How Do Chinese Enjoy Spring Festival

How Do Chinese Enjoy Spring Festival

Unlike the western New Year's Day, which always comes after December 31 of the previous year, the Chinese New Year's Day, or the Spring Festival as we call it, falls on a different date each year and comes much later than the western New Year's Day. So for the Chinese people, the New Year's Day of Gregorian calendar isn't the real start of a new year. We will check our lunar calendar and count the days towards the big day of the Spring Festival. However, even the Spring Festival doesn't mean the real start of the new year to a great many people in China. To their mind, the real start will come 2 weeks later, after they have the Lantern Festival on lunar January 15, when they finally say to themselves: "All right, that's the end of all festivity. Now spring is here, we should really start to work hard in the new year."

In the same way as western people prepare for Christmas, many Chinese people actually start to plan for the Spring Festival months before that day. There will be new clothes to be made or bought for every member of the family, new appliances and decorations to be added to the house, loads of food stuff to be bought, stored or processed for holiday feasts, and even new notes and coins to be saved for the children. Chinese new year specials such as couplets and pictures, incense, crackers and fireworks used to be a must in every household, but it's not so much the case in many cities nowadays, which is a great pity. In fact, it's in the rural areas that the most complicated and interesting traditions of the Spring Festival are observed. There are differences across the country and changes over the years, but the basics are more or less the same. Here I'll try to present a picture of how the Spring Festival is typically celebrated in Macheng, a small town of Hubei Province where I had lived for over 20 years before moving to Beijing.

December of the lunar calendar sees the busiest street scene of the whole year. The streets are full of various stalls selling all sort of festive goods, before which are crowded with shoppers from all places. Many of them spend quite some time bargaining before they put their purchases on bikes or carts brought to help carry the goods. There are people laden with bulgy bags, sometimes with babies in their arms, who have just come out of the railway station, walking eagerly on the streets too. They look somewhat different from the local people, but speak the same dialect. These are college students who come home for their winter vacation, peasants who have been working in the cities and townspeople who have gone to settle in other parts of the country. Now they have all come back to see their families and relatives at home. Sometimes friends or classmates who haven't seen each other for a long time may bump into each other in street and there they stand talking and laughing warmly. There is no bus running in town and cars are often rendered helpless on such streets dominated by stalls, shoppers, pedestrians, bikes, carts and more recently motorbikes and tricycles. The streets are very noisy with all the business going on and all the vehicles wedging ahead, but all the hustle and bustle sounds very happy and festive indeed.

Shopping is only a small part of the busy preparations. There are a lot more to be done at home. The house is given a thorough cleaning, furniture items are polished and rearranged, new pictures are put up on the walls, bags of sunflower seeds and peanuts are baked, rice wine is fermented in jugs, bacon is dried in wind, household snacks and provincial specialties are made, greeting gifts are sent to relatives and good friends, etc. etc.. Every day is just as busy as, if not busier than the other day.

For the local folks, no feast can do without a "meat cake." In fact, it's so vital to the holiday feasts that a local adept is often invited to assist in the whole process, which may go on till midnight. First, tens of kilos of lean pork and fish fillets are selected, chopped (minced by a machine now) and mixed into a paste. Then it's put into a big ceramic vat where starch and water are added according to a certain proportion. Next, spices and salt are sprinkled and everything in the vat is blended thoroughly with great force. Then, a huge bamboo steamer about 40cm in diameter with 4 or 5 layers is brought over to hold and heat the mixture on a blazing fire. After 2 to 3 hours of continuous heating, the meat cakes are finally ready to serve. By the time they are taken out of the steamer, the meat cakes have risen to over 5cm thick, round and spongy, steaming hot with irresistible good smell. It's something that keeps everybody sit up looking forward to the first bite of the cake while it's hot and soft. The rest of the cakes can be kept for about 2 weeks after it cools down and turns hard.

When the meat cake is ready, feasts can start any day after the 23rd of lunar December. Many families have a minor feast on the 24th , which is supposed to be the day when the god of earth returns to heaven for a holiday. It's believed that incense burned and feasts had for his sake would please him and he will appeal to the god of heaven for a good harvest in the year to come. At the same time, incense will be burned and sacrifice of food and fruit will be offered before the ancestral tablets, inviting their spirits to come home and enjoy the feast and the holiday with their family.

