Family members of Myanmar-Chinese residing in Myanmar's biggest city of Yangon were fighting their way through the congested Chinatown roadside market, making special new year purchase to prepare for family reunification functions ahead of the "Ox" year.

Specially, housewives of resident Chinese families were waiting for the delivery of home-made Chinese traditional cake made of glutinous rice flour to be bought back homes along with various other items of new year special purchase

This was a scene at the heart of the Chinatown in Yangon Sunday morning, the eve of the Chinese new year.

The 24-hour temporary Chinatown new year open air market was traditionally extended from the roadside to occupy half of the main traffic road especially at this time to accommodate new year purchase.

Crowded with a wave of customers, the market was filled with countless items of new year special purchase goods, mostly imported across border from China. These items covered red lanterns in various sizes, replicas of firecracker, golden blocks and coins, paintings featuring the spring festival including antithetical couplets, sweets and biscuits, meat and vegetable, and other decoration materials for the festival.

In fact, Chinese residents in Yangon started the preparatory activities for the spring festival days ago.

In the afternoon on the eve day, families of Chinese residents, inherited with Chinese traditions and customs, used to prepare their meal in the nicest form all year round which is rich with meat, especially pork, chicken and duck, wine and beverages, and had their lunches deliciously after paying worship to their ancestors, the signboards of whom are generally erected at the wall of their apartments for almost all families.

Joyful children were seen in small groups beating up their minor drums and making house-to-house call with lion dances performances to bless for wealth of the residents. They were presented with "Hong Bao" (red packet with money put inside) in return for their calls.

Some Myanmar-Chinese family members told Xinhua that they are going to spend the night of the new year eve by staying up late orall night to observe the moment of changing to a new calendar year with part of their family members planning to go to some Buddhist temples at the night to pay homage to Lord Buddha and Guanyin, the goddess of mercy in Buddhist legend.

There are two relatively larger temples in the Chinatown, one is Guangdong natives' and another Fujian natives'. Both temples are expected to be immediately overfilled with pilgrims as soon as big drums at the temples are beaten at punctual 24:00 hours to signal the ushering in of the new year.

Some local Chinese family members told Xinhua that on the 1st of the Chinese calendar year, they will go on picnic to areas of recreation and relaxation such as pagodas, temples, zoos and gardens, and spend the day time there.

Some people are arranging to visit their close relatives as new year calls to exchange seasonable gifts, a Yangon resident said.

In fact, the Chinese community has been making full preparations for celebrating the traditional spring festival since weeks ago especially with arts and cultural organizations conducting rehearsals of their musical and dancing programs to be presented at their respective shows scheduled on the new year days.