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Viewpoints Celebrating Chinese New Year Away from Home
Viewpoints Celebrating Chinese New Year Away from Home | Celebrating Chinese New Year Away from Home |
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| Viewpoints | |
| Wednesday, 24 February 2010 | |
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A few days ago I was asked by my university press office to write a report on how Chinese international students celebrate New Year for the benefit of prospective students who read our website. I gladly accepted this task, believing that my familiarity with the subject would render its completion effortless. But less than two paragraphs into the article, I was suddenly shocked by an overwhelming epiphany as past memories, recent observations and puzzled feelings flashed through my mind, making my simple task imminently difficult.
 On that Sunday, I left home early for the morning church service as I generally do, forgetting that it was Chinese New Year. But when I returned at midday, I sensed from the atmosphere that something was not right. My roommate sat in front of her laptop, complaining in frustration that the weak internet signal was impossible to screen the annual Chinese New Year Festival television show online.
I paid little attention to her customary whining at first, so after her complaint in the background buzzed for a while, it eventually faded. But when I turned around after almost an hour, I realized that she was still attempting to open the same webpage. I approached her, trying to cheer her up with some humorous remark about her stubborn persistence. It was then that I realized she has been crying all that while.
“What is so good about a show that is so out of fashion?” I tried to comfort her. Although I too have many happy memories of my family gathering around the television chatting, laughing and sharing deserts during this show, her disappointment for missing it was completely incomprehensible to me. “My family cannot visit me overseas, so this show is now the only way for me to momentarily experience the warmth of family as if we are still together…” she answered. That day we talked for a long time, but endured the greater portion of it in a painful silence, listening to the London rain drizzling continuously while contemplating upon an unreachable happiness faraway.
Leading up to this year’s Chinese New Year, I received many party invitations, but the memory of what happened last year made me reluctant to join any celebration. But the New Year spirit is magically inescapable, for that the Chinese students in my hall decided to throw a party and dragged me to join. Sitting there and watching dishes of food being shoved in front of me is supposed to make me cheerful, yet as I quietly listened to the conversations, I felt the celebration to be so heavily ironic.
What I have expected to be a conversation of old jokes, common understandings and familiar subjects turned out to be dominated by people introducing themselves to new acquaintances, and others asking simple questions like “how are you” repeatedly to block out any possible moment of silence. The noise of conversation and celebration never died down, but there seemed an inherent emptiness in what was communicated which silently hinted the truth that we were not celebrating for joy, but escaping from a loneliness which this festival so explicitly reminded us of.
Such observations of the current situation made me reflect upon Chinese New Year’s significance for my childhood. When I was five, I looked forward to it because it was the annual occasion where I could see my favorite uncle who buys me new toys. At ten, I loved New Year dinner because I was just getting into the exciting world of cooking and there seemed an endless amount of potato and carrots for me to peel. At thirteen, while residing on a country farm, I led the neighborhood children to play chase the chicken because we all knew this was the only day such childish games will not be punished.
At fifteen, I’ve prided myself over the privilege of being able to receive “Hong Bao” from adults without performing the tedious ceremony of kneeling on the floor, which my little cousins had to go through it in a queue. At seventeen, my excitement on the night before New Year has made me cut red paper patterns all night and fill every single window in our house with them, which gave my parents a pleasant surprise the next morning…
And the list goes on. Up till a few years ago, Chinese New Year for me has always been a time of ignorant bliss, and now I am shocked by how much such memory has faded from the foreground of my thoughts, which are instead filled with essays and exams I habitually use to block out the loneliness of studying abroad.
A few years ago, I asked an American friend whether he celebrates Christmas. He answered in the affirmative but confessed that he personally hates it because “what is the point of a group of people who don’t see each other all year pretending to be so close on an arbitrary day?”
When one of my British Chinese friends was narrating about the Chinese New Year reunion dinner of her family members in different parts of England, the words of my American friend suddenly flashed to mind. If Chinese New Year celebrations, when lifted out of their cultural context, diminish into simply a routine meal, then does it not become bleak and meaningless?
Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not unique to Chinese migrants, a similar process is occurring in China where increasing economic development is leading to social fragmentation and the fading of tradition in most people’s lives. But I feel that such traditions are paradoxically treasured by Chinese international students ever more.
Although it is increasingly popular for young middle class workers to sacrifice family reunion for career pursuits during New Year, having experience separation from family across land and ocean, I would not willingly miss one reunion when given a choice. And despite the improvement in entertainment quality in China leading to heavy criticism for the annual Chinese New Year Festival television show, I know not how to voice against it after having witnessed the way my roommate sobbed that night. My heart aches as I realize that the original happiness associated with festivals will inevitably fade away as societies tumble forward in development.
With such melancholic and nostalgic feelings, how may I approach my original website article in sincerity? |
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