Chinese food on sale at a Tesco supermarket in London, UK, Feb 2, 2016. (Photo: chinadaily.com.cn/Liu Jing)
Moreover, many local supermarkets have put more Chinese food on sale to celebrate the festival and Chinese recipes, including those for spring rolls and dumplings, are offered on their websites for those who prefer to cook themselves a New Year feast at home.
In Brussels, Belgian supermarket Cora started a special promotion to celebrate Chinese New Year last Monday, 25th January. The promotion will continue until Saturday, 6th of February.
The promotion consists of discount for Asian food that is particularly aimed at celebrating Chinese New Year such as spring rolls, dumplings and prawn crackers, as well as discounts for ingredients such as soya sauce, noodles and pots. In addition, exotic decorations are also part of the sales.
Irsuto Francesco, manager of food section in Cora , said the store has been doing special promotion for Chinese New Year for over 15 years since Belgians love Chinese food and the promotion has proved successful at attracting more customers.
"We received a lot of positive feedback every year and we hope that we could enlarge our promotion next year, in order to provide wider choices for our customers who would like to try something authentic during Chinese New Year," added Francesco.
Walter Bontez, a 69-year-old retiree, knows that Chinese New Year is the most important event for Chinese people and food plays an important role.
"I love Chinese food. I eat Chinese food regularly and sometimes I even prepare it by myself. Every year I come to Cora for this special promotion. My favorite Chinese dish is fried noodle," said Bontez.
The promotion is also triggering the interest of Chinese living in Brussels. Yang Chun, from the Chinese embassy, said that at the promotion she finds more Asian goods than at other times and the low price is also attractive.
In Paris, the French capital' renowned department stores have already prepared to welcome Chinese shoppers during spring festivals with red-colored products, Chinese posters, Mandarin-speaking staff and VIP services.
At the Champs-Elysees, home to some of the world's most famous luxury labels, Chinese New Year elements already can be found one week ahead of the festival. For example, in the window of luxury brand Montblanc, a red Chinese monkey can be seen at the window background with customized Monkey Year pens.
One of Paris most popular attractions, La Vallee Village, an outlet mall specializing in the sale of discounted designer brands, has already decorated its village full of Chinese new year symbols. Red flowers and many signs in Chinese saying "Happy Chinese New Year" can be seen in the shopping village everywhere.
Marisa Minelli, senior tourism manager at La Vallee, says recent years the village celebrates the Chinese New Year with different decorations, and offers traditional Chinese red envelopes containing coupons for customers.
This year is also the 12th year of the French post office, La Poste, issuing Chinese New Year stamps. Started from Jan 29, French people can buy money stamps from post offices.
Many districts in Paris will celebrate the Chinese New Year, for example, from Feb 5 to 12, at 13th district, which has a large Asian population, there are Chinese New Year celebration events every day. On the first day, Feb 5, in front of the district city hall, at Careau du Temple, there will be a dragon dance and there will also be Chinese martial arts classes or Chinese culture seminars.
More than 300 French people will also attend an event held by the Paris China Culture Center on Feb 6, when there will be a big celebration with traditional Chinese calligraphy writing,mah-jong, Chinese opera and Chinese food tasting.
