Stuart Beaton guest blogs here about the festivities and customs surrounding the Spring Festival in China. Stu also has his own site at http://rastous.podomatic.com/. I’m excited to share his latest post as we approach the start of the Year of the Dragon. Here’s Stu:
As I sit here, writing this, the still night outside is being rent by short, crackling bursts, punctuated by the loud “crump” of explosions. Rockets scream in arcs over buildings, and the smell of black powder is everywhere.
I am not crouched in a shellscrape in the Helmand Province, but at my desk in downtown Tianjin – currently doubling for early Eighties Beirut, it seems.
Spring Festival is here, not with a whimper, but with a bang – and there are many more to come. The official holiday starts on the 22nd of January, but already the place feels like it’s on a break.
Local courier companies, much to my wife’s chagrin, ceased deliveries on the 10th, and many online businesses have been forced to put up their virtual shutters until the holiday is over.
My wallet thanks them, too.
Spare a thought, however, for the millions of migrant workers who make up the vast majority of the urban construction crews that are building the “Miracle Economy”.
Most Chinese, rich or poor, want to travel to their hometowns, and spend the Festival with their parents and relatives. The usual method is to travel by the backbone of Chinese transport – the railways.
Unfortunately, this year saw the implementation of a new Internet based ticket reservation system, designed to streamline ticket sales, and reduce waiting times.
Which it hasn’t.
Migrant workers, by their very nature, are those least likely to have access to a computer, let alone the Internet. Unskilled, underpaid, and more often than not poorly educated, these workers are the ones that are now having the most difficulty getting home to their families.
This is also the season that construction crew bosses tend to abscond with suitcases packed with their workers’ wages, so you can see that it’s not going to be a very happy time for some people – stranded in terrible conditions, far from home.
It’s also a time of gifting and excess, when little red envelopes (Hong Bao) come into their own. Originally given by parents to children, Hong Bao are now the grease that oils almost all parts of Chinese society.
Can’t get a promotion on merit? Buy it with a bundle of used yuan. Your kid can’t get a place at a school? A nice wedge will get their bum on a seat. Facing an investigation for bribery? Buy your way out of it with a pretty red envelope.
This happens all the time, and it’s not even seen as the corruption as it is – it’s just another tradition… one that I am yet to take part in.
Another emerging trend is the “contract girlfriend” (or boyfriend).
No one wants to travel back home, and display their sad, lonely status (or display their “perverted” sexual orientation) – so why not hire a companion for the journey? For a carefully negotiated fee, which includes just how much “hand holding” will occur, you too can have a pretty partner to display to everyone you know.
After the holiday, you can simply tell all and sundry that you broke up with them… then hire someone else next year.
Finally, it’s the time to eat until you burst – and then eat some more. I’ve seen far too much food wasted here than I care to dwell on, and the image of half a dozen untouched roast duck being discarded will go with me to my grave.
But our house is decorated with paper seals on the windows and door, and red lanterns in the window, and we’ve planned to spend a few days at Ellen’s parents’ house…
Luckily it’s only a short bus ride away.
Xin nian kuai le, folks.
Supin Zhang, I enjoyed reading your comments. I enjoy reading China Daily online and the print version from Hong Kong regularly. Not all their articles are positive about China. They write also about scandals in China. But I share your overall positive views about China. Happy CNY!
Thank you Giora. I actually complained a lot about China, like tainted milk, illegally recycled cooking oil, air pollution, school bus crashes, car plague, etc, but I did not forget good things in life and I did not forget enjoying life here in China; I believe things are getting better.
I’m not very interested in politics-related articles in China Daily, but I do like their life-related articles. I read an article last week about a farmer who discovered an American Flying Tigers plane in the mountains and saved an American reporter who was reporting this story.
Yes, Supin. I read the story in the printed version og China Daily from HK. The Chinese farmer who dound the plane is living now in NYC. Like you, I avoid politics because we can’t do much about it anyway.
I think, Suping, you should go and take a look at some back issues of China Daily – I spent a year answering those questions there.
It’s a small world–I had been with China Daily Shanghai office for about 7 years. I had good and bad memories there, but I choose to remember the good things and I’m learning to put things into perspective whenever I feel annoyed and impatient in life. Life is too short to spend time with things that suck the happiness out of us. If it’s good it’s wonderful; if it’s bad it’s experience…enjoy your stay in Tianjin Stuart and Xin Nian Kuai Le! Oh yeah, I suggest you go to Tianjin Haihe river to see people ice fishing…that’s really amazing…
Susan: Thank you for your wonderful blog in which I can read about China stories through westerners’ eyes. As you are Ali’s friend, I also take you as my friend; I hope I can read more stories about China in 2012–not only the bad things but also the good things. I always believe that the combination of both good things and bad things makes a real China.
Stuart: Thank you for sharing your stories and thoughts on living in China. I really like your writing style and skills, but I do have some questions for you. I’m not a native speaker of English, and sometimes I can’t express myself fully and diplomatically in English, which may make my questions a little bit impolite and offensive. Hope you don’t mind.
1.Are you happy in Tianjin China? If not, what makes you stay in this ridiculous country?
2.Do you have any good memories about Tianjin or China? If yes, what are they?
3.Do you believe you become what you think about most of the time?
4.Do you agree when in China do as the Chinese do?
5.Do you believe that China’s imperfections and “ridiculous” traditions were part of why many foreigners like it so much?
6.Do you have solutions or suggestions when you talk about the problems in China? Take the Chinese New Year trips for example, do you have any suggestions for the largest human migration (more than 3.2 billion passenger trips) in the world for the Chinese New Year? Do you think it’s a good idea for the Chinese government to just give up the Internet based ticket reservation/sale system so that migrant workers could buy their tickets?
I think I should explain here that I am used to speaking equally of the bad things and the good things about my country. In my opinion, it’s the people who really care who speak out. If you just stay complacent and allow the status quo to remain, nothing will ever improve. There are always exceptions to the rule, of course. Stuart’s lovely wife is from Tianjin and he’s made the decision to spend the rest of his career in China. When I read Stuart’s posts about the customs he’s observed in China, I think, wow, he’s super brave to commit to a life in Tianjin living as a local. I’m not sure I could do it, and I was also married to a Chinese national. So when Stuart or I speak about things in China that aren’t bright and sunny, it doesn’t mean we think it’s a ridiculous country (he never said it is ridiculous). We wouldn’t bother with China if we did. It means we care and want things to improve. It could be China, or the US, or Australia.
Hmmm…you are putting things into perspective…I like it…:-)