It’s official! I have now finally completed the Fall semester portion of my program! I am elated to be able to take a bit of a breather from all the formal schoolwork. I have definitely noticed that my Chinese has improved quite a bit from all of the writing and presentations that this program requires but there is still a lot of work to be done in order to reach the final goal of this program, which is receiving a Superior on the Oral Proficiency Interview exam administered at the culmination of this program. I plan to continue improving my Chinese on a daily basis in the second half of this program in the same manner that I did during the first half in order to utilize this unique immersion opportunity as best as I can.
The Chinese New Year is also fast approaching, and this holiday is a much bigger event than celebrating the New Year back home or even Christmas. One big difference is that on this holiday, many families return to their hometowns no matter where they are located in the country. This affects many businesses and tourist sites as many of them are closed. But this isn’t just a day or two of celebrations, but rather celebrating the Chinese New Year continues for two full weeks! I can’t think of any official holiday back home where we get this much time off and I have personally been affected by this long break period. Ever since I stumbled upon a famous lamp soup shop in my area, I have been eating breakfast there faithfully every morning for almost three months. And yes, it’s that good! Having to endure the reality that they will be missing in action for two full weeks has been quite the challenge!
In class, we learned the story of the Chinese New Year. The story goes that every winter a ferocious monster named Nian would visit villages in ancient China and eat the residents since the food in the mountain was scare. But one year during one of Nian’s attacks, the villagers accidentally dropped some bamboo in a fire. The bamboo began to explode loudly, and this scared Nian away. After that, the villagers realized that Nian was afraid of three things–the color red, fire, and loud sounds. From then on, the practice of setting off fireworks was done every year in winter to ward off evil spirits and this is tradition that has continued to this very day.
I will say though, that the celebration of the Chinese New Year is a much family-oriented than back home. On New Year’s Day in Hawaii, there are fireworks all over the city in every neighborhood almost as if there is a contest to see who can put on the most ostentatious show. Here in Nanjing, at least, it has been extremely quiet and I don’t think I have seen any public celebrations anywhere. All the celebrations are taking place on a smaller scale in everyone’s hometown as opposed to the grand community celebrations carried out back home. I look forward to a prosperous Year of the Rat!
Tony in China 