Spring Festival Diaries
For Spring Festival, Beijing dons its best and brightest colors, making it my favorite time of the year.
Tnight. We rounded up necessary supplies such as dumpling ingredients, tons of snacks and wine and baijiu ( liquor) to toast at midnight and assembled at my Chinese-American friend Jenny’s home. She had learned how to make dumplings from her grandmother ages ago and became our “tutor” for the evening, teaching us how to make the filling, then pleat and fold the dough into jiaozi . However, given our absolutely terrible culinary skills, our work produced more “balls of dough that vaguely resemble jiaozi ” than actual jiaozi . Either way, they tasted delicious. After dinner, we set out to Houhai Lake to view fireworks. The entire city was decked with red- andgolden lanterns, and the joyous mood consumed everyone. I had even caught a glimpse of my otherwise- grumpy neighbors smiling earlier in the day. The weather was chilly, and we sat huddled on the edge of the completely frozen lake eating dumplings and sipping baijiu every few minutes to warm up. Thanks to the Hangover-to-end-All-hangovers the next day, none of us dared to engage in such a celebration again for at least an entire year.
Over the rest of the holiday week, I visited Harbin in the far, icy northern province of Heilongjiang to see the annual ice & snow festival, which is one of my favorite memories of China to date. My first Spring Festival, filled with friends, nds, great food and good cheer, ended ed up with setting the bar very high h for all future Chinese New Year r celebrations.
The second year, I went south th instead, and Chinese New Year’s s Eve ended up as an adventure again, but of a slightly different kind. My boyfriend, who I met in Beijing, accompanied me on a trip rip to Shanghai. We arrived in the southuthern city late on Chinese New Year’s ear’s Eve, having completely forgotten en that most places would be closed. d. We arrived at a restaurant for dinner nner only to find it shut and couldn’t find a taxi anywhere. Just as we were beginning to stomach the possibilbility of walking for hours to our hotel, rescue came through. We finally y found a cab operated by a festive e driver who, after learning of our r predicament, took us to a restaurant urant he knew that was miraculously still open. Our meal of delicious shengengjianbao ( pan-fried stuffed buns) was a fitting welcome to Shanghai. Over the course of the next week there, re, including a day trip to Hangzhou, ou, we had a wonderful time. The entire ntire city was united in its celebratory y spirit. We even bought an ornate e “fu” (meaning “happiness”) poster ster to stick on our doors back in Beijing. eijing.
That year I started to grasp how massive the roughly 40- day-long g chunyun ( Spring Festival travel
season) is. The sudden emptying out and quiet because of chunyun happens in cities all over China, but due to Beijing’s sheer size and frenetic activity, it’s most apparent there. Not only does a large part of its population go back to their hometowns, but many of its foreign residents also travel home or elsewhere for a vacation. If you happen to stay in Beijing over the Spring Festival holiday week, you better stock up on groceries and other supplies in advance because most places will close for business. A few foreign- owned restaurants and supermarket chains may remain open but it’s best to be prepared. During the month, I tend to endure brutal malatang (a spicy Sichuan-style food) withdrawal symptoms.
At the end of the day, Beijing during Spring Festival is my favorite time of the year, perhaps even more so than Beijing in autumn, which may be an unpopular opinion. It’s truly something else. Everything looks a little bit brighter, and everyone is happier and a bit more patient. Temple fairs, lined with rows and rows of shops and food stalls, are organized at some of the city’s loveliest tourist spots such as the Summer Palace and Ditan Park. Venturing into the hallowed Daoxiangcun traditional bakery to buy sweet treats is one of my favorite activities around Spring Festival. My first time there, I stood in one of many endless lines, nervous about what exactly I should buy— it seemed like too many choices! A young Chinese man in the line next to mine spoke English. We got talking and he pointed and described almost every single sweet to me. By the time my turn arrived, I knew exactly what I wanted. “The gift boxes are meant to be packed tightly,” he told me. “If there is any room left between sweets, people buy smaller ones to fill in. The idea is for the boxes to be overflowing to symbolize surplus and prosperity.”
This year ahead of my third Spring Festival in China, I again purchased one of the bakery’s special sweets shaped like a pig. Like its inspiration, it was absolutely delicious, as I hope the coming year turns out to be.