A new year has finally begun! According to the Chinese calendar anyway. On February 10th we said hello to the year of the snake and said goodbye to the year of the dragon. The zodiac plays a central role to celebrating Chinese New Year. One of twelve animals is represented every year, each with it's own unique personality. Typically, CNY is celebrated by gathering together with family and friends, eating LOTS of food, giving/receiving money in red envelopes, and decorating with duilian. The red envelopes are usually only given to the children. Most people get one week off for the holiday, so Shanghai looks like a ghost town since most relatives live outside of the major cities.
For me, CNY meant visiting some of Yang's relatives and family friends in two different cities. We didn't travel too far, but they were much colder than Shanghai. I'm pretty sure I was wearing at least five layers at one point. Yang's family kept commenting on how few layers I wore, but I was not accustomed to wearing so much, even in winter. No matter where you went, you kept your coat on, whether it was a restaurant or chatting with family. The Chinese do not use a heater unless they are using that particular room, in which case they then turn on a single room heater (but sometimes they didn't even do that). That takes some getting use to, and makes the amount of trips to the bathroom much less frequent.
That first night, we went to Yang's grandparent's place to have dinner. Yang's father is a great cook. When we arrived, he had already been cooking for four hours and he still wasn't done! In the end, there were approximately 10-15 dishes. I would later come to find out that most of our meals would consist of no less than 20 dishes! There really isn't anything quite as good as a home cooked Chinese meal in China. Afterwards, we walked to his aunt's apartment about a mile or so away where we spent the night. I use the phrase "spent the night" instead of "slept" because we really didn't do much of that thanks to all the fireworks that were going off literally all...night...long.
After two days of meeting more family and eating more food, Yang, his parents and I took a train to his hometown where we continued to meet family and family friends and eat more food. I was beginning to think that this holiday could be likened to Christmas on steroids. Yes, there were even gifts involved. Later, his father took me to a real tea house where the owner showed me how to make Chinese tea using a tea table and several little pots and poured it into little cups. I will do a separate blog on that later so I won't go into too much detail, but it was very interesting. That's one thing I can now cross off my "Things I Must Do While in China" list: Learn to make Chinese tea!
Speaking of lists, I thought it only appropriate that I make my own New Years Resolutions at the start of the Chinese New Year (since I'm living in China now and am clearly too late for the calendar New Years) and have compiled the following:
That's certainly not the end of my list (I intend to do much more while I'm here) but I think this list is a good start. Now for that Chinese phrase I promised you...
新年快乐 (xin nian kuai le) Happy New Year!
Next up: Chinese Lantern Festival - Feb. 24
For me, CNY meant visiting some of Yang's relatives and family friends in two different cities. We didn't travel too far, but they were much colder than Shanghai. I'm pretty sure I was wearing at least five layers at one point. Yang's family kept commenting on how few layers I wore, but I was not accustomed to wearing so much, even in winter. No matter where you went, you kept your coat on, whether it was a restaurant or chatting with family. The Chinese do not use a heater unless they are using that particular room, in which case they then turn on a single room heater (but sometimes they didn't even do that). That takes some getting use to, and makes the amount of trips to the bathroom much less frequent.
That first night, we went to Yang's grandparent's place to have dinner. Yang's father is a great cook. When we arrived, he had already been cooking for four hours and he still wasn't done! In the end, there were approximately 10-15 dishes. I would later come to find out that most of our meals would consist of no less than 20 dishes! There really isn't anything quite as good as a home cooked Chinese meal in China. Afterwards, we walked to his aunt's apartment about a mile or so away where we spent the night. I use the phrase "spent the night" instead of "slept" because we really didn't do much of that thanks to all the fireworks that were going off literally all...night...long.
After two days of meeting more family and eating more food, Yang, his parents and I took a train to his hometown where we continued to meet family and family friends and eat more food. I was beginning to think that this holiday could be likened to Christmas on steroids. Yes, there were even gifts involved. Later, his father took me to a real tea house where the owner showed me how to make Chinese tea using a tea table and several little pots and poured it into little cups. I will do a separate blog on that later so I won't go into too much detail, but it was very interesting. That's one thing I can now cross off my "Things I Must Do While in China" list: Learn to make Chinese tea!
Speaking of lists, I thought it only appropriate that I make my own New Years Resolutions at the start of the Chinese New Year (since I'm living in China now and am clearly too late for the calendar New Years) and have compiled the following:
- Keep up with my friends back home better. Whether that be with Skype, email, reading their blogs, or even old fashioned snail mail, I want to keep up with what is going on in their lives. Doing that is a great (and cheap!) way to fight homesickness and loneliness.
- Learn Chinese (for reals). No more relying so much on Yang or coworkers. I want to more seriously focus on learning the language of the people whose country I live in. Despite how accommodating, and excited, they can be about speaking English with me, I think it's only fair that I be just as eager to speak Chinese with them.
- Learn to play ma jiang (麻将) better. And no, I don't mean the westernized solitaire game everyone plays on their computer when they're bored, though they both use the same tiles. It's not too difficult to learn, but can take some time to get good at (it is Chinese writing on those tiles after all haha)
- Interact with and make more friends with random Chinese people. The Chinese are very friendly and some get especially excited to talk to a foreigner. I would love to try to play badminton, ping pong and do tai ji (太極拳) with them.
- Incorporate some simple Chinese words/phrases into my blog so that you, my readers, can learn along with me!
That's certainly not the end of my list (I intend to do much more while I'm here) but I think this list is a good start. Now for that Chinese phrase I promised you...
新年快乐 (xin nian kuai le) Happy New Year!
Next up: Chinese Lantern Festival - Feb. 24