Chunjie!

We have one week of school left before Chunjie (Spring Festival) which is the two weeks surrounding Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is to the Chinese what Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Independence Day are to Americans. It is the biggest holiday of the year and it is common for people to have the entire two weeks off of work during this time allowing them to travel back to their home villages to celebrate with family. This means that Kunming, our city of over 6 million people, will essentially shut down for a while. This year the date for Chinese New Year falls on Feb. 10 so on Feb. 9th we have been told that we will experience a fireworks show like none other. At midnight the entire city lights off fireworks and they don’t stop until morning!

We are currently in the year of the dragon and are moving into the year of the snake. I am not sure what this all entails, but we will see! We went out and purchased a few traditional New Year’s decorations and put them up on our door. While our decorations are pretty modest, some homes in our xiao qu have gone all out with huge red lanterns, large red eternity knots, and banners.



Our front door. I have no idea what it says.



One of the traditions at Chinese New Year is for people to give each of their relatives a hong bao (literally “red envelope”) containing money. While this seems like a wonderfully generous tradition, in reality many Chinese simply cannot afford to hand cash to each and every family member. Out of desperation some turn to theft to raise funds for their envelopes- this is preferred to the alternative which is to deal with the shame of not giving out hong bao. The two weeks leading up to Chunjie are the worst for bike/scooter thefts and purse snatchings in China. While Eric and I have not personally had anything stolen recently and have felt perfectly secure wherever we’ve been, we know three people who have had their scooters stolen in the past week!

On a lighter note: my parents are coming Friday (6 more days!) and we are SO excited to see them and show them around the city and countryside. They will be here for 11 days before heading to Thailand. We have all sorts of activities planned and I hope they will be able to get a good idea of what life in Kunming is like despite the fact that the city will be comparatively empty.