Chinese New Year's Eve

I’ve heard about the Chinese New Year before, but have never really understood the importance of it until this year. The most important day for the start of the New Year celebration is New Year’s Eve. This year it happened to be Februrary 13th. So February 13th is the equivalent to our December 31st. New Year’s Day was the 14th. They do not celebrate Valentine’s Day here so that was not an issue. Chinese New Year is celebrated by eating, playing mahjong and visiting family and friends. It is not just a one night event either. It is one week to two weeks long event. Think Thanksgiving and Christmas combined. From what we understand the Chinese do not get public holidays plus two weeks of vacation they can take anytime, they just get the public holidays and there are 2 of them, Chinese New Year and one in October. The vacation at Chinese New Year can be anywhere from 1-2 weeks long, so EVERYTHING shuts down. Also, EVERYONE travels. Tickets for airlines and trains are booked solid. Hotel prices skyrocket because you either go home to your family or your family goes sightseeing - the Great Wall, the Terra Cotta warriors, etc. So with this information in mind and 1.3 billion people traveling, we stayed put.

On “New Year’s Eve” we went to one of the Chinese teacher’s apartment to celebrate with her. She’s from the Dong Bei province which is in the very north eastern part of China and it takes her 2-3 days by train to get home (think Maine), so she was unable to go home for Chinese New Year. We asked her what time we should arrive and she said anytime after 12pm. Hmm, does that mean 12:15pm or 6pm??? I tried asking for clarification, but she sort of looked at me like I had 2 heads, because this is clearly a very strange question! In the end we asked one of the other Chinese teachers who was also going to Kelly’s house what time she would arrive and she said 2pm. So that’s what we did.

It was the first time we’ve been invited into a Chinese person’s home. As we walked up the unpainted gray concrete stairs to her 6th floor apartment I was wondering what we would find when we opened the door because there was trash, broken furniture, stains and marks all over the stairs and on the walls. Fortunately we were pleasantly surprised when she opened the door. There was a "wood" floor, more furniture than I expected and it was cozy. Chinese apartments are nice, because they are built so that the apartments have windows opening on both sides. If you live in the middle of an apartment building your apartment will face north and south or east and west. Being on the top floor, Kelly’s apartment also had the equivalent of a roof garden without the garden. She uses it to hang clothing to dry.

We played mahjong for several hours, like 3 or 4. One of the most valuable things that I have done since moving to China has been to learn how to play mahjong. Each area of China has its own rules. I have learned to play both Shanghai and Suzhou rules. It was quite amusing, because Aaron and I were teaching Kelly and Lulu, the Chinese teachers, how to play mahjong with the Suzhou rules and we’re the foreigners! We bought a mahjong set and are going to have Kelly teach us the Dong Bei rules and have Lulu teach us the Beijing rules.

After mahjong Kelly cooked us dinner. The food was very good. Simply cooked, oil, water, salt or sugar but with a nice flavor. There were a couple of dishes with meat, pork and chicken, and then there were quite a few dishes that were just vegetables. Eating in China is a bit like eating tapas. You order many plates, but of a good size, and then eat a bit of everything. You order a chicken and it will come with a few vegetables. The broccoli will just be broccoli, etc. No, we didn’t eat anything “scary,” that would come on Friday, which I will write about soon!

We had a really fun day with Kelly and Lulu. We ended up leaving around 9pm and then went home in anticipation of watching and hearing a lot of fireworks. We've spent quite a bit more time with Kelly and Lulu since then and it's been really nice to make some good Chinese friends. Once we move to Shanghai we will continue to visit them in Suzhou to spend time with them.