How to do Chinese New Year in Shanghai

‘This is the night for which 24 million people have stockpiled their explosives’

To say there are fireworks in Shanghai on Chinese New Year is an understatement. This is the night for which 24 million people have stockpiled their explosives, the night all duty is abandoned in the name of blowing stuff up, the night for which the art of the launch has been honed over generations: grab a box of firecrackers, light in one go, repeat until morning.

The relentless bursts and echoes, the blazing light, the whiff of gunpowder, the quaking earth… spectacular, yes, but it’ll also make you fear for your senses. The cacophony of Omaha Beach on D-Day crossed with the wonder of Disney World on magic mushrooms has got nothing on the eve of Lunar New Year in China’s largest megacity. You’ll either buzz with euphoria or feel like you’ve made a huge mistake.

Trust me: you haven’t. Shanghai is pandemonium at the best of times. If you can deal with its glaring lights and car alarms, you can cope with Chinese New Year; you just need to know how to approach it.

Arrive early

Ever been rushed on a football field by frenzied spectators? That’s the vibe in a Shanghai train station during the holidays. Nearly all of China’s 1.4 billion people will travel on the days surrounding New Year’s Eve (4 February). Don’t get caught up in the melee. Plan to fly in by 1 February. British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and China Eastern all offer affordable direct flights from London in the run-up to the holiday. The 7 minute maglev train transfer from Pudong Airport into town is just £5.50, though you’ll need a taxi from the terminus to your hotel. Save yourself the hassle: Hertz operates private airport transfers at competitive rates (around £60 each way).

Seclude yourself

No hotel is entirely soundproof on New Year’s Eve (earplugs advised). But URBN (doubles from £110), cosseted by bamboo gardens, comes close. If you’re happy to splash more cash, the 1930s-era villas at Capella (doubles from £330), on a swish French Concession street, sit behind ivied brick walls patrolled by butlers. There’s an antique water tower in the courtyard you can climb to watch the light show over the rooftops.

The Capella Shanghai provides respite amid the chaos (Capella)

Plot your course

On the sycamore-shaded streets of the French Concession, art deco mansions open their wrought-iron doors to candlelit sake bars and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Boutiques staffed by neon-haired shop girls flog 5in heels and asymmetrical blazers. Scout these out before 4 February when independent retailers tend to close. Sample fried pork dumplings from the vendors on Wulumuqi Road; window-shop on Xinle Road; and browse the private collection of communist agitprop at the Propaganda Poster Art Center.

Explore areas like Nanjing East Road before the crowds arrive (Getty) (Getty Images)

It’s also worth ticking off the classic holiday highlights before the big crush. Walk Nanjing East Road at dusk as the neon signs buzz overhead. When you hit the Bund, that riverfront boulevard of beaux-arts manors, stroll the boardwalk and watch the lit-up skyscrapers reflect off the water. Continue to Yuyuan Garden, the Ming Dynasty sanctuary decked out in fluorescent light for the annual Lantern Festival.

Book your meals

Outside, during the most important nights, you can walk into any old noodle joint and sign language your way to a top meal (try Zhapu Road or South Sichuan Road) or squeeze into the chintz dining room at Old Jesse in a family house on Tianping Road. But woe betide the unprepared tourist turned away with a brusque (and incomprehensible) snub on 4 February. In fact, for meals between 3 and 5 people, book well ahead – or ask your hotel to call for you. At Fu 1088 (0086 21 5239 7878), in an art deco manor house off Yuyuan Road, sharing plates of pork belly, spicy aubergine and wide-eyed shellfish are dished out for about £45pp. The Peacock Room (0086 21 5239 1999) does a fresh, conceptual take on numbingly spicy Sichuan fare in a shimmery bronze boite.

Restaurants fill fast as thousands descend on the city for new year (Getty) (Getty Images)

Seek high ground

The swooping roofs of the Longhua Temple complex are scattered over an acre. Come midnight on New Year’s Eve, monks climb the six-tier pagoda to strike an iron bell heralding the Year of the Pig. It’s a big ticket event that packs in worshippers waving incense or kneeling before gold buddhas. So acrophobes will have to jostle among thousands – if not millions – of revellers.

Better to rise above it all. The towers overlooking Huangpu River from the Pudong (east) bank have ringside seats for the fireworks. With the city’s tallest building, the Shanghai Tower, still lobbying to get its public spaces approved, the 92nd-floor bar at the Shanghai World Financial Centre (the “bottle opener”) boasts one of the highest cocktail menus on Earth. Book into a west-facing table, or hit the bar one tower over at Flair (0086 21 2020 1717), whose terrace wraps around the 58th floor.

Leave by air

Give yourself a day to recover. Then, if you’re travelling elsewhere in China, plan to go by air. Road and rail will destroy you, and you’ve come too far for that.