On the eve of Spring Festival, the Xiong family gathers in older brother’s house. Older brother, his wife, and his aunt-in-law have been at work in the kitchen all day. The house has two rooms downstairs, a small guestroom and a kitchen. In between is a little courtyard, bordered by a cracked concrete wall obscured by flower pots and ivy. The kitchen is a dim cave of sizzling and steam. In the guestroom, grandpa is shuffling about slowly, arranging furniture.
Little sister arrives, little brother, first auntie, and finally little brother’s wife and four or five distant relations. Everyone crowds into the guestroom to huddle around the fire and chat. Without much delay, the food comes out. It’s clear that the food is what this evening is about.
The Xiong’s joke that they have spent all week preparing for this one meal, and it hardly seems like an exaggeration. There are more than twenty different dishes on the table. There is at least one dish of every kind of meat on the table – pork, beef, fish and mutton. There were many years in the past when there was no meat on the table, so now they eat every one to symbolize the better times. Fish is especially important because the work for fish, yu, is a homonym for “abundance.” There is also a big pot of changcai, a long thin green vegetable that symbolizes long life. Altogether, the food covers two whole tables.
Little sister arrives, little brother, first auntie, and finally little brother’s wife and four or five distant relations. Everyone crowds into the guestroom to huddle around the fire and chat. Without much delay, the food comes out. It’s clear that the food is what this evening is about.
The Xiong’s joke that they have spent all week preparing for this one meal, and it hardly seems like an exaggeration. There are more than twenty different dishes on the table. There is at least one dish of every kind of meat on the table – pork, beef, fish and mutton. There were many years in the past when there was no meat on the table, so now they eat every one to symbolize the better times. Fish is especially important because the work for fish, yu, is a homonym for “abundance.” There is also a big pot of changcai, a long thin green vegetable that symbolizes long life. Altogether, the food covers two whole tables.
The Xiong family is not religious in any formal sense, and saying grace is not a Chinese custom anyway, but there is a minute of almost sacred reverence as the whole family sits around the table and observes the food. This is the meal of the year, in a country where eating together is the cultural fulcrum. At last, grandpa lifts his chopsticks and casually scoops up a piece of pork sausage.
“Eat!” he commands.
The meal lasts for over two hours. The real effort fades after the first hour, but the family continues to sit around the table and talk. The men drink fiery white Chinese liquor, and the women gossip. Once in a while a pair of chopsticks is raised and the struggle briefly continues.
At 8pm, the television turns on. It is time for the spring festival evening show. This is the most anticipated, watched and quoted program of the year – a spectacular, star-studded six hour gala of song, dance, and comedy. The whole family watches until midnight, when everyone walks out towards the city centre for the show.
The Chinese invented fireworks, and I do not believe there is anywhere that their essence is more apparent than in a Chinese city at midnight on spring festival. First there is the thunderous roar of the small red firecrackers, hung in bright strips from doorways and lampposts. Then the snaps and flashes of rockets join in, then the roman candles and flares from rooftops and balconies. Finally, at the stroke of midnight, the big box rockets in the street boom out, filling the sky with pink and orange and green stars.
There is no display, no centre, no one place to look. The entire city is setting off fireworks. One can imagine that there is hardly a place in China so remote that the roar of fireworks does not disturb it. Here you can feel what fireworks are about: shaking the earth, rattling the eaves, knocking the dust out of every corner, blasting out the old, blazing in the new.
“Eat!” he commands.
The meal lasts for over two hours. The real effort fades after the first hour, but the family continues to sit around the table and talk. The men drink fiery white Chinese liquor, and the women gossip. Once in a while a pair of chopsticks is raised and the struggle briefly continues.
At 8pm, the television turns on. It is time for the spring festival evening show. This is the most anticipated, watched and quoted program of the year – a spectacular, star-studded six hour gala of song, dance, and comedy. The whole family watches until midnight, when everyone walks out towards the city centre for the show.
The Chinese invented fireworks, and I do not believe there is anywhere that their essence is more apparent than in a Chinese city at midnight on spring festival. First there is the thunderous roar of the small red firecrackers, hung in bright strips from doorways and lampposts. Then the snaps and flashes of rockets join in, then the roman candles and flares from rooftops and balconies. Finally, at the stroke of midnight, the big box rockets in the street boom out, filling the sky with pink and orange and green stars.
There is no display, no centre, no one place to look. The entire city is setting off fireworks. One can imagine that there is hardly a place in China so remote that the roar of fireworks does not disturb it. Here you can feel what fireworks are about: shaking the earth, rattling the eaves, knocking the dust out of every corner, blasting out the old, blazing in the new.
The first day of the new year the majiang set comes out. The family sits around two tables, and the room is filled with the clink of tiles and cheerful gambling banter. The stakes are low; over the course of the morning only about 50 yuan changes hands altogether. The game is more about the talk, cheerfully taunting relatives as you empty their pockets.
The third day, the family sets out for the hills. The highest peak surrounding town is ringed with gravestones, set in curved alcoves in the rock. Little brother carries a basket with incense and offerings. High above the town, in a grove of fragrant cypress trees waving in a spring breeze, the family gathers around the grave of grandmother Xiong. Each approaches the grave, and offers a prayer. Some pray for protection, for health, or for guidance. Many offer prayers for auntie, who still has not found a husband. Each Xiong kneels before the grave and performs three ketou, touching the head to the ground. Finally, a ring of firecrackers is strung around the grave.
At noon, the roar of firecrackers echoes from a hundred graves across the mountains, calling the ancestors back to the village to once again eat the noon meal.
The third day, the family sets out for the hills. The highest peak surrounding town is ringed with gravestones, set in curved alcoves in the rock. Little brother carries a basket with incense and offerings. High above the town, in a grove of fragrant cypress trees waving in a spring breeze, the family gathers around the grave of grandmother Xiong. Each approaches the grave, and offers a prayer. Some pray for protection, for health, or for guidance. Many offer prayers for auntie, who still has not found a husband. Each Xiong kneels before the grave and performs three ketou, touching the head to the ground. Finally, a ring of firecrackers is strung around the grave.
At noon, the roar of firecrackers echoes from a hundred graves across the mountains, calling the ancestors back to the village to once again eat the noon meal.
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