Chinese New Year
Here in Nanchang, I've been lucky enough that my home stay falls during Spring Festival (春节). Spring festival is a huge thing in China and it's their lunar new year celebration. This year it's the year of the rooster, meaning all roosters will have an especially good year this year.
Being in China during Chinese New Year is quite magical. It's also amazing the distances that people travel to be with their family. For example, some poorer workers will have left their family, their children in the care of their grandparents, and go to bigger cities to find work. Throughout the year they won't have any changes to visit, and that's why this one festival is so special. It is a chance for families to reunite from all corners of the country, and celebrate together, wishing the best in the new year for each member of their family.
As this is my first time in China and I knew the importance of Spring Festival, one of the main things I wanted to do with my time off was to spend it with a Chinese family and experience a traditional Chinese New Year.
New year's Eve fell on 27th January, that evening we visited my friends grandparents who also lived in Nanchang city. Her aunty and uncle had come from Beijing to celebrate. Together we had dinner and later in the evening returned home to watch the Spring Gala on TV.
The Spring Gala is a huge production, it was filmed in more than 4 major cities, including Shanghai, Guilin, and Beijing. It goes on for about 4 or 5 hours and is full of traditional performances and comedy sketches.
On New Year's day, we returned to the same grandparents in the morning for lunch, went for a walk after lunch and then had dinner altogether again.
After dinner we went to the new part of Nanchang and watched a spectacular water and lights show.
The next day, we visited more relatives, this being my friends other grandparents. As a side note here, Chinese people consider Nanchang as a small city, but we drove for at over half an hour and were still in the main city (something you can't really do in England, unless you're stuck in traffic!). When we arrived, I was greeted by some relatives and shortly after we went to the restaurant. In total I think there were 20 people, various different aunts, uncles, their parents and cousins.
Again we ate SO much food! And had so many toasts for the new year, as is traditional in Chinese culture, every member will make a toast. After lunch, we said our goodbyes and visited Nanchang West Lake. We took a walk around and visited a Daoist temple on the island.
Considering that Chinese New Year, is all about three things: family, food and fireworks, I think I've had a very unique and traditional experience and had a great view from our balcony of some fireworks set off within the residence.
To end on a high: 祝所有人新年快乐，我祝你身体健康 🐓 I wish you all a happy new year, and I wish you good health😄🎉