From December 24 onwards, crackers and fireworks which are signals of feasts and celebrations can be heard from early morning to late evening, gradually covering the ground in red. Occasionally there may be dragon dance, lion dance or folk shows parading through the town beating gongs and drums. Everywhere they go, people fire crackers and present them with cigarettes, sweets and peanuts. To borrow all this jubilance or rather add hilarity to it, there are lots of wedding ceremonies carried out during the holiday which are again accompanied by crackers, feasts and cheers.

The Spring Festival Eve, the last day of the passing year is reserved for the family reunion feast, the most sumptuous dinner of the year. However, the feast can be given in the last 2 or 3 days, for there may be return feasts given by those invited. Married sisters and daughters of the host family are supposed to have the dinner with their husbands' families and therefore will not be invited. As it's basically a reunion between brothers, between parents and sons, and their families, the big dinner often starts at the home where the eldest member of the whole family lives.

A lot of preparations for the family reunion feast are made on the night previous to the Spring Festival Eve. At least 2 gallipots are placed on coal stoves stewing chicken, beef, pork ribs or lamb gigots in different sauces overnight. On the morning of the Spring Festival Eve, the hosts are even busier: baskets of vegetables need to be washed and cut, a big fish to be cleaned and gutted, fresh meat sliced or diced, all in place for the stir fry. As for the meat cake, it's cut into mini-bricks, stacked in a thick bowl like a tower, and then steamed on a pot of boiling water.

While the "guests" are arriving in twos and threes, the older children run errands like serving tea, offering cigarettes or household snacks and laying the table. All the guests are ushered to sit around a charcoal brasier where they drink tea, crack sunflower seeds, sample snacks while watching TV or chatting between themselves. Having greeted all the guests with a few words, the host and hostess will retreat to the kitchen, one stir frying the dishes in a big wok while the other tending the fire in the earthen stove. Nowadays gas ranges have replaced earthen stoves, so the fire-tender can be freed to entertain the guests from time to time. But what is unique about Chinese cooking is that there must be somebody who does the cooking wholeheartedly all the time while the guests enjoy the dishes. As it's often the case, when all the guests are seated around the table and the glasses are filled with rice wine or soft drinks for children, the cook(s) will jump out of the kitchen to drink the toast and rush back to the kitchen where they belong. The guests, on the other hand, are urged to taste the dishes while they are hot and savoury.

By the time cooking is finished, the dinner table will be fully covered by a minimum of eight different vegetable or meat dishes. Besides the meat cake towering up in the center, a fish dish is essential because fish means superabundant in Chinese, and it symbolises a hope that they will not be in want next year. When the hosts finally sit down at the table and enjoy their glasses of wine, they will urge the guests to drink more wine or eat more food, and everybody talks and eats with a renewed zest. If the dishes are getting cold, hot pots are brought up to heat dishes with charcoals. Soon these pots will give out a thick smell and an inviting noise, and with more drinks and food served, everybody is happy and contented. When it finally comes to the point of "bottom up", everybody drinks up the last drop in their glasses with cheers. Rolls of crackers will be fired afterwards to send away the sorrows of the old year and welcome in the hopes of the new year.

Acting like a bridge between the old year and the new year, the Spring Festival Eve also sees that the new year gets its new look: new red couplets of good wishes are pasted to the door frames, new pictures of powerful gods, heroes or heroines in colourful ancient costumes are put on the doors, new notes and coins are slipped in red envelops ready for the children's kowtow the next day. Men or women, old or young, will all hurry to the barber's and hairdresser's(if they haven't been there yet) so as to look good in the new year. Everybody will wash off last year's dirt before the new year bell strikes and go to bed( if they do) between newly washed sheets and quilt covers.

Then it's the Spring Festival at last! On this very first day of Chinese new year, everybody gets up dressed in new clothes, smiling new smiles. Woken up by crackers fired by some early birds who have sit up to see the new year in, the children are often excited the moment they open their eyes: now they have new clothes to wear with pride, they have their favorite snacks to eat with freedom, they have lots of visitors to receive, and above all, they have red envelops to expect and they really look forward to feeling the shiny notes and coins inside. To their delight, they always get the red envelops from their grandparents, parents and relatives, often without knocking their heads on the ground as it used to be. Wild with joy as they are, they move noisily in and out of the house, carried away by good humour.

