Chinese New Year

On February 12th, John and I hopped on a train, along with millions of other Chinese people that day, and made the 2 1/2 hour trip to Shanghai. Chinese New Year is when the world sees China's "floating population" come out of the woodwork--millions of people leave the cities and return to their homes in the countryside. Meanwhile, in the cities, restaurants and shops owned and run by these people close during the 10 day festival. The train station was definitely crowded!

When we got to Shanghai, we briefly looked around, John commented "Wow, this reminds me of the US," and then we got on the subway and headed out to the suburbs, where we would meet up with Pingping's family. Pingping herself was in Nantong with her husband's family. We got to our station, and Pingping's cousin, Eric, picked us up and we got on a bus to head to Pingping's hometown. Pingping's father and mother greeted us with a smile and some Shanghainese (luckily Eric was there to translate for us), along with an absolutely delicious dinner of nothing else but... HOT POT! Here are some pictures of us eating our first meal in Pingping's home:

Pingping's mother greets us with a smile in her kitchen:

From left to right is Pingping's father, her mother, Eric, and John. In case anyone is wondering, Eric doesn't actually go to Penn he is just wearing the sweatshirt.

That night I went to Pingping's cousin's, Wenwen, house to sleep. She was very curious about me and asked lots of questions about my life in China and in the United States. After all, I was the first foreigner she'd ever met. It was cold, but she gave me an electric hot water bottle to sleep with. She made fun of me because I wanted to wear my hat to bed, but I was cold! The next day was February 13th, which was Chinese New Year's Eve, the most important day of the Chinese New Year. We relaxed the whole day, trying to stay warm by drinking hot water, watching TV, playing MaJiang (a game kind of sort of like Gin Rummy), we went to the beach just to look around (not to swim!), and had a delicious dinner at Pingping's house. Her father and uncles told us many times that they were so excited because this was the first time they were celebrating the New Year with foreigners. We, of course, were equally happy--this being the first time that we were genuinely celebrating the Chinese New Year. After dinner, we went to her uncles car factory to set off fireworks. Seriously the scariest thing I've ever seen. I thought New Year's in Amsterdam was bad, but this was terrifying-- literally legitimate fireworks being set off less than 5 feet from where I was standing! We were laughing so hard because they were lighting the fireworks with their cigarettes. Here are some pictures from New Year's Eve:

This is a picture of John, Me, Eric, and Wenwen playing MaJiang:

Setting off fireworks!!!

The next day was February 14th, Chinese New Year. I actually forgot my camera at Wenwen's house so I don't have any pictures from that day, but mostly we did more of the same thing: watch TV, chat, eat food, and play MaJiang. It was so relaxing and really fun to hang out with Eric, Wenwen and their family. The next day was February 15th, the day of Pingping's wedding banquet. Pingping told me that it was just lunch, but after lunch she was like "Oh yeah, we're eating dinner here too." I was surprised but that is common for the Chinese- they really try to make things like their wedding parties seem like no big deal, even when they really are. I waited at the banquet hall for dinner with the bride and groom's parents and we chatted as much as we could. None of us were fluent in Mandarin, so it was a little difficult. The groom's parents also don't speak Mandarin very well. It would be like a Chinese person, a Spanish couple and a French couple who didn't really speak English all that well trying to have a conversation in English. Here are some pictures from the banquet:

Really cute little boy sitting at my table:

The next day Pingping suggested that Wenwen come to Nanjing and stay with me in the dorms for a couple days before her classes started up again. Wenwen had never been to Nanjing before, so this time the foreigner (me) was the tour guide! We had a lot of fun going shopping and went to the Confucius Temple, which comes alive during the New Year with lanterns and endless streams of people. Wenwen noticed that everybody stared at me as we walked along, "Everybody is staring at you!" She got a taste of what it's like to be constantly asked questions, as we walked and shopped together people would ask her, "Who is that? How do you know her? Are you Chinese? How are you friends with a foreigner?" I think she got annoyed after a while, especially when people asked her if she was Chinese. "Of course I'm Chinese!" she would say.

I had a lot of fun staying with her in the dorms and she got to learn a little bit about American culture. One being that we don't wear slippers inside, which shocked her quite a bit. She was also completely fascinated by my hair products and the like that I'd brought over from the US-- "The words on the bottles are all in English!" she said, "Is there any way I could buy the same stuff with English on it in China?" And I heard her talking on the phone to her friend one night saying, "Her nose is bigger than mine!" On her last night, Wenwen, Eric, Pingping, and Pingping's husband Roger and I went to dinner at Beijing Roast Duck. It was delicious. YAY CHINA!