No Zongzi, No Crowds, Just Cold Silence — The Saddest Dragon Boat Festival Yet

It's all covered in today's China Truths. Dear family, to be honest, things are bleak. The economy is in free fall, and it's casting a shadow over everything. Just look at the zongzi, sticky rice dumplings. In past Dragon Boat Festivals, companies handed out boxes of them, and customers brought so many we could barely carry them home. This year, nothing, not a single dumpling. I keep thinking, no matter how bad things get, how expensive can one zongzi be? For many people, this tiny gift was the only spark of joy, the last shred of tradition to hold on to. Now even that is gone. The Dragon Boat Festival feels hollow. No zongzi, no warmth. Just silence where celebration used to be. The closer the holiday gets, the more hopeless it feels. Even thin porridge is hard to swallow. Oh dear, even cigarettes aren't selling now. Alcohol's not moving either, and zongzi. Forget it, no one's buying. People really have no money left. The Dragon Boat Festival market has ended before it even began. Goods are piling up. Just looking at the situation, it's clear. This year's holiday is basically done for. The Dragon Boat Festival is only a few days away. Today is Friday. Tomorrow and the day after are the weekend. In previous years this would have been the peak time, but now it's dead quiet. The shops have stocked very few gift boxes, which shows that from top to bottom, no one has high hopes for this holiday anymore. The Dragon Boat Festival, held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, is a traditional Chinese holiday. A summer ritual to bid farewell to the five plague gods and ward off illness. In past years, the streets of China would be packed during this time, bustling with people buying zongzi, shopping for gifts, and watching dragon boat races. But this year, a strange phenomenon is unfolding. Let's take a look in today's program. All right, all right. Time to witness the saddest fruit store challenge ever. Tomorrow is the Dragon Boat Festival, and I've got two truckloads full of fruit ready as gifts for everyone, but barely anything is selling. I'm seriously worried sick. Everyone's out eating zongzi, but what about me? Look at the streets. Places like Binjiang. Not a soul in the old town. No one in the development zone either. The crossroads are empty, and even the prime locations have no one around. At most, you'll see a few street vendors. I just want to ask, are people growing their own food now? Sewing their own clothes? Go into the market. It's as deserted as the scene of a plane crash. Don't even talk about customers. You can barely see any people. Watermelons are piled up like mountains. I walked past two stores, and there was barely anyone there. Tomorrow is already the Dragon Boat Festival, yet there's no festive atmosphere at all. I don't know if it's because of the economic downturn, or if people just don't care about traditional holidays anymore. Is this really the Dragon Boat Festival? You don't say it, I don't say it, but everyone silently understands. This year, we truly can't celebrate anymore. Guys, this year's Dragon Boat Festival is honestly beyond words. Not a single soul around. Last year, street vendors could earn one or two thousand yuan a day during the festival, but this year, they're barely making enough to buy a bowl of tofu pudding. There's nothing we can do. China's economy continues to stagnate. Even as the Dragon Boat Festival approaches, the consumer market feels no holiday spirit. No one's buying zongzi. No one's buying fruit. Many shop owners are lamenting that foot traffic is dwindling. The streets are eerily quiet. They've never seen a year this difficult. This year's Dragon Boat Festival? Completely wiped out. Absolutely nothing left. The whole street is empty. With business like this, how can we survive? Come buy something, please. Only four days left. Just four days. Even with good weather and a festive occasion, watermelons aren't selling either. I honestly don't know what to say. This year's Dragon Boat Festival has lost all meaning. Right now, I'm at the Hua Penong market, and as the festival nears, around three to four types of fruit are being heavily discounted. First, lychees. Second, plums. Third, peaches. The whole market is full of them. Just pay and it's yours. This year is truly exhausting. It feels like everything is a struggle. Zongzi just isn't selling this year. It's as if people suddenly stopped eating them. Tomorrow is the Dragon Boat Festival, and I still have many loose zongzi and four gift boxes left. I was hoping for a sales boost, but in the end, they didn't move at all. I remember last year when the northern-style zongzi arrived. Even the Quality Inspection Agency came to buy a bunch for testing. But this year, no