Chinese new year

How many of you have ever celebrated or were invited to celebrate a Chinese New Year?  What do you know about Chinese new year?

Vancouver is an international city that many immigrants have come to, people from different countries celebrate their hometown holidays after they have moved to Vancouver. The Chinese population is about 1/6th of Vancouver’s total population , which makes it one of the biggest groups of immigrants. People now are familiar with the red poems, dancing dragons and lions parade and red money packets during Chinese New Year. But how many of you know the origin of this festival?

       Let me ask you three questions to begin:

l  Is Chinese new year the same day as North American new year?

l   Is the date fixed every year? Such as Jan 31st this year?

l   Do we decorate Christmas trees at our home on Chinese new year?

Let me explain it more to you in my speech.

Chinese new year, also known as the lunar new year, is the most important holiday for Chinese people. It is celebrated on the 1^st day of the 1^st month of the Chinese calendar, which varies every year.

Chinese new year has been celebrated for more than four thousand years. So how long does Chinese new year last? Chinese new year starts from the 1^st day of lunar new year and ends on the 15^th day ,which we call the Lantern Festival, so literally, there are 15 days for Chinese to celebrate.

So what do we do at Chinese new year? Most importantly we go outside and greet our friends and family. We greet each other by saying “wish you a happy new year and Gong Xi Fa Cai“,which means “have a happy and prosperous new year”.

For kids, they dress in new clothes and visit their family’s older people. Usually kids have new year’s eve dinner at their grandparents’ home with their parents. On the eve, kids say “Happy new year and wish you a healthy and lucky new year” to grandparents, aunties and uncles, they will receive red packets which contain money. After dinner, they can watch Spring Festival Party on TV, which is a tradition and then they can watch or light fireworks.

For parents, they started to do shopping several weeks ago. They also do house cleaning and post the red poems with blessings and good wishes above and beside their doors before new year’s eve. In addition to those, they will prepare for a big fest for the upcoming new year’s party on new year eve. It’s usually the wife who does the majority of the preparation work.

Then what can we not do on Chinese new year? Since Chinese new year is a very old festival, which started five thousand years ago, there are lots of superstitions about it. People even nowadays, they follow the traditions: they need to put knives away, not have haircut on new year’s day; not wear white or black clothing, since these are the traditional colors of mourning; not wash your hair for the first three days of the New Year, because the Chinese word for hair is a homonym for the Chinese word for wealth; not quarrel; not break any dishes, otherwise you may incur more misfortune; not greet people who are in mourning; not say the number 'four' (Number 4 is Chinese homonym for death) or mention death; do not borrow or lend money; not send books to someone as a gift, etc.

Lastly, I would like to tell you two legendary stories about the red packets and red poems so that you can understand why there are red packets and red poems of blessings.

It was said that a monster called Nian always came out to villages and destroyed everything on New Years Eve. People found that Nian would be scared away after they put red poems on the outside wall of their house and lit fireworks. So that’s why Chinese new year is also called “Nian” .

Another monster always came out on New Years Eve after kids fell asleep. This monster would touch kids’ forehead when they were sleeping, after that the kids would become very sick the next morning. One young couple found that after putting red packets under their kid’s pillow, the monster would not dare to touch them anymore. That’s why parents usually put red packets under their kids’ pillows on New Year’s Eve.

The above two stories can explain why Chinese people like red color very much. They believe red color can keep bad things away and bring them good luck.

To summarize, Chinese new year produces continuity to the past, contains superstitions to the modern life. It gives us an opportunity to visit older people and have family reunions and connecting with people. It put an end to one year and looks to the future.

Survival vs revival

Last Sunday when I went to my church, I was greatly inspired by the Pastor’s words: Our god helps us not just to survive but also to revive.

After leaving the church, I have been thinking of the differences between survive and revive for a while. In our daily lives, how many people live because they are surviving? On a sky train or on a street, people are busy heading for their destination, either for work or study. How many of them survive without knowing their purpose for living?

In my opinion, the differences between surviving and reviving are huge: To survive, people just have to physically be living. They breathe air in and out  because their body needs it to live. They eat because they need food to maintain their energy. They sleep because they need sleep to rest. They work or study because they have to.

But reviving is very different. Reviving is like we are shaken up and reborn. We live in a new way  purposely energetically and positively.

Look around you and try to ask people if they understand the true differences of the two words, you may be surprised to see that unfortunately lots of people are living in a surviving way, which is a passive one.

People often introduce themselves like this: I have to work because I need to feed my family. I have to compliment my supervisor because I need my job. I have to work in my current occupation because this is the only job I know how to do…

One day my friend told me that she did not enjoy her job as a software engineer but she had no choice. She has been working as a software engineer for 10 years and she is not able find a different job. Although she has been working that way for 10 years she said she really hated it. In my opinion, life especially work has to be enjoyable, otherwise, life is sad.

Usually I meet with my friends who have children like me on weekends. When we talk about our kids’ education, mothers exchange ideas on after school programs for their kids. Some mothers say they need to send their kids to piano lessons because their friends’ kids are having piano lessons; Some of their friends’ kids are having swimming classes so they need to register their kids for swimming lessons as well.

One day I asked them: “Do your kids enjoy playing piano? “ One mother felt frustrated and said:” Everyday when I ask my kid to play piano, I will be very angry in the end since he always says that he is not interested in piano practicing. Or sometimes he just does not want to play. I have told him many times that piano practicing is very good for his brain exercies because he uses both his hands ,but he just does not listen.  He does not understand how much I have done for him on piano. I have spent lots of money on his piano lessons and I have purchased a piano for 5000 dollars. Sometimes he said he really hated the piano. As a result, almost everyday we fight about the piano.”

I had those feelings when my kid first came to Canada. I was afraid that his learning would not be as good as the other kids in school since he was new here and his English was not that good. Like other mothers, I registered him in lots of afterschool programs and one day I found that his playdate could only be arranged on Sunday since it is the only day that he has no class.

One day, my kid protested: “Mom, I am tired of going to classes, I just do not have time to play with my friends now.”

That night, I reviewed my son’s schedule and I realized that his schedule was too full. I realized that the true reason for me to register him in lots of the classes was because I was worrying that if he did not go to those classes his progress would be not as good as his friends.

Later, I sat down with my kid and asked him if he would like to cancel some afterschool classes and he said yes. Now he goes to those classes that he really enjoys. After that I was revived as a mother because I care about my child’s interest and inner requirements differently.

Similar to my software engineer friend, lots of people are working in jobs that they do not enjoy. When they are asked why they don’t quit their job and work on something else they really like, they usually said that is the only job they know how to do.

One day one of my friends quit his decent job. I asked him the reason as I understood that he had done very well on his work and his career was promising in a fortune 500 company. He said, he had been too busy to enjoy life with his family. The job that he really enjoys is the balanced one. As a result, he made a big decision to quit his job after 10 years’ service in the company since he wanted to change a way of life. Now he is working in a smaller company but he really likes it. Since then he can have a more vivid, energetic and enjoyable life instead of being a workaholic as before.

So what is your experience of revival?