living room, the movie had ended. I decid to retire to bed.
The New Year’s celebration is as important to Chinese, as it is to Germans. It is one of the most important festivals in the year.
Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, the CNY. Today we want to go and book a cheap holiday to Thailand, or at least to discuss booking it.
After work tomorrow, I will be going to Hong’s parent’s house to have dinner together as a family. That is the Chinese tradition. They will be expecting us and, they will prepare our over-night stay.
After getting ready, we leave home in Taicang to go and start giving out “Hongbaos”. These are the lucky money gifts which are wrapped in small red envelopes to give away during the Chinese New Year Festival holidays. Hongbao comes from two words, Hong (red), and Bao (bag). In China, giving away red bags with money wrapped inside is standard practice. It also applies to weddings and birthday celebrations. There is an exciting story that Hong tells me.
“It is about a migrant worker with a large family who used to spend fifty thousands of his sixty thousand Renminbi annual earnings buying Hongbaos. Family celebrations can sometimes be expensive.
Even if you decide to cancel the event for any reason, you will still be obliged to pay. It is the tradition.”
The first people that we give our Hongbaos were the gatekeeper of our residential complex and our driver. Hong is going to drive, on our way to her parents' place. Indeed, she does, and we arrive safely.
We are in Suzhou, at Hong's parent's home, for dinner. I have lived in China for many years; I have never seen such a lavishly laid the table like this, because I have visited many places during the CNY festivals with girlfriends, to enjoy the sun, and the weather.
The reminiscent ones were in 2012 when my girlfriend Jacqueline and I went to Bali. In 2011, Pan Pan and I went to the Philippines, in 2010, I went to Malaysia with Vickey, and in 2009 I was with my Chinese teacher in Yunnan. But uhhh!! Oh God! I forgot her name, but I remember, I had to put up with the teacher because by then she was a real binge drinker. Before, I used to come to China to meet business people during the CNY. This season, tradesmen have time and spend money because of the festive holidays.
That was a long time ago, it is time to remember. I went to many countries enjoying holidays and spending lavishly. I could not care less about money, and I used to foot the bill for all holiday trips. But since I got married to Hong, I am now seriously committed to Chinese family life. My life changed a lot; for example, I no longer spend lots of money eating out. I believe that home-cooked food is much healthier than the one prepared outside, where many artificial flavours and enhancers are added to make money. A survey carried out revealed that in some restaurants in China, pork is "chemically marinated" after slaughter, and sold expensively as beef to make more money.
At home, focus is on taste, not on cost savings. Therefore, Li Gengnan spends hours in his kitchen to prepare delicious meals.
Hong resembled her mother Wu Meilan in body structure, and she is the smallest in the family. She always reiterates the importance of eating various traditional Chinese dishes.
“This fish is called Li Yu. Fish is pronounced as "Yü" but written as Yu. Sounds like “left over”, means in coming new year you will have a lot of money left, and therefore you will become rich.”
At Hong's parent's home, we also have rice cakes on the dinner table we are enjoying the meal. Hong passes a small cake of rice over to me.
“In the Chinese language, "Nian", means year, and "Gao" means cake, but it also means "high", concerning salary. It is traditionally believed that eating a rice cake, is equated" to becoming rich since it associates to earning a higher salary. "I have passed the rice cake over to you, eat it you will get richer", Hong said jokingly, looking at me.
"Of course, I would love that, who wouldn't?”
In Chinese tradition, eating eggs filled with minced meat, known as
Dan Jiao
, increases your chances of wealth. Therefore, when you consume many of them, you get too much "
Jin Yuan Bao
", a monetary currency used during the Jin Dynasty.
On the other side of the dinner table, there is a bowl of yellow bean sprouts. The shape of the dish reminds me of a lucky Chinese charm called "Ru Yi", that is responsible for keeping you in good health. Yes, indeed, I couldn't wait to feast on the contents within this bowl, after the incredibly lavish dinner to balance the diet. At the dining table, Hong asks whether I know what " Rou Yuan" is.
"Yes, I do, they are meatballs representing the family's gathering at the Spring Festival, which is also another name for CNY" I replied while helping myself with some of it from the bowl. I am munching them unreservedly, after all, it is a day to celebrate.
My mother-in-law Wu Meilan encourages me to help myself even more with food in the rice bowl. China has many varieties of rice, and the most popular is the glue rice.
This time of the year, over dinner, the conversation mainly revolves around celebration and the mass migration of Chinese.
There is even a name for it, and it is called " Chun Yun". In the Chinese language "Chun" means Spring season, whereas "Yun", stands for transport. Although it may not sound that poetic, it is how the name came about. During the Chinese New Year celebrations, around eight hundred million people swarm trains to go to their distant hometowns and villages. It can sometimes be a big challenge for logistics and transportation.
This period is so busy that tickets are sold out online within minutes. Migrant workers who cannot access the internet would struggle to get tickets. Some can still manage to get official tickets without seats; the problem is enduring many miles standing, in a country many times bigger than Germany. People can travel for over forty hours before reaching their destination. Think about those without seats, it is incredibly discomforting. That in place, however, some opt to buy "black-market" tickets, from the so-called "Yellow-Ox Group", albeit at exorbitant prices, especially for those travelling as a family in a group.
After the Spring Festival, the situation starts to calm back to normal. Prices for train tickets go down, but the situation remains dramatic during the rush hours, especially for the many low-income earners, who struggle to go back to their places of work in time.
After the festive dinner, Hong and I receive a small piece of gold, made in the image of a horse's head. The significance of the gift is that when Hong produces children in future, they would also receive a similar piece of gold. This gesture seemes to be luring Hong and me into having offsprings, for her parents to get grandchildren to raise. She has, however, told them that she would rather have children abroad, than in a polluted environment.
On the first day of the New Year, the Chinese usually stay at home. People believe that visiting other people's families on this day, would drain money from them and pass it over to the other family.
As common sense would have it, no one would love to part with their money, more so 'being given to others', just like that. The belief maintains that if one stayed home on this day, " Shou Cai", a traditional greeting ushering in wealth and prosperity, would be there to hold and protect the property.
On New Year's Day, Hong and I travel to the city using the metro train. The newly launched train contributed to the value increase of house properties in the area, including Hong's parent's home. We walk by the riverside using the pedestrian pathway. Farmers sell their products, mainly to the tourists who throng this ever-busy place.
The locals use mopeds or cars using narrow streets, to access the area. Hong and I treat ourselves with a Tofu soup, and grilled lamb roasted on a spit, and flatbread.
After spending a night with the in-laws, Hong and I go to visit her ageing grandparents, and cousins, who were each given a Hongbao. As a couple, you must give money to relatives with children; it is a tradition. Most relatives were living a stone's throw away, so we do not go far. And, there are a few visits