Advertisement
Published: February 17th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Apartment
I thought I would give you all a look at how my apartment has transformed in the 4 months I've been living in Beijing.
New bedsheets As Chinese New Year approaches, I find myself feeling very conflicted. On the one hand, I feel that I have adjusted to living in China and feel every bit the Beijinger. On the other hand, this is the first Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival as it is known in Chinese, I will celebrate in China, and I find myself at a loss as to how to celebrate it. I've presented this dilemma to my students and they've been very helpful in giving me suggestions. Their ideas range from going to one of the seemingly thousands of temples around the cities to observe the ceremonies and try some local food . It is tradition to eat jiaozi throughout the celebration, because the shape of jiaozi looks like the gold or silver ingot used as money in ancient China. As the Spring Festival marks the beginning of a new year, people like to eat jiaozi to bless themselves for good fortune in the new year.
There are many Chinese traditions for
Scrolls
At the Panjiayuan [Dirt Market] last weekend, I bargained hard for 4 scrolls of considerable size. They depict the 4 seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.
The asking price was 200 RMB each, but I got all 4 for a total of 80 RMB. I've become a skilled bargainer! welcoming and creating good fortune in the year ahead:
BEFORE the New Year: Clean your home to sweep away the bad luck of the year that's ending. Eat long noodles: the longer the noodle, the longer you will live! Pay off any debts so you can start the year fresh . Decorate your home in red, the Chinese color for good luck.
DURING the first days of New Year: DO NOT clean your home. You do not want to risk sweeping away the good luck of the New Year. Don’t wash your hair the first day, or get it cut in the first week or so, because you will be washing away or cutting off the luck you've garnered by not cleaning your house.
An important tradition on New Year's Eve is for families to gather together and spend the evening preparing jiaozi or boiled dumplings. It is common to hide a coin in one of the dumplings. Whoever gets the dumpling with the coin will supposedly have good luck in the coming year. .
Try to see as many of
your family and friends as possible during the New Year celebration to spread good wishes for the coming year.
Give out money packets - On New Years day, children receive “hong bao”- red packets decorated with gold symbols and filled with "lucky money”. Crisp, new bills are the best to use.
Serve and eat as many lucky foods as possible on the New Year. Some of these foods are whole fish, noodles and mandarin oranges.
Don't cry on New Year's Day or raise your voice to your children because you risk setting a tone of discord for the coming year.
Lanterns and couplets written on red paper are common decorations. "Fu" means fortune, and it is one of the most common characters written on New Year's decorations, aside from "Qun" which means Spring.
Now that you've learned more about how to celebrate the Chinese New Year, I encourage you to do so within your own communities in the States and elsewhere.
I'd like to close with an article a friend sent me about preparation in Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. I would also like to note that I have yet to see
any evidence whatsoever that the following is in effect:
Beijing Plans 'Queuing Days' to Improve Manners for Olympics
By Wing-Gar Cheng
Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Beijing will kick-start a campaign to promote good manners ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games by introducing monthly "queuing days'' and raising the number of covered bins for disposing of spit. From this week, the city government will commend citizens who queue well and volunteers will demonstrate good queuing on the 11th day of every month,
said Zhang Huiguang, head of Beijing's cultural and ideological bureau.
The Chinese capital will also tighten enforcement of the 50 yuan ($6.45) maximum fine for littering and spitting in public places, as well as starting a campaign to educate citizens on using tissues to dispose of spit in covered bins, Zhang said. The government will place more bins around the city.
"Hosting the Olympics is an opportunity for the city to raise its level of civilized behavior,''Zhang said at a briefing in Beijing. ''Spitting and littering in public also endangers health and such behavior is uncivilized.'' The queuing day is part of a wider plan to improve etiquette in time for the 17-day sports event.
The horrid color scheme of our living room curtains
There are even pillows to match.
We had no hand in this atrocity. Yao Ming, China's most popular athlete and a four-time
NBA All-Star, said in October his countrymen must "work on public courtesy'' and stop jumping queues in time for the Olympics.Beijing officials have used promotional material and held talks at sites where workers from provinces outside Beijing congregate to help "improve
civic consciousness and civilized behavior and develop civilized habits,'' Zhang said.
The government will complete Olympic training courses for 870,000 service industry workers including bus and taxi drivers by the end of this year, Zhang added. The courses include teaching the Olympic logo, conversational foreign languages and sign language, she said.
Bad manners are already declining, according to the bureau's "index on civilized behavior'' which is run by Renmin University. The index increased to 69.06 percent last year from 65.21 percent in 2005 because of less spitting and littering, Zhang said.
-Merritt
Advertisement
Tot: 0.257s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 74; dbt: 0.0954s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Your meimei
non-member comment
Happy chinese new years!
hehe, i got a job!