Almost every Chinese holiday comes paired with a festive dish. At Tomb-Sweeping Festival, there are bright green qingtuan (glutinous rice dumplings) to celebrate the arrival of spring. During Dragon Boat festival, we have zongzi, stuffed sticky rice steamed in bamboo leaves, to commemorate the poet Qu Yuan. And during Mid-Autumn Festival, we chow down on mooncakes as we gaze at the full moon. But Chinese New Year doesn’t come with just one dish. It is a feast that lasts for days, starting with “bao”-ing or wrapping dumplings on Chinese New Year’s Eve (for snacking on well into the night) to the tangyuan (more glutinous rice dumplings) eaten 15 days later on Yuanxiao or Lantern Festival.

Normally the lead up to Lunar New Year (春节, chūnjié) results in the “great migration,” with people in China's big cities traveling back to their ancestral hometowns to enjoy the annual reunion dinner (团圆饭, tuányuánfàn, or 年夜饭, nián yè fàn) with their family. Nearly every shop and restaurant closes up for at least a week (and sometimes more like three), as employees travel back to inland provinces like Anhui and Henan for a well-earned break and the chance to eat traditional, home-cooked meals with relatives.

There’s a joy in staying in China’s big cities over the upcoming Lunar New Year (春节, chūnjié). As people start the “great migration” back to their ancestral hometowns to enjoy the annual reunion dinner (团圆饭, tuányuánfàn, or 年夜饭, nián yè fàn) with their family, Shanghai becomes a ghost town. Nearly every shop and restaurant closes up for at least a week (and sometimes more like three), as employees travel back to inland provinces like Anhui and Henan for a well-earned break and the chance to eat traditional, home-cooked meals with relatives. So long as you have a well-stocked fridge, the New Year is a peaceful time to explore the empty streets.