I was too young to recognize Lunar New Year as anything more than feasts of dumplings and sweet pastries and extra pocket money in red packets the last time I spent it in China. Lighting up fireworks and firecrackers was also just the climax of a rare and exciting holiday occasion where I was allowed to stay up past midnight in front of a TV.
People make dumplings before the Lunar New Year.
So it was with these nostalgic anticipations that I returned to my hometown of Shenyang, Liaoning Province, for the holidays after a decade and a half living overseas.
How simple things must all seemed for a kid.
A jolly discussion of my holiday plans based on childhood memories earned me gentle chidings from the cab driver. Instead of going door-to-door in any random order, he told me I should stay with my father's family through the first day of the lunar month, and visit relatives on my mother's side on the second day. And bainian – New Years greetings – must be done before noon, especially those over the phone.
This sent me into a bit of a panic. Having been trying to fit into the Western society as an immigrant, I was never quite studious of Chinese traditions. I had expected the trip to be a root-finding journey, but it also turned out to be an overdue lesson of long-held cultural customs.
As a starter, preparations typically begin a few days before Lunar New Year's Eve, such as a thorough cleaning of the house to sweep away any bad luck from the old year and hanging up festive lights outside the home and couplets on doorframes to welcome new fortune.
There's also the buying of new clothes – folded neatly and not to be worn until New Year's Day. Before the eve comes, we finished up and cleaned out leftover meals before preparing the New Year dinners – which must contain fish, a word in Chinese that shares a sound with "abundance" and "prosperity."
My aunts and uncles were amused by my frequent probing of every detail of these customs, especially when I was unsatisfied by the more practical reasons for such tasks as house cleaning and having seafood in a holiday feast. Could they be just a list of chores most Chinese take for granted to go through every year?
A family watch TV gala when making dumplings.
The family gathered in front of the living room TV to watch the gala and around bowls of fillings to hand-wrap hundreds of jiaozi – dumplings – to eat at midnight (jiaozi is homophonous to "change of year"). Despite having plenty of room, everyone sat elbow-to-elbow and talked and laughed. It began to overlap for me a scene I almost had forgotten, of a time when I also had not the faintest ideas behind most of the holiday customs. Then, I had not the grown-up duties and could run circles around the adults and misbehave with my cousins.
When it came time for the Near Year countdown, though, everyone quieted down and counted along with the TV. As soon as the hosts announced the arrival of the new spring, the young ran ahead the old with baskets of firecrackers and fireworks for the joyous drumming on the ground and wondrous splashes in the sky.
Finally coming inside, steamy plates of jiaozi awaited on the tables, and someone would bite into a coin and shout with delight rather than frustration, as the lottery dumpling forecasts outstanding fortune for the lucky winner's coming year.
Sleeping in was not an option on the first day of the Lunar New Year, not with the eve's excitement hanging in the air or dozens of calls and text messages buzzing in. They brought greetings from far-away relatives and extended families, and I remembered it was the sharing of joy – not archaic rituals – that strengthened Chinese people's most valued bond, and made Lunar New Year their favorite holiday.
I regretted my decision to return early from my holiday vacation to beat the travelling rush at the end of the week-long break. Still, both in Shenyang and back in Beijing, I was astounded by the emptiness of the streets, as people who most days would be holding up traffic stayed within the warmth of their kin. Perhaps this was a fitting reminder that, in the end, all those years away had indeed turned me into a stranger.
Outside the closed curtains of my Beijing apartment, the same firecrackers were thundering away, but they somehow sounded more ominous with the interspersing flashes of fireworks that together impress more of a city under fire than one celebrating new fortune.
But I have rediscovered the key ingredient that could turn this all around. Opening the curtains, I took a video of a magnificent blossoming of light meters away from my window, and sent it to my parents across the Pacific.
