During China’s lunar-new-year holiday, which ran from January 21st to 27th, tourists flocked to the sprawling Taihao mausoleum in Henan province. Many enjoyed slapping a statue of Qin Hui, a scheming official in the Song dynasty who is notorious for having framed a military hero. One visitor got carried away, striking the statue with the lid of an incense burner. Feelings are running high after Qin’s villainy featured in a new film, “Full River Red”, which topped the box-office charts during the holiday.
This enthusiastic movie-going, sightseeing and statue-slapping is evidence of a surprisingly speedy consumer revival in the world’s second-biggest economy. The mausoleum says it received 300,000 visitors in the festive period, the most in three years. Box-office revenues were not only better than last year, they were also higher than in the year before covid-19. China’s population, subject until recently to mass screening, is now massing at the screens.
