The 'eat, sing and be merry' charade was part and parcel of an effort to keep up appearances, in Sinkie context: 'not disrupt investors' confidence'.
Chingay Parade 2020:
Totalitarian shitholes love to deceive and obfuscate information, paint a rosy picture in order to propagandize how wonderful its rule is.
Wuhan CNY feast involving 40k families, 18 Jan 2020:
https://gnews.org/zh-hans/104240/