Tsinghua students ring in the Chinese New Year
NAME
Micheile (Malaysian)
Location: Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
During this winter holiday, I decided to stay in Beijing. Despite being away from home, I still managed to prepare for the new year as much as I can.
Back in Malaysia, we always prepare various kinds of cookies and desserts called New Year Cake or “Nian Bing” (年饼). This year, I prepared my favorite fried crab willow, honeycomb cake and butter cake, and shared it with my friends.
Spring Festival couplets are a unique literary form in China and an important custom for Chinese people to celebrate the New Year as well. My Malaysian roommate and I decided to buy a rabbit themed spring festival couplets in order to celebrate the upcoming rabbit year with good blessings.
Also, as a leader in the school’s student union, I also feel obliged to unite all of our undergraduates to gather and celebrate the new year together.
NAME
Li Chen Xinyue (Chinese)
Location: Oxford University, UK
My hometown is Nanjing, Jiangsu province. As a Southerner, every Chinese New Year's Eve, we will normally have southern Chinese cuisine for our reunion dinner, sometimes, we will then visit the Confucius Temple for Qinhuai Lantern Festival where most people will bring their families together for the festival.
This year, I’m not able to return to my beloved hometown for the celebrations as I’m participating in an exchange program at Oxford. Nonetheless, I video-called my family and wished them Happy Chinese New Year as soon as we stepped into the year of the rabbit. I hope that my love and wishes for them can be delivered.
It is true that the Chinese New Year spirit in Oxford is not comparable to China. As Chinese students are scattered in different colleges, we tend to wish and greet each other via WeChat instead of engaging ourselves in physical celebrations. Although I noticed there are local stores displaying festive decorations and even the calendar I bought has “the year of rabbit” written on it, I guess the locals are aware of the festival and somehow participating in it.
There’s an ancient Chinese saying, “独在异乡为异客，每逢佳节倍思亲”. I'm now alone in a foreign country during the festival, and I dearly miss my family. I hope that when I’ve finished my exchange, and finally get home to their side, I can spend more time with them to make up for the emptiness this time.
NAME
Xu Jifeng (Chinese)
Location: Linshui, Hainan province, China
Junpo Festival, also be named as “Guo Gong” in dialect, is a traditional festival in Hainan province with many special customs. It’s date differs from county to county. In my home town Linshui, it happened to be on the fifth day of the first lunar month.
At this day, most household would hold a ceremony to “Invite God”. The procession carrying the statue of “God” knocked on the door one by one and have some special performance.
The performance was so impressive and even unbelievable. For example, some male performers, seemed as being possessed by “Gods”, would walk around with a metal spikes through their cheeks. And climb the ladder with knife as step is also a popular performance.
After the ceremony, there is always a banquet with traditional dishes, such as chicken and pork. I usually help my parents prepare the meal, and enjoy the family meal together.
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Wang Enze (Chinese)
Location: Anshan, Liaoning Province, China
The practice of writing Spring Festival couplets by myself has been kept for about 15 years. I learned calligraphy in primary school. In class, the teacher led us to write couplets as practice, which started my love of writing Spring Festival couplets.
As a child, writing Spring Festival couplets bothered me since I didn’t master calligraphy. It always took me several days to finish all couplets. But as I grow older, the speed and quality of my creation have improved. Now I can finish one pair of couplets in ten minutes.
I create about 20 pair of couplets every year, sending them to our relatives or friends. The content of couplets based on auspicious words on the Internet, but are specially designed for the receivers. For example, I wish them good health and long life if there are elderly family members, and wish they make a fortune if they are in business.
I hope there could be other family members who are good at calligraphy to help me write Spring Festival couplets and share happiness together in the future.
NAME
Elena (Argentinian-Chinese)
Location: Hong Kong, China
Born and raised in Argentina, the Chinese New Year Vibe I felt was never the same compared to the vibrant festive atmosphere in China. My family and I live in a city far away from the capital, where all the Chinese live in different communities. Although the Chinese Community around Chinatown in the capital will prepare huge celebrations for the festival, our family prefers our warm simple reunion.
For the past three years, I celebrated Chinese New Year in Argentina with my closest family members. This year, I celebrated the festival in Hong Kong with my relatives as I’m participating in an exchange program. Hong Kong is a relatively internationalized city, yet it is also a Chinese city, which makes it rich with a festive atmosphere. Even the student union arranged activities for us to experience Chinese cultural traditions.
Some Tsinghua students also share their local delicious food during the Spring Festival.
How did you celebrate the Chinese New Year? What’s your favorite food during the Spring Festival?
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Special | Tsinghua students ring in the Chinese New Year
Writers: Natasha, Wong Rhui Poh, Li Ruojia
Editor: Liu Shutian
Designer: Xia Yifei
Wang Jingyi, Wang Xiyuan, Hua Yusi also contributed to this post.