January 1 marks the solar new year, the “western world” new year, the calendar new year.\u00a0 But, here we are in China, where the main New Year is the Lunar new year, this year falling on January 23.\u00a0 The people involved in teaching and learning English celebrate both, after all, any reason for a party is good enough.\u00a0 One of the aspects of calendars that fascinates me is that the Hebrew calendar and the Chinese calendar, both lunar, show roughly the same amount of time from “the beginning” with the Hebrew one counting about 1000 more years than the Chinese. However, we have to consider the question, what is a “year”?<\/p>\n
The Chinese translate the New Year for us in English as “Spring Festival.”\u00a0 On the lunar calendar, winter is winding down, while on the solar one, it is just gathering strength.\u00a0 Here in the middle of China, I observed a bare branch with tiny flowers just opening.\u00a0 I have not observed any signs of freezing through the whole winter, but it has been uncomfortably cold, because of that rule in Southern China about no central heat in the buildings.\u00a0 Room heaters are allowed, but you can imagine how effective they are.\u00a0 Chinese people don’t distinguish between indoors and outdoors, leaving their windows open, and wearing their jackets and scarves indoors.<\/p>\n
Our first term is complete, we have turned in our grades, and now our holiday begins.\u00a0 We wanted to spend some time in preparation for next term, but the classes haven’t been decided yet.\u00a0 We’ll be traveling, like all the rest of the Chinese world, to visit family, in our case friends who regard us as family.\u00a0 Then, when we return we’ll receive some American friends as guests for a few days.\u00a0 We regard them as family, so we look forward to their visit to finish up the break time.\u00a0 Then the new term will start.<\/p>\n
The celebration of Spring Festival is all about a new start, good luck, good fortune.\u00a0 It is especially wonderful for children, I am told, because they receive gifts of money in red envelopes—hong bao.<\/em> It is such a simple system,no agonizing over what exact gift to give each child, just the pretty decorated envelope, and the amount for each child in your family.\u00a0 My students instructed me in the proper form for the family we will visit.\u00a0 We should put at least 100 quai<\/em> (rmb) in the envelope, and no more than 200.\u00a0 We should offer it to the child, who will be instructed to refuse.\u00a0 Her parents will vigorously protest our gift, but we should just as vigorously insist that we want to give it.\u00a0 This will happen three times at least, and then we should give it to the child anyway.\u00a0 Since this child is about one year old, I think it will be difficult to follow the protocol.\u00a0 Children will also get new clothes, as a symbol of\u00a0 a new start in the new year.\u00a0 Many people will wear red, the favorite color of China.\u00a0 It stands for passion, love, joy, good luck.<\/p>\n Particular foods will have particular meanings–some according to local folklore.\u00a0 The staple foods of China are pork, chicken, noodles, dumplings and rice.\u00a0 In some families, one dumpling will contain a coin for good luck, so everyone must eat and eat until that coin is found.\u00a0 I’ve learned that the style of folding the dumpling varies according to the region. I’ve practiced the Fuling fold, and the Beijing fold.\u00a0 The flour is high gluten flour, and mixed with water and kneaded it becomes the dumpling dough.\u00a0 It is formed into a roll, and then cut in thin round slices.\u00a0 This slice is rolled out with a rolling pin, filled with the meat and vegetable mixture, then folded over to seal.\u00a0 Then the dumplings are boiled in broth.\u00a0 It is an artistic process.<\/p>\n We consider it an honor to be invited to Chinese homes for this most important of all celebrations.\u00a0 If you have Chinese friends, wish them “Gong xi fa cai<\/em>”\u00a0 “wishing you prosperity” for the new year.\u00a0 And, remember, regardless of any calendar, each new day is a new personal start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 1 marks the solar new year, the “western world” new year, the calendar new year.\u00a0 But, here we are in China, where the main New Year is the Lunar new year, this year falling on January 23.\u00a0 The people involved in teaching and learning English celebrate both, after all, any reason for a party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}