other regions, chose to celebrate the Spring Festival in Suzhou instead of returning to their hometowns.
In addition to traditional restaurants, farm-to-table restaurants have also become a popular choice for New Year's Eve revelers.
In Changxing County of Huzhou City, east China's Zhejiang Province, a farm restaurant has adopted a time-slot reservation system to meet the high demand.
"There has been an influx of reservation requests for this year's New Year's Eve dinner. The hall tables and private rooms for 'lesser New Year' and Lunar New Year's Eve celebrations have all been booked out," said Li Ling, manager of a local farm-to-table restaurant.
Restaurants across China embrace surge in reservations for Spring Festival
Nepali Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal highlighted the importance of strengthening multilateral institutions when sharing his views on global governance in a recent interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN).
Khanal is on an official visit to China from Sunday to Wednesday at the invitation of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Speaking with CGTN in Beijing, Khanal said China's Global Governance Initiative is important to sustaining multilateral engagement and strengthening existing multilateral institutions.
"The idea of global governance to my understanding is also around engagement - multilateral engagement, strengthening multilateral institution, ensuring rule-based orders are established. In principle, these ideas are important to Nepal. And as a country we've always engaged in establishing and being part of multilateral forums. Even in the UN we contribute, we are one of the highest peacekeeping contributors in the world. So from that perspective, we value these ideas, and we have been directly working on, for example, Global Development Initiative," he said.
During his meeting with Wang on Monday, Khanal said Nepal fully endorses the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity, and supports a series of global initiatives proposed by China.
"Some of these ideas, we are currently trying to understand and trying to find specific engagement areas. But in principle, the ideas expressed are something that we've always been part of. Nepal and China have engaged in several multilateral forums, whether it's the UN or the other forums in the international arena. So we hope to continuously engage in strengthening existing multilateral institutions like the UN. Of course, there is a need for reform in the United Nations itself. We do champion those ideas, and we hope to see meaningful reform in current international systems," said the Nepali foreign minister.
Nepali FM calls for strengthening multilateral institutions
