Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Xin Nian Kuai Le! Happy New Year! Get out the new clothes, money, and presents! Buy lots of fireworks. The party is ready to begin!

Spring Festival, widely known as Chinese New Year in the West, is the most important traditional festival and a public holiday in China. The 2011 Chinese New Year starts in February 3. It is the year of rabbit. The festival falls on the first day of the first lunar month (usually in late January and early February), and ends with Lantern Festival, which is on the 15th day.

Monday and Tuesday the streets were noticeably quieter. Many of the smaller shops were closed and the buses were not crowded. Sue and I caught a 603 bus about 4:00 and headed for the city wall. Decorations are everywhere. It is great in the daytime, but much more colorful at night. We took some pictures of the wall and walked down the street to the Bell Tower. It was still daylight so we decided to go home and come back another night. As we approached the bus stop, we were talking about bringing Dan, another American teacher, when we came at night. Sue said that she never felt scared walking around Xi’an at night as opposed to a big city in the United States. Suddenly, a tall Chinese man walked up to us and motioned to his mouth like he was hungry. He grabbed my left arm but I pulled away and told him to leave me alone, even though I knew he could not understand me. We walked on and he left us alone after that. We caught a bus and headed home. It was a bit unnerving, but I was not scared, well, not really scared.

Chinese Dumplings: Chinese Dumplings look like silver ingots. Legend has it that the more dumplings you eat during New Year celebration, more money you can make in the New Year.

One of the activities sponsored by our university was to have a New Year’s Eve meal at the cafeteria on February 2^nd. There were only about 14 of the foreign teachers still here so we gathered at the cafeteria and waited. Luckily, there were several Chinese people there and they were our helpers because our first task was to make the egg and garlic dumplings for our lunch. I discovered there is an art to making dumplings just like there is an art to pie making. Surprisingly, our bus driver was an expert and he led the way. He showed us how to put just the right amount of filling in the middle and then bring the edges up to a half circle and press them together. A few of the teachers tried it, but I was more into being a spectator. 

I have two confessions to make: First, I do not like dumplings. That is as bad as not liking apple pie, French fries, or chocolate chip cookies if you are American. That is why I was hanging back as an observer. The second reason is that I do not like everyone touching my food and everyone’s hands were in the mix. Ew!

Our second task was to take rolls of dough and roll them out in perfect circles about 3 inches in diameter then fill them with the filling mixture. However, the edges of the dough are thinner than the middle where the filling is. Once again our bus driver led the way. I think making dumplings must be a family affair because all the Chinese people know how to make them.

It was now time to sit down to lunch. The waitresses brought out several delicious dishes and we sampled them. They also brought out some dumplings with meat in them and our dumplings later. There was a noticeable difference in the shape of the cook's well-rounded dumplings and our misshapen dumplings with all the insides falling out. My Chinese friend showed me how to dip them into the sauce—hot or not—for flavor. Since I do not think dumplings have any flavor, I preferred the hot sauce for the three I ate. Obviously I am not going to make much money in the New Year. It was a fun meal. Along with the Chinese food, the cook made French fries—Western food. Yum!

The festival is celebrated grandly and extensively across the country. Every family thoroughly cleans the house, sweeps the floors and washes daily things. House cleaning is believed to drive away ill-fortune and bring good luck in the coming year. Windows and doors are decorated with red paper-cuts and couplets.

To get in the spirit of the holiday, I decided to clean my house. Actually, my cleaning lady has gone home for the holiday so I had no choice. I swept up all the dust bunnies. They are so hard to catch because they ran away as fast as I swept them into the pan. Then I dusted, cleaned the bathroom, and finally mapped the floors, once . . . , twice . . . , three times. They were so dirty that I kept mopping and mopping. Next, the windows. I was excited to look outside after I washed the grime off the windows and wiped them dry with toilet paper the consistency of paper towels. I felt like I had been looking “through a glass darkly” as Paul said in I Corinthians 13.

The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese people and is when all family members get together, just like Christmas in the West. All people living away from home go back, becoming the busiest time for transportation systems of about half a month from the Spring Festival. Airports, railway stations and long-distance bus stations are crowded with home returnees.

