[Photo provided to China Daily]

 Families in many parts of China typically sit in front of the TV after dinner and watch the Spring Festival Gala presented by China Central Television. But in Guangdong, especially in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, most families visit flower markets.

Set up in the open, the Spring Festival flower markets typically run for three days ending on Spring Festival Eve. As the winter in the south is not so severe, it is traditional for people in Guangdong to buy flowers from the markets to decorate their homes to welcome spring.

For many in Guangdong, bustling crowded flower markets are a symbol of the Spring Festival. But for some, such as Johnson Wong, the noise in the kitchen reminds him of Spring Festival.

When Wong was a boy in the 1970s, he would wake up early on the morning of Spring Festival Eve to help his parents prepare dinner. He used to be assigned the job of pushing the millstone to grind rice, to make rice cake.