Home for the Holidays

Today marks my last working day before the start of the Spring Festival holiday, better known as Chinese New Years. The school has mostly emptied out, as most people have travel outside Shanghai to visit their relatives. The city is perhaps more crowded than ever, with people filling the malls and storefronts to bask in Shanghai's new old-fashioned recreational activity - shopping. I wasn't in Shanghai for the new years last year, but in sleepy Yangshuo. This year I expect to be treated to a shockingly loud (and dangerously close) firework show, the likes of which I've never seen before. It should be a memorable week.

Nothing makes people seem more human and similar than discussing important holidays. Having just spent Christmas back home with my family, I now realize just how similar all nations traditions are. People visit family. People eat traditional food (the Chinese eat dumplings and spring rolls instead of turkey and gravy). And people give children gifts (or as they do here in China, red envelopes full of money). Things are pretty similar.

One thing America has, which is rather special, is two major holidays: Christmas and Thanksgiving. Many American families will spend Christmas at the husband's family and Thanksgiving at the wife's, or vice versa. The Chinese and most of the rest of the world, however, are stuck with one major holiday to split between all branches of the family. The closest solution the Chinese have to this problem is a longer holiday, hoping that the two sides live close enough to each other to allow a visit to both. I get the feeling from my students some would rather visit neither...

So as I prepare to hunker down for what I expect to be the loudest holiday I've ever celebrated (the Chinese invented fireworks and don't want you to forget it), I can't help but smile and relax knowing that this is just how we would celebrate it back home... just that Christmas doesn't have fireworks. Maybe this should change.