For the adults, however, the Spring Festival is a day packed with activity because they are supposed to pay new year calls to homes of all their neighbours, colleagues and friends no matter how long it takes. These calls are regarded as some kind of consolidation between relationships; sometimes a relationship may break because of a visit not duly paid. So most people have to get up early and hurry from one home to another. At some of the homes, however, they may just go in, extend their good wishes and then leave with cigarettes or snacks given in acknowledgement, while at some other homes, they may sit down, have a cup of tea and chat. It's at the homes of their best friends that they linger and stay for meals. Quite often, there is no real lunch on that day; in fact, snacks taken from different homes are usually more than enough to keep hunger at bay.

New year calls can go on until the 15th of lunar January, but the 2nd to the 4th day of the Chinese new year are mainly for calls to one's relatives. It's on these days that married sisters and daughters can return to their brothers' or parents' home for a visit. They will be treated to a refreshing dish upon arrival and later to a handsome feast. They can stay for a couple of nights or leave in the same day. Either way, they will be treated as real guests. From the 4th day on, there will be more get-togethers between friends and more wedding ceremonies, and anybody who pays new year calls after the 8th will first apologise for being late before anything else. A visit to one's ancestral tombs will be arranged during this period too. While sacrifice is offered, incense and money substitutes are burned, newly weds and offsprings are brought before their ancestors' tombs to assure them that the family is thriving in terms of population and prosperity.

The official holiday for Chinese new year usually lasts for a week, so people studying or working in other places will gradually start to go back since the 5th. Meanwhile, with many local people returning to work, all forms of new year celebrations slowly quiet down. The Lantern Festival, which is celebrated on the 15th of lunar January, a day of full moon, serves perfectly as a magnificent closing ceremony. This is another day dedicated to the god of earth who supposedly has enjoyed himself for over 20 days in heaven. Now people wish to call him back by making spring rolls with wild herbs picked from the fields, by turning on all the lights in their homes, by hanging out bright lanterns of various colours and shapes along the streets, and by firing crackers of warm applause. The world is made so lively and attractive that even the god of earth can't help missing it. Eventually he is back on duty, bringing with him the real start of another year's hard work.

As mentioned earlier, celebrations of the Chinese new year differ from place to place. The way it's celebrated in my hometown is quite different from its neighbouring towns within Hubei Province. Known as a country with a vast land and long history, it's no wonder that totally different celebrations may be found in many other parts of China. Beijing can be taken as a good example. There people have a minor feast on December 23 instead of 24, make and eat Jiaozi instead of meat cake on the Spring Festival Eve, and cook sweet rice dumplings instead of spring rolls for the Lantern Festival. Crackers and fireworks are strictly forbidden in the city, and couplets are not often put on doorframes. They do put up the Chinese character for "happiness" on their doors and in their houses, but often in a upside down way, punning "happiness has come!" Lots of people arrange their family reunion dinners in restaurants and some people choose to travel to other parts of the country or even go abroad. Many other people, however, prefer to spend the Spring Festival Eve in villages in the outskirts of Beijing where crackers and fireworks can be fired and most of the old traditions are observed. In and out of the city, a great majority of the people regard watching the special entertainment programmes broadcast by CCTV as an important part of their celebration at home that night. Most people only pay new year's calls to direct relatives and close friends, and some people even do it through telephone or email nowadays. Children get much bigger red envelops and they can have great fun at 6 to 8 temple fairs scattered throughout the city, where they can buy musical windmills made of straw and paper, taste snacks of different provincial flavours, watch circus shows, folk dances and Beijing Opera, guess riddles hanging on the lanterns, or even ride donkeys along the street. And the streets! They look so beautiful and picturesque with all the bright-coloured banners, toys, fineries and handiworks on display! Wherever they go, there are people talking, vendors hawking, windwheels chattering, cars horning, theatrical troupes singing and chanting, gonging and drumming, making up a happy busy scene, just as anywhere else at the time of the year. (END)

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws