Sand performer Hu Shui makes video of her sand painting themmed on the epidemic fight in China on Feb 13, 2020. (Provided by Hu Shui)

A majority of Chinese canceled their travel plans and settled for a quiet extended Spring Festival holiday over concerns of being infected amid the novel coronavirus outbreak. For those like Xiao, staying at home is a rare opportunity to take a break and pick up new skills to enrich and amuse themselves.

NANCHANG, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- Slicing a fish and boiling rice noodles, 38-year-old Xiao Yuan is cooking a special local dish in east China's Jiangxi Province. The dish, steamed fish with rice flour noodles, usually takes several hours to finish, and Xiao has plenty of time.

Xiao, 38, is a video editor at a local TV station. Running on a tight schedule, she usually spends little time with her family. "This is a special period, and I had fun cooking for my family," she said.

A majority of Chinese canceled their travel plans and settled for a quiet extended Spring Festival holiday over concerns of being infected amid the novel coronavirus outbreak. For those like Xiao, staying at home is a rare opportunity to take a break and pick up new skills to enrich and amuse themselves.

Zhou Jiaxiang, in the city of Ganzhou, gave himself a haircut with newly-purchased hair clippers. "The barbershop is still closed, and I haven't had my hair cut for over a month. So I decided to do it by myself. My wife further perfected the hairstyle with her eyebrow trimmer and we took a photo as a special memory," said Zhou.

Zhou Jiaxiang cuts his hair on Feb 13, 2020. (Photo provided by Zhou Jiaxiang)

Data from Douguo, a cooking app, showed that its daily active users surged by 113.5 percent year-on-year during this year's Spring Festival holiday. And on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform, "home-made food contest" has been a hot topic and received over 1.25 billion views. Topics such as make-up and fitness skills have been viewed more than 260 million times.

"One of my cooking videos shared on WeChat gained more than 100 likes," Xiao said.

Hu Shui, a 33-year-old sand performer in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, has taken advantage of the prolonged winter vacation to teach her daughter sand painting.

Hu also makes videos of her sand paintings themed on the ongoing anti-epidemic fight. She begins with a hand-drawn manuscript on paper before practicing dozens of times on sand tables. After that, she will take two days to make a video.

"My father is also a volunteer for epidemic prevention and works late into the night every day. There are tens of thousands of people on the frontline of the fight, and I want to tell homebodies through my videos that we're lucky and should be grateful," she said.

"Finding a way to entertain ourselves is helpful to soothe anxiety and win the fight against the epidemic in a positive way," said Shu Man, a professor with the research institute of psychological education in East China Jiaotong University. "This is also a good chance for us to explore the rich heritage of Chinese culture."

"Though we're not on the frontline, we should not slack off. Everyone doing their part is the greatest contribution we can make at this moment," said Hu. ■