one showed up. Maybe their budgets are tight too. In short, fewer and fewer people are buying zongzi. This May has truly been exhausting. Both mentally and physically. Not a single soul around. On the streets, the only people I see are shop owners and market workers from Hua Sen Market. There are very few actual customers, and even fewer people coming to pick up goods. Is this what holiday business looks like? Just enough to settle accounts? If this is supposed to be a time to clear inventory, shouldn't people be stocking less, taking fewer bags? But now, no one is even coming to ask me for bags. Business is terrible, sisters. How's everyone else doing? Let me show you the street. There's no one here. Really, no one. This street is completely empty. The next street is deserted too. It's eerily quiet. Even big cities are deserted and hollow. Where has everyone gone? I've been running a small grocery store from home for nearly six years. Every year around the Dragon Boat Festival, I would stock all kinds of zongzi with various fillings and flavors. But this year, I didn't dare to stock much. Recently, the zongzi I brought in hardly sold. Even when there are customers, they don't complain about the price. But they still don't buy. At this time, in previous years, I had already sold a lot of zongzi. Prices were normal. The market was steady. But not this year. Only three days left until the Dragon Boat Festival, yet half the parking lot is still empty. There's no longer the bustling shopping crowds of past years. Even the supermarkets feel sparse. At the zongzi display, just a few salespeople standing around, waiting for customers. What has caused things to turn out this way this year? A small vendor in Yunnan also shared in a video that she finally mustered the courage to set up a stall selling handmade zongzi in her neighborhood and didn't sell a single one all day. Facing the bleak zongzi sales this year, a netizen remarked, People are struggling to eat. Who still has the appetite for zongzi? Have you noticed that this year's Dragon Boat Festival is marked by five unusual and unprecedented phenomena? Yesterday at the supermarket, I saw piles of unsold zongzi, both boxed and loose. My neighbor also mentioned her company's holiday benefits were sharply cut. In past years, they received various gifts. But this year, just one zongzi and a bottle of hand sanitizer. Many young people, especially Gen Z and millennials, aren't interested in traditional customs like making zongzi or watching dragon boat races. They'd rather hang mugwort, wear five-colored threads, or just rest at home. In the past, restaurants and malls were crowded during the holidays. Now, only supermarket discount areas draw people. Even visiting relatives has faded. Most just want to stay in bed in peace. Facing a consumer market that remains persistently sluggish, many business owners have lamented, In the past, there were busy seasons and slow seasons. Now, it's just all slow season. It's not just that no one's buying mooncakes anymore. Even the fruit market is crying. This has never happened before. Right before the holiday, prices of popular fruits are all dropping. A vendor said over 300 trucks of lychees are at the wholesale market, and if supply keeps rising, prices may fall to just 3 yuan per kilogram. Durians are listed at 750 yuan per box, but actual sales can go as low as 19.9 yuan, with no buyers. Prices usually peak before the holiday, but not this year. In past dragon boat festivals, stock would have sold out by now. Watermelons are also struggling. 2 to 300 stalls are selling them, but prices have dropped to single digits. Some buyers offer 3 yuan per kilogram, which is no longer realistic, as half a melon typically costs 7 yuan. Last year's sales were slow, but this year, consumers show no interest at all. In the past, vendors sold 2 to 3 truckloads daily. Not anymore. Pineapples are in the same situation. Even the best ones sell for just over 2 yuan. Wholesale prices are already low, and retail looks even worse. Goods aren't selling, just piling up, one stack after another, with no customers in sight. Even though we prepared 5 or 6 truckloads of watermelon, they're just not moving. Everyone suggested stocking up for the holiday. The inventory is ready. But the streets are empty and many shops have already closed. This feels like the calm before the storm. Analysis suggests this year's dragon boat festival reflects the broader economic downturn and weak consumer spending in China. As the situation worsens, people lose confidence. Jobs are vanishing, incomes are shrinking, and without money, spending is impossible. Without raising incomes, stimulating consumption is out of reach. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. 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