Chinese calendars' days are numbered

BEJING — The Chinese New Year starts this week. So it's time for people here to get a new calendar — and a dose of propaganda, ranging from the importance of the government's "one child" policy to the virtues of President Xi Jinping.

Giving a colorful calendar, with dates marked for both the lunar and Gregorian systems, remains a common New Year tradition in China. The year of the sheep starts Thursday.

This year, the government is handing out calendars preaching "anti-extremism" in the far northwestern city of Urumqi, in the restive region that is home to the Muslim minority Uighur population.

In Tibetan Garze prefecture, where protesters have burned themselves to death, the official calendar tells residents to study the law. And couples are reminded to follow China's "one child" policy in calendars given out in southern Guizhou province.

But the practice of giving or buying a new calendar is dwindling as the government curbs official spending and more people rely on smartphones and computers. The collapse in sales hurts vendors on "Calendar Street," a shrinking collection of stores that specialize in selling calendars in south Beijing.

The boom time for calendars, a decade ago, has faded "because everybody checks the date easily on their mobiles, so fewer and fewer people buy calendars," said store owner Lin Honggang, 60.

"Buying calendars is a culture, a tradition. It's a pity fewer and fewer people have interest in it, as well as all paper formats," said Rao Zhengbiao, 29, another store owner. "I think city people live life too fast. I enjoy tearing away the paper of calendars each day or month. It's like a ritual."

The biggest sellers this year are calendars showing President Xi, head of China's ruling Communist Party the past two years. Xi's popular anti-graft campaign wins praise, even as his crackdown on government waste has slashed orders for new calendars by governmental departments and state-run firms.

Xi's picture appears on several calendars produced by private companies, colored with lucky red and gold that cost $3 to $5 at one Beijing store. They include Xi's signature slogan about the "Chinese Dream" and show him alongside China's first aircraft carrier and rockets.

"No calendar sells as well as Chairman Xi," said Jin Anguang, 69, from his store near the Communist Party's central compound. "People love Chairman Xi and his anti-corruption movement, so they buy the calendars."

Xi's glamorous wife Peng Liyuan, a former army singer and unusually public first lady, also appears on several calendars.

"People like both of them, as they're good leaders, go around the world and win glory for China," said Feng Xiaolan, 43, who sells calendars and other New Year decorations at a wholesale market in Naixi village, in northeast Beijing. Her top seller? A calendar featuring both Xi and Peng called "Build Chinese Dream."

Some older calendars are prized as collectibles. Those from the 1950s and '60s with slogans from Chairman Mao Zedong can fetch high prices. In the 1970s, calendars featured model Communist workers, until those gave way to more aspiring scenes of foreign houses, cars and furniture in the 1980s and '90s.

Today, calendars on Confucianism and the folk religion Daoism prove popular, as people look into China's past for answers, Jin said.

Seniors still find comfort in a paper calendar. "I serve the old people, as their eyes are not good and cellphones are too small, but calendars are easy to read. And they can write (on them) when next to take medicine and see the doctor," Jin explained.

Zhang Shuqin, 65, of Beijing keeps several old edition calendars, including some showing Mao, foreign scenery and movie stars.

"I am going to buy a new calendar with cute babies for my home and for my daughter's family," Zhang said. "I wish my daughter could give birth to a baby this year."

Contributing: Sunny Yang