Culture
Now the Christmas and New Year's festivities are safely behind us until next year, we can look forward to the Spring Festival – or can we? I have very mixed feelings about being in China and having to face western festivals and also the Chinese ones. I am not the only one that detests the materialistic charade that Christmas has become. The British newspapers have been filled with tales of woe about people going crazy and getting into debt in order to be able to "buy" the perfect family Christmas. Then after Christmas are the sales, another opportunity to part people from their money. The British Government repeatedly advised people not to borrow money or get into debt just because of Christmas. Unfortunately many people did not listen and are now lamenting the fact that up until June of this year they will still be paying off the debts they incurred last Christmas. Maybe you are different, but nobody I know professes to actually like Christmas, everybody talks about the stress, the overeating, the materialism and selfishness etc.
I dislike Christmas and if I dare to tell my Chinese friends I don't particularly like Spring Festival either, they are aghast - Spring Festival is so important to Chinese people they cannot conceive that anybody would not like it.
Why So Important?
As you probably know Spring Festival is the time when practically the whole of China can be reunited with their families. Some people only get to go home once a year so it is a very precious time to them. There are many migrant workers that leave their children in the care of their own parents in their villages, whilst they come to the cities to find work. If you have children can you imagine only seeing them once a year? After having lived away from home all year, students get to go back and be reunited with their loving parents, who no doubt wonder who has been taking care of their precious child all this time. No wonder Spring Festival is so important to them, it is also a welcome relief from the daily grind. My friends are always insulted at my indifference and in the face of their indignation, my issues with the Festival pale into insignificance. Maybe you have similar feelings to me, my family are in England but it is not necessary for me to go home during the holiday period, so the emotions behind it the festival are lost on me
I thought surely there must be some bits about it that Chinese people do not like, but the answer would not appear to be so clear cut, it is not actually a question of whether people like it or not. Most people seem to love the festival, or rather if they don't love it, they don't actually hate it either. Even the problems of getting home do not faze them - being reunited with their friends and families makes up for everything. However it should also be said that apart from the obvious travel problems, there are some other difficulties that have to be faced. For instance when I talk about the financial pressures of Christmas my friends tell me that Spring Festival is not like that, it is not about spending lots of money, but the fact of the matter is that there are many presents to be bought, train/plane/bus tickets to be acquired, arduous journeys to be made, relatives to be visited, fireworks to be let off and dumplings to be eaten. Let's see how some people view Spring Festival.
Chinese Sentiments
Mikey told me "When I was young, of course I liked celebrating the Spring Festival, I enjoyed letting off fireworks and eating all the good food that was around, especially the meat and fish. However when I started to grow up, in middle school I had so much pressure with exams etc. that I couldn't relax, not even at Spring Festival time. Once I left school and started work it started to become fun again, it's nice to be able to spend time with friends, just chatting and hanging out".
Others I asked said that they also enjoyed the Festival, absolutely no-one categorically stated that they hated it, although one or two were lukewarm. The most important thing that most people wanted to stress was that going home to be with family was the priority for them. How many of you went back home for Christmas or Thanksgiving? Probably not many and this is because of several reasons I expect. Most of us when we are in our home countries do not just have once a year visits to our families, getting around is much easier and cheaper and the time we are given off work is also a lot longer, so therefore holidays and festivals are not the only opportunity we have to be with loved ones. Also our relationships are a lot more independent than those of Chinese families, for them the close ties are never severed and so people returning home at Spring Festival is almost mandatory.
Laura, who is in Tianjin studying, told her parents she wanted to stay here to do her part time job instead of returning home. To her surprise they agreed but then two weeks later phoned her and asked if she had purchased her ticket. She reminded them that they had agreed she need not return home. Her mother criticised her for over an hour saying that she was terrible for even thinking of not returning home. She said she had just been joking and of course Laura must come back. Every day several members of her family phoned to heap criticism upon her also. As time was passing, most people had already bought their tickets home so Laura told them it may not be possible to buy one at that late stage. Her mother said "If there are no train tickets you must buy a plane ticket and if there are no plane tickets you must buy a bus ticket. Whatever method you use, you must come home, even if you have to walk". Laura's home is 30 hours away by train. Moreover she comes from a family of extremely modest means and her own part time job nets her 7 yuan per hour, so the fact that they could even suggest buying an expensive plane ticket shows the seriousness of the matter.
One of the questions I asked my interviewees was "What are the downsides to the Spring Festival, is there anything you don't like?" Liu Yan said "No, it is really nice to celebrate the festival". Her comments reflected most people's view. Mikey only had this to say "There are no real problems but sometimes the holiday period conflicts with work responsibilities".
However Queen Zhai said "It is not a question of whether we like it or not". I think they found this question really strange and pointless and I guess the meaning is "There is no choice". We cannot change the fact that there is Christmas, but at least we have an opinion on it, we either love it or hate it. Surprisingly though, Queen went on to say "It's ok". What! Just ok, not good not bad - that in itself is an admission.
