According to reports, yesterday was the first day of the lunar new year. The Yonghe Palace opened its doors to a large number of incense burners and swirling smoke for the first day of the New Year. According to statistics from the Yonghe Palace, by 5:30 PM yesterday, the total number of people who came to offer incense reached 67,000, an increase of 1,000 people compared to the same period last year; sanitation workers cleared 21 truckloads of debris, including 5 truckloads of incense ash.
To rush for the first incense offering, people traveled through alleys despite the cold. Due to traffic control around the Yonghe Palace area, subway stations and nearby bus stops were not operational, so visitors had to disembark nearby and walk to their destination. "This is what you call 'rushing around,'" said Ms. Liu from Shijingshan at 6:30 AM as she and her sister got off at the Anningmen subway station. They descended from the subway exit stairs, crossed along the riverbank under the Yonghe Palace Bridge, and followed the queue of people offering incense. After about twenty minutes of navigating through narrow alleys, they finally caught up with the main group.
Upon arrival, Ms. Liu discovered that there were already over ten thousand people outside the Yonghe Palace gates. She joked with her sister, "When we feel down, we just look at the people behind us." By 10:00 AM, after waiting for three hours, Ms. Liu finally offered her first incense stick of the New Year. At this point, the number of people offering incense at Yonghe Palace had reached 16,000.
The Beixinqiao Police Station of the Dongcheng Branch has been permanently stationed at Yonghe Palace. Chief Zhang Zhanwang remarked, "The enthusiasm of the incense burners grows higher each year." With the police station guarding the entrance to the Yonghe Palace, due to the large number of visitors, nearly 200 police officers maintained order within the short distance of less than a hundred meters between the entrance and the security check area.
A young man with special forces training "seized" the first incense offering. Guo Shengyi, originally from Quanzhou, Fujian Province, planned to return home by bus after offering incense at Yonghe Palace on the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month. However, an elderly man informed him, "In the north, it is customary to burn the first incense. Getting the first incense offering on the first day of the New Year is a very significant event." After hearing the elder's advice, Guo Shengyi changed his train ticket at the West Railway Station.
On the afternoon of New Year's Eve at around 2:00 PM, when Guo Shengyi arrived at Yonghe Palace with a blanket, there were already six people waiting. Subsequently, more than twenty others joined them. The person at the front of the line was a northeastern woman praying for her son in Japan, followed by a security guard hoping for a salary raise in the new year, and a young man wishing for career advancement. In the -13°C cold weather, Guo Shengyi repeatedly silently recited his New Year wishes.
With aging parents, Guo Shengyi prayed for their good health. Both he and his brother are sailors, spending only two months of the year on land, often drifting at sea. This long-term experience at sea made Guo Shengyi yearn for stability, "I hope for peace and tranquility in the new year."
Ultimately, after "guarding" for 17 hours, Guo Shengyi emerged victorious among the first group of "seed competitors," offering the first incense stick in the northern dawn light. Guo Shengyi laughed and said there were two secrets he hadn't revealed to those who had stayed awake all night queuing: he was a former special forces soldier, so he could run fast; and he had served in Liaoning during his military service, so he was used to the cold.