That PhD Life: Happy Year of the Dragon!

For many Chinese, the month surrounding the 15-day chunjie (春节, or Spring Festival, known as Chinese New Year in the West) means the annual chunyun (春运, or spring wind) when the millions of undocumented migrant workers in the cities come out of the woodwork and embark on a massive migration home to the countryside to celebrate the new year. One by one the family-owned businesses and restaurants close down and the street food disappears as the migrant workers return home. The owners of my favorite neighborhood noodle restaurant a few houses down from me returned home to Anhui Province last week for chunjie. Anhui is a poor, landlocked province about 4 hours to the west with a primarily agricultural sector that many of Nanjing's migrant workers call home. Here is a picture of that noodle place on my street, all closed down:

All locked-up for chunjie

Here are some pictures of what my neighborhood looks like when everyone closes up shop for chunjie. *A note on vocabulary: chunjie refers to the 15-day Spring Festival that begins with the first day of the lunar new year, welcoming the upcoming spring season. New Year is also used in Chinese to refer to this holiday, usually when referring to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. However, both terms are, for the most part, used interchangeably in Chinese.


I was sad when I woke up one morning and the steamed bun place was shut-down. Wishing the owners a happy new year with their families!

"We Chinese are obligated to return home for chunjie, it's not optional. Returning home is an observance, it's a rite, you know, for us to honor the relatives in our hometown by personally wishing them a happy and fortune-filled new year," explained Grandpa Shen, a 75-year-old neighbor and life-long resident of Old Nanjing. Grandpa Shen and I have one more thing in common besides our street address. Though our reasons are different, he and I both will not be returning home for chunjie. Old Nanjing is his home and always has been. During chunjie in Nanjing, only the locals are left, known as bendiren (本地人, or indigenous). The locals....and, well, me.

During the week leading up to Chinese New Year (春节, chunjie), various people I met on the street, both strangers and friends alike, would animatedly exclaim, "You're not going home for chunjie??" I couldn't go anywhere without hearing this. I had the same conversation over and over again: No, I was not going home for the New Year, and no, I wasn't homesick, and no, my parents weren't upset about it.

After several conversations with genuinely concerned, shocked, and anxious neighbors and strangers protesting the fact that I was, indeed, not returning home for the New Year, one day I finally discovered the response that would satisfy them: "We Americans don't celebrate chunjie, so it's not really a tradition for me to go home during this time. January is a boring month in America." Although sometimes people will respond with a shocked, "You don't celebrate chunjie in America??" for the most part, people will nod in response, a sign that they were satisfied with my answer: they understood and were not worried about me.

This happens a lot in my neighborhood when I respond to questions with "inappropriate" answers. I've had to slowly learn how to respond to questions that will satisfy the questioner. I say I've eaten when I haven't yet, I say I'm not cold when I am, I say I'm used to living in an old house without an toilet when I'm not, and I say I'm not tired when I am. Otherwise I will be bombarded with advice, anxiety, shock, and concern. And the same went with the New Year, but it took me a couple days before I found an answer that would satisfy them.

The Muslim family that runs a noodle restaurant in my neighborhood understands how I feel. "We're Hui Muslim, it's an ethnic minority in China you know, so we don't go home or close the restaurant over the holiday. We have no feelings whatsoever about celebrating chunjie, it doesn't mean anything to us except that business gets bad because everyone goes home for the holiday. Although we don't have time to go home for Ramadan either..." I told that's how it was for me with Christmas and we bonded.

The days leading up to the New Year was full of excitement and anticipation as people were rushing around buying gifts for family, decorations for the house, and food for the New Year dinner. The malls were packed with shoppers buying new clothes, going out to eat at Pizza Hut, and buying presents. The neighborhood kids were hyper: they were off from school and spent their days and evening running around outside and screaming.

During the month before chunjie, it is an Old Nanjing tradition to start salting meat in preparation for the new year. The most common meat is hanging salted sausage and lamb as seen above, but fish and duck are also salted and hung up to dry in the sun. You can see sausage hanging outside of almost every home.

Making dumplings is an important New Year tradition, since eating dumplings, which look like little money bags, brings good luck and fortune in the new year. Here a neighbor makes dumplings by frying an egg in a ladle over a coal-burning stove and putting the small pieces of pork inside before wrapping it closed.

Putting up lanterns outside the local tax collecting agency

The local snacks store stocks up on traditional hospitality snacks that are given to guests, like sunflower seeds, candy and nuts. This store specializes in individually wrapped hospitality snacks that are wildly popular and considered high-class.

The local chain supermarket decorated for the New Year. The supermarket was the only place in town still open on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Traditional salted fish drying in the sun in preparation for the New Year.

Across the street from my house, they had a huge Jiangsu-Taiwan cross-strait cooperative New Year's festival at the ancient city wall gate. Only government officials were allowed to attend, but we got to watch the rehearsals during the week before (which got annoying sometimes because the drumming and music was so loud). They spent over a week preparing for the big lights festival. Here are some pictures from the city wall festival preparations.