Even more surprisingly Candy Yang honestly said that she could not say that she really liked it, as the excitement when young seems to have vanished. I think we can all empathise with that feeling. When we go from excited children receiving lots of presents from everybody, to stressed out adults forking out the money for said presents, of course our perspective changes.
Much has already written about the stress of Spring Festival travel so we don't need to discuss this aspect in detail here, but what I still don't understand is how Chinese people can be so pragmatic about it, they are able to accept what must be accepted, whereas we complain anyway. Complaining sometimes gets the results we want, but if our complaints get us nowhere, that makes us angry and frustrated. Occasionally I think maybe the Chinese way is better, at least acceptance brings a kind of peace. Our feelings of outrage and indignation when we feel we deserve better are sometimes a burden.
Festive Quarrels and ‘Fireworks'
Once the Christmas spirit, and I use this word as in alcohol, has taken hold, many families have their Christmas ruined by the arguments that break out. Experts are all in agreement that this is a very pressured time. One of my most enduring Christmas memories is of my older brothers getting drunk, fighting, smashing their room up and being thrown out by my parents. By Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), all was forgiven – until the next year. Such happy memories! How about Chinese families, do they have the same problem or is it all sweetness and light? Yes they quarrel sometimes, although they are keen to stress that the problem is not so big, after all a united front must be presented to the neighbours, nobody wants to lose face. Mikey says that as he has just got married so far he hasn't experienced this problem with his wife, but when he was young he remembers his parents arguing, although he is not sure of the reasons. A child probably wouldn't realise that the stress of getting everything ready can result in friction. However friction and getting drunk and smashing the place up are two different things. Maybe it is just my family that had these kinds of experiences! Ever the optimist, Mikey even thinks that quarrelling can make families draw closer together. He said "After all apart from family what is there?" His meaning is obviously that family is everything.
As for the real fireworks, most people seem to love them, despite the fact that they go on all night and nobody gets any sleep. They don't expect to get any sleep anyway so they are prepared and they think it is a very lively and interesting time. These fireworks are spectacularly beautiful but they are expensive. There is also the cost to the environment. I hate fireworks, I hate the noise and the smell and I hate the damage they cause. At Spring Festival it seems as if the sky above the whole of China is on fire, the fireworks seem to go on forever not just for a few hours.
My Chinese friends tell me they also worry about pollution, but Spring Festival without all those fireworks would hardly be Spring Festival. Queen Zhai, uncharacteristically for a Chinese person, offered the opinion that there are too many fireworks let off and that they are noisy and dangerous. Actually in Beijing there are rules, people are not allowed to just let fireworks off when and where they choose. Most Tianjiners though are in agreement that not having these rules is better. They reason that as it is only once a year the problems can be overlooked.
Bored to Tears
Christmas TV is characteristically awful, with war films, Westerns and repeats galore. Most people's opinion is that Spring Festival is not boring. Doing the endless rounds of visiting friends and family is an occasion for joy. Mikey said "It is great for everybody to get together, it is really interesting conversing and listening to everyone's opinions". David said that the only boring thing was the TV programmes. Surprisingly Queen Zhai said that she doesn't go to visit her relatives as she is not interested in what they have to say. However we should take this to mean her distant relatives and not her close relatives, as the vast majority of people will definitely visit parents at this time.
Celebrations Galore
If you like the fireworks and being able to enjoy a festival that has nothing to do with you, i.e. enjoyment without the commitment, financial outlay and stress, there are myriad events going on in the city, especially at tourist spots like Old Cultural Street, Gu Lou, the Drum Tower, and the like.
At certain times you will find the streets deserted as most people will be at home with their families. At this time of year I find living here very comfortable as it seems that half the population leaves, although it has to be said that Tianjiners living away from home will return. However as this is a big city, many people come here to work rather locals leaving and going elsewhere.
Presents
Of course the biggest headache at Christmas is buying presents. Not a few people recoil in horror when the full extent of their spending is presented to them in the form of credit card bills. Although giving gifts is part and parcel, no pun intended, of Spring Festival, Chinese people are remarkably relaxed about it. They view the expense as necessary, so therefore there is no need to complain about it. I think that what probably takes the sting out of present buying, is that unlike at Christmas, they do not necessarily have to shop around for individual gifts for each person, rather, families are presented with traditional gifts. Everybody expects this kind of gift and everybody knows what the unwritten rules are. Popular Spring Festival gifts include tea, cakes, fruit presentation packs, and Chinese wine.
I asked my interviewees if they had any post festival regrets about the amount of money they had spent and nobody had. Actually there was one person that was very honest about her feelings, she said "I don't particularly like Spring Festival, I don't have the same feelings that I did as a child, I don't feel it is such a happy occasion now, although I don't think it is inconvenient as at least we can have time off work. Sometimes I feel that this time is boring because most of the time we have to go to see the older members of our family and I feel that we have nothing in common but we still have to keep a smile on our face. It makes me feel tired. Of course when we go to see our family members we cannot go empty handed, we have to take presents and we have to give the children envelopes with money in. I always spend around 8000 yuan. Sometimes it is a financial burden but this is money that has to be spent so I don't have any regrets about it. I don't bother watching the Spring Festival TV programmes, I really don't have time".
