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Health & Fitness

Chinese New Year GZ Style

The full moon is in sight, which means we can begin to celebrate the lunar new year. In China, this is known as Chinese New Year and also known as the Spring Festival.  Soon fireworks will be sounding each night and local people will depart the city to see family in the countryside or vise versa.   

This is my third year in China, but the traditions around CNY never cease to amaze.  This year the first sign was the rubber gloves available at the street corner vendor. Usually I see shoes, scarves, socks and cell phone cases, but suddenly there were rubber gloves! As it turns out, “spring” cleaning is one of the traditions surrounding the Spring Festival.  People clean their home and apartments in preparation for family celebrations and guests. Therefore, there is a need for rubber gloves.

Traveling during CNY is difficult, especially if you plan to stay in China. Busses, flights and trains fill months in advance. I just watched the film “Last Train Home”, a documentary that shares the Chinese annual trip back to one’s village (available on Netflix). It describes this time of year as the single largest migration of people anywhere on the planet.

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This IS the celebration of the year. Gifts are purchased, meals are prepared and visits to family are scheduled. Our school in Beijing gave us a week off for travel and visiting. Our current school, which is much more Chinese, gives us two weeks. But many people, including businesses like BANKS, take the whole month off.  Planning ahead becomes very important.

Since I have become a good Chinese daughter, I annually plan a trip home to see my parents in Illinois.  Daniel has been happy to “save money” by staying in China while Anna and I take the long flight back to the USA.  Truly, though, it is a Chinese tradition to go back to your home “village” during the Spring Festival.  This year Anna and I will be bring tea, gifts and “Hong Bao” for our friends and family.  “Hong Bao” translates to “red package”, but what it means for the people of China is the annual gift of money in red envelopes that often sustains children for the rest of the year. It is a BIG DEAL.

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Gift giving of expensive gifts and Hong Bao, in addition to cooking meals of dumplings and hairy crab, are Spring Festival traditions that are exciting and fun.  In addition, “hotpot” is a tradition in southern China because this time of year is very cold.  Cold is around 50 degrees Fahrenheit (I know, Minnesotans, you can start laughing now – but there is no heat inside homes here!). There are many traditional shows of dance, dramas and song.  Red lanterns and signs on doors depicting good wishes and images of the new Chinese Zodiac animal are posted everywhere. The year 2014 is the Year of the Horse.

The final tradition that is loud, exciting and beautiful is… fireworks!  In Beijing, they were outside our 21st floor windows each night, for about 15 days.  The POP- POP-POP (etc etc) lasted for hours, making us think we were in a war zone. We are not sure what to expect here in GZ.  We haven’t seen the fireworks stands on each corner as we did in Beijing. We shall see….

To all of you,  Xin Nian Kuai Le  (Happy New Year!) and Gong Xi Fa Cai (Congratulations and Prosperity).

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