The Spring Festival falls on the 1st day of the 1st lunar month, often one month later than the Gregorian calendar. It originated in the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC-c. 1100 BC) from the people's sacrifice to gods and ancestors at the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one.

I have been out walking in the warm afternoons. The temperatures have been in the low 50s. (Sorry about all of you shivering under a blanket of ice and snow.) I found many circles drawn on the sidewalk and a burn mark inside the circle. This is part of the festival when people burn paper (fake) money to their ancestors and also bring them food. I am not sure what the significance of this is.

Store owners are busy then as everybody goes out to purchase necessities for the New Year. Materials not only include edible oil, rice, flour, chicken, duck, fish and meat, but also fruit, candies and kinds of nuts. What's more, various decorations, new clothes and shoes for the children as well as gifts for the elderly, friends and relatives, are all on the list of purchasing.

Sounds like Christmas. I have witnessed the shopping frenzy for myself. We went to the grocery store on Tuesday afternoon and could hardly get a cart through the aisles. It was a bad idea.

Burning fireworks was once the most typical custom on the Spring Festival. People thought the spluttering sound could help drive away evil spirits. However, such an activity was completely or partially forbidden in big cities once the government took security, noise and pollution factors into consideration. As a replacement, some buy tapes with firecracker sounds to listen to, some break little balloons to get the sound too, while others buy firecracker handicrafts to hang in the living room.

In Xi’an the firecracker tradition is alive and well. I went to bed Tuesday night with visions of firecrackers pounding in my head. They intensified at midnight and continued until the next morning. Occasionally since then I have heard firecrackers during the day and seen fireworks at night. I understand that this will continue until the night of Lantern Festival, or 15 days from the New Year. I can hardly wait!

There are lanterns everywhere—streets, businesses, and, of course, the city wall. When Sue, Dan, and I went down to the city wall on Friday night, the area was packed with Chinese people and their families. We enjoyed seeing the decorations with the lights on. It was spectacular! I paid my 50 yuan entrance fee and stepped into a celebration. We walked around and took some pictures, and then we noticed people standing on the stairs and around the top of the wall waiting for a show to begin. We found a place to stand and watched the drama/dance.

The first act was seven male drummers and two female dancers. They would beat the drums and dance around. Very entertaining. The second act was two male acrobatists. They were underneath a costume shaped like a ferocious dog, at least that is what it looked like to me. They would jump from place to place and land on four separate poles with one foot on each of the poles. It was very tricky and fun to watch. The front man worked the ears, eyes, and mouth of the dog. Plus, the drum accompaniment would tell the audience when they were going to do something difficult. For the finale, the front person got on the shoulders of the back person and the back person stood on one pole and turned in a circle. I loved it! The third act was a magician. He had on a cool costume with two long feathers coming out of his headdress. I could not see him well because he came off the stage and down by the people. We spent the rest of the night walking around enjoying all the lights and decorations. I have never seen anything like it.

My next email will be late because I am taking another trip—this time to Beijing and on to Taiwan to see the temple and the sights in Taipai. It should be an interesting experience, especially since I am going with another teacher on our own.

P.S. One of my friends emailed me and asked some questions so I thought I would answer them here. If you already know the answers you can skip this part. I am part of a group of teachers sponsored by Brigham Young University. There are about 73 of us here this year in various parts of the country. There are ten of us in Xi’an and four at my university. We are under contract to teach 16 hours a week and are paid about $500 a month. Plus, we are given housing and utilities. This is not an LDS mission because the Chinese government does not allow any missionaries from any religion to come to China.

I will be teaching for a total of 10 months. The first semester was from August 31 to December 31. The next semester starts February 21 and ends at the end of June or first of July. Then I will be home again and enjoy your company once again.



This is the archway looking north toward the Bell Tower a block away. The city wall is behind the decorations.



This is the same archway at night looking south towards the wall.



The grounds are decorated for the Year of the Rabbit. The decorations are colorful and eye-catching.

 

The traffic comes in and out of the wall through three lanes. Up on top you can see the giant rabbit and other decorations.

This is the same rabbit from up on the wall. You can see how large it is because people are walking through the tunnel in the body.

The backdrop of the stage is on the south wall inside the wall itself. This is where the drummers and dancers performed.