Most of the holiday is based on the eve, as with our New Years. Chinese famillies put up couplets on the doors wishing for luck and happiness and such。For us， we started out giving gifts。A couple of the family we work with were sick and unable to go to the celebrations, so Linda made sure we went to get them New Years gifts and jiaozi. As she said, they were part of our family and had to have family jiaozi! Linda is wonderful! She is lovely Chinese lady who was one of the first ayis when Joyce and Robin started New Hope. She has been with them throughout the entire process, and now she runs Maria's house of hope taking care of and organizing all of the workers, and pretty much being a mom to everyone here. We then ate lunch together with everyone downstairs, beccause at the heart of the tradition is family and eing together. Jiaozi seems to be a very important part of the tradition, everyone in the family must help make the jiaozi together and eat it together on New Year's Eve or early on New Year's Day for luck for the entire family. Afterwards you set off your fireworks to scare away any bad luck. The last people to let them off are most likely going to have an unlucky year because New Years sets the tone for the rest of the year. If you are lazy and slow on that day, it is thought you will be the rest of the year as well. That is the same reason you want to make enough to leave half of your New Year's dinner because you want to know that you will have plenty and even leftovers in the rest of the year. We participated in these traditions as well with our whole building. The cooking Ayis spent most of the day makin jiaozi for the entire house. Which is about 20 jiaozi per person and around 2000 jiazi. Apparently traditionally all of the ayis in the house take turns coming downstairs to help a little. The set up a tray for the rest of us in the other room so we could make our own. Most of them were the easy and traditional shape since they were making so many. A lot of the kiddos (Dr. Steve's childrren and the Renichs) got a little more imaginitive. I recall a smiley face, a moon, a giant pillow, and a mouth to name a few. Polly got to help us. She is the wonderful lady who helps translate, organize the stock room, and be the intermediary with a lot of the Chinese hospital, translate medical documents, and generally organize the records of the children's comings and goings. She is also one of the silliest and most fun people I have ever met in my life. We certainly have a blast and she keeps me constantly laughing now that we share the 2nd floor office. She brought some exciting jiaozi patterns she found on the internet that she wanted to try, so we of course had to try thosee too.
Us all together about to start making jiaozi
I never grew up so I have to brag about my creations and am always inordinately proud of them :)
Our results! After we made them we never saw them again. I don't know if they gave them to the Ayis or not lol :P
Next we went to light off our fireworks, because it was so dry they had slighty more regulations than usual and we weren't allowed to set them off outside the orphanage. I personally think fireworks in China might be one of the best features. You can buy tons of amazing fireworks of every shape in size for vrey little on most street corners. This includes the huge ones that would count as a firework show in and of themselves. Jin had bought a ton of them and we all met to go an empty field and let them off. It was AMAZING! Lighting off huge firework displays and standing right under them as they sparkle and crash in the air in their varied rainbow glory is absolutely brilliant! Especially when you have enthusiastic little ones around you making it perfectly acceptable to jump up and down, clap, and gasp at the brilliance. Lilly would have me spin her under the firworks and we both had an absolute blast! Not only werre wee lighting them off, but so was everyone else everywhere, all day and night. In China it doesn't really seem to matter the time of day or night, the place, the clarity, or if it is dark or not. The reason for the fireworks isn't the beauty, so it doesn't matter if you can see them or not. It was just so cool, and amusing to see. I probably should have been more concerned seeing fireworks set off from the back of cars, tied to railings, between apartment building with sparks bouncing of the walls and windows. I would be interested to see the statistics on firework damagee on New Years. But there is no end to the enthusiasm. I didn't get any pictures of the display, but here is a picture of one of the ridiculous little ones they let the cchildren let off at the end.
When we returned we were able to eat the Jiaozi together as a "family" downstairs, and it was wonderful. The Ayis are always amused to see the pale, blue-eyed, blond children and their attempts at eating Chinese food, especially with chop sticks. It was delicious! I found the idea of eating at least 20 to be ridiculous, until I started eating them. I decided to refrain from counting. That seemed healthiest. Though some how we still have some left over in the nurses fridge.
That was mostly the end for us. I did make sure to stay up till midnight, the time to traditionally let off the fireworks. I was reading in my room to stay awake when I started hearing thunder roaring. A sure sign that midnight was fast approaching. I ran up 6 flights of stairs to arrive on the roof pre-breathless, just in time to see what it looks like when your whole world is celebrating together everywhere. I jumped up on the picnic table and just turned slowly around, able to see fireworks in every direction. If one show slowed I had only to turn to see another more to my preference. Unfortunately here there is always an underlying smog that makes it difficult to see too far in the distance, and what you can see isn't usually clear. This is especially true for winter when they start coal burning for warmth. Inspite of that it was incredible! Those I couldn't see I could hear, and just feeling like I was part of a whole country celebrating was truly a moving experience. But my favorite part had to be when they let off the fireworks next door in front of tthe prison. Mariah assures me the guards get pretty bored, which accounts for their lovely display bursting every gorgous, colorful, sparkly blast right at my eye level. Have you ever had fireworks shatter right beside you, so close you could almost reach out and catch a spark? Yet, just out of reach so your eyebraws remain intact. I can now say I have. That is one experience I doubt I will ever get to repeat in America. Jumping up and down clapping and gasping in awe on a rooftop picnic table in the middle of the night on Chinese New Years is something I will never forget and will probably be one of my favorite things about China.
No comments:
Post a Comment