Gift-giving market cools amid anti-corruption campaign
送礼热降温 反腐倡廉取得效果

The holiday season used to be a boom time for the gift-giving market and restaurants in China, but the country’s frugality campaign means many of them will have a hard time surviving this time around. Our reporter Su Yuting takes a closer look at how the government’s initiative to curb extravagance is affecting the market and businesses.

At a Yangcheng Lake crab store in Beijing, employees are hard at work.

The Yangcheng Lake crabs are very popular as they are considered a luxurious delicacy. A crab of this size weighing about 250 grams, costs more than one hundred yuan. But they may represent the blurring of the line between a present and a bribe.

Wang Bing, a Yangcheng Lake crab store branch manager in Beijing, told me that orders are lower than previous years.

Meanwhile, some of the high end restaurants are trying to make their traditional "crab feasts" affordable for ordinary people by offering less expensive versions of dishes.

Many say they would like to live a frugal lifestyle for the festivals and holidays.

China’s central leadership is quite determined to fight corruption, curbing extravagance nearly in every corner of the society. Even in Tian’anmen square, holiday flowers have been streamlined. But a lot still needs to be done to make a clean government.