Audio tech guys setting up by the city wall gate

Animal light fixtures for the light festival. Here we have the rooster, cat, pig and horse I believe (there are 12 animals that rotate their turns for the New Year, this is the year of the dragon, an especially auspicious one)

At night, they would test the lights and big screen TV. Here is the main screen, which reads, "祥龙跃两岸，盛世共和谐" It's hard to translate, but it essentially means, "The auspicious dragon leaps over the Taiwan Strait, and the golden age will be shared harmoniously."

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Lanterns and red light fixtures set up on the city wall

Drumming rehearsal at the city wall gate for the Taiwan-Jiangsu festival

City Wall all dressed up for the New Year

Dragon!

Actually the "taste of the New Year", as it's called in Chinese, tastes a lot like Christmas. It's a general feeling of excitement and anticipation mixed with calm. New Year's Eve and Day was extremely peaceful. Almost everyone was at home, preparing for or eating New Year's dinner and spending time with family and friends, chatting, drinking, playing cards or mahjong, or watching TV. My neighbor warned me, "Don't get too excited for chunjie! It's really nothing more than relatives getting together for a big meal!" It snowed on New Year's Eve, leaving snow on the ground when I woke up on New Year's Day. I really couldn't think of any other way to describe except to say it felt like Christmas morning- a feeling of excitement and anticipation, and yet, the day was spent relaxing and chatting in the house with friends and neighbors, preparing for the New Year's dinner. It reminded me of Christmas in more ways than one, actually. Here are some of the light fixtures that were a little bit like that, or as they say in China, 那个. Westernized much?

After an early morning run on New Year's Eve during which I wished everyone I saw a Happy New Year only to find out that I'm not supposed to say that until New Year's Day, I spent the day at my next-door neighbors' house, Big Brother Guo and Big Sister Chongyang. They are the ones that helped me find the house I live in now. One day in December, I casually mentioned during lunch that I was looking to move to Old Nanjing. Big Brother Guo yelled at me, "Why didn't you come to us sooner? You know you should always come to us when you need anything! I know the perfect place for you. You can live next door with Xie Rui!" Big Sister Chongyang protested, telling him it was a bad idea, but it has ended up being the perfect situation. Little Sister Xie Rui is close to my age and somewhat familiar with Western habits, and we have become good friends.

Anyway, Big Brother Guo and Big Sister Chongyang have essentially adopted Xie Rui and me. They invited us over on New Year's Eve. I made some PB&J and PB&Banana sandwiches and we ate those for lunch. Then we spent the afternoon preparing for lunch by making spring rolls, cleaning vegetables, putting up decorations, and frying chicken. Their 5-year old daughter spent the day watching TV, while periodically running around and screaming. At 5:00, Big Brother Guo set off some firecrackers in front of the house to signify the start of dinner. For the rest of the evening, firecrackers went off throughout the neighborhood as families sat down for their New Year's dinner. We ate hot pot, a big steaming soup with fried chicken, lamb, tofu, cabbage, and meatballs. We also had spring rolls, spinach with peanuts, chicken feet, pig tongue, and chicken with corn and peas. It was amazing. Really amazing. Big Brother Guo kept making fun of me because every time I ate something I would exclaim, "THIS IS SO DELICIOUS!" He wanted me to drink alcohol with him, but I refused telling him I was allergic, so instead he got Xie Rui drunk.

The rest of the evening was spent watching the Chinese New Year's Eve special on CCTV, the most watched show in China during the whole year (coincidentally on the night of the 22nd, the same day as the Super Bowl in America). At midnight, we joined the rest of the country in setting off firecrackers by running around the street with sparklers and watching firecrackers explode on all sides.

The next day, I ate dumplings (a New Year tradition signifying good fortune for the New Year) in the morning with some other neighbors. For dinner, I made spaghetti and chicken corn chowder soup (from a Campbell's can) for Big Brother Guo and Big Sister Chongyang. I was a little taken aback when Big Sister Chongyang mixed the spaghetti and soup together. Before protesting, I decided to taste it myself and it was delicious. Afterward, we cleared off the table and sat around eating sunflower seeds and peanuts while reading the newspaper while we chatted.

Here are some pictures from the day:

Big Brother Guo and his daughter, Hannah, making offerings to their ancestors outside their home on New Year's Eve

Ingredients for spring rolls (spring rolls for the Spring Festival)!

Big Brother Guo smoking while cooking

Their daughter, Hannah, making spring rolls. Big Sister Chongyang said, "You make the spring rolls tall and skinny like your people, but Hannah makes them short like her!"

That's me, making spring rolls!

Hannah and her mom, Big Sister Chongyang

The "fu" character meaning "good fortune." These red squares are pasted on the front door to bring good fortune in the coming new year.

Spring rolls: finished! Spinach and peanut dish in the background.

Big Brother Guo and me at the New Year's Eve feast

New Year's fest

At the Guo residence, they drink out of bowls. I didn't want beer, so they gave me apple juice instead. The chopsticks were a gift from Big Brother Guo.