A muted Lunar New Year, inside and outside Olympic bubble
By SALLY HO and KEN MORITSUGU
Associated Press
BEIJING (AP) — China returned to work Monday after a weeklong Lunar New Year holiday muted by the pandemic — and even more so for the thousands of people inside a Winter Olympics bubble. For volunteers and competitors, there’s no hong bao – red envelopes – with gifts of cash, no lucky tang yuan rice cakes with sesame filling, no dramatically-choreographed lion dance. Across China, the pandemic has meant a subdued Lunar New Year for the third year in a row. The government discouraged traveling home to limit the spread of the virus.
