As you know the Spring Festival is the most important and biggest traditional festival in China. Not only for people to get together with their families, their
friends, but also offers the time and space for people to relax themselves. Nowadays in China, people have various ways to spend their this big time, some just
go out of the city to enjoy the nature, some may fly to the other end of the country to taste something new for them., most people would love to go back to hometown to get together with their families if they are away working in another city or studying far from their hometown. These may be very common and could be seen in any corner of the world.
When I was a child, like many other children , spring festival is what we look
forward to… we may have free time from studying, we may have many nice food to
eat, we may have new clothes to wear, we may have chance to see our relatives and friends… Whatever we do during the spring festival, parents would give us extra and special favor, even if we did something wrong, parents would not scold us during this festival… we could get some small money from parents and grandparents on the Spring Festival Eve. And when we visit relatives, the aunts and uncles would also give us some small money as a gift. That was something very treasure for a kid at that time.
Now I myself am being a parent, having a six and half year old son, as a wife and living and working far away from my own parents, spending the spring festival
alone with my own small family, without parents’ taking care. Taking the duty
to prepare everything for this big festival. I do taste what is like a real grown-up these days and feel the content as well. :D I am thankful that I have a ten days long holiday for the spring festival and could set myself totally free from work. That is really something very great and probably I only have this chance once a year! These days I could be with my family together all the time and feeling so good and so enjoyable!
Neil, you said that you never know what is a spring festival like in China. You
know how much I hope that I can tell you more about it, but when I am talking about it with you , I feel that my knowledge is so limited that I could not be able to describe to you by my words. But the things you did for your kids and for your mother on the spring festival Eve was quite like what we do here in China. So you got the core and the spirit of this festival at least I think. But of course, you are in a very different environment. So you may not be able to taste and
enjoy more of it there. In GD province, many people would go to temple on the first day (especially the old people), if you are able to see the HK TV chancel,
you may see this report and scene on the screen. Another thing is a bit special
here in GD is that married people need to give red envelopes to all unmarried people( no matter who is a child or a single who is the same age as you or even elder than you!) If only she/he is unmarried, she/he can ask you for the red envelope when seeing you at the first time in the new year! So we have to prepare many red envelopes in advance! For the kids of good friends or colleagues, we usually prepare RMB100 or RMB50 for each kid, for just known kids, we prepare RMB10 normally, and we also need to prepare red envelops for the colleagues in our departments when we come back to office later on. At the first working day, our boss
will give us red envelope too. During the holiday, some good friends or colleagues would invite each other to home to have lunch or dinner and have a long talk
with each other. For those who are far away and could not get together, we would phone each other to have a chitchat about the things happened or our new plans
in the new year! Since I did not go back to my hometown, so I call my parents everyday at least once a day. I asked what happened and what’s happening in our
hometown, what people went back to home, which people have not come back?… things like that. My young sister and her husband went back my parents’ home on the
New Year Eve and back today. So today they brought many food to me and had dinner at my home. Seeing my parents prepared so much good food for me, I feel so grateful and happy! :-) How fortunate to be a child of caring parents!
Well, let me show you two pictures which are what we bought for the spring festival to decorate the living room. We like the fresh flowers and the orange tree is a symbal of good harvest for the new year.. Usually people buy bigger orange trees and putting beside the front door, as this one is only for living room, it
is small. This is only a custom in GD province, not stand for other areas. Please be informed that different regions may have very different ways to celebrate the spring festival. No framework is allowed in my city so it was quiet outside in the New Year Eve here.
Ok, so much for this time. Have a good day! My comrade!
Best wishes to you and your family!