In search of the lost Spring Festival memory
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The man in north China's Shanxi province had a quick lunch on Feb. 2, the eve of China's traditional Spring Festival.
"I have lots of work to do," said 28-year-old Gao Xiang in Yuci district of Jinzhong city.
One of his tasks was to paste rhymes onto the gates of the apartment and the building, as well as the rear window of his car. The glue he used was made of wheat powder.
"It's cold outside. If I put up the rhymes too late, the glue won't be sticky enough," he said.
In fact, putting up Spring Festival rhymes was just one of the customs in Jinzhong. Another "must" before Spring Festival was to clean the house and throw away the garbage.
"According to local custom, it was not allowed to throw away garbage from the first to the fourth day of the lunar New Year," said 55-year-old Ma Jianping.
Although she felt a bit inconvenienced, she would store the garbage in the storehouse during these festival days.
Also, in the dumplings people eat at family get-togethers, elderly people would place a coin into a dumpling. The person who found the coin was expected to be lucky during the year.
Later, after 12 o'clock midnight, people in Ma's community would make bonfires with coal. "It symbolizes prosperity," Ma said.
The fire burned during the night, only to go out at dawn when the ground was covered with red paper scraps from exploded fireworks.
Ma Jianping woke up early on the first day of the lunar New Year to wait for greetings from neighbors. "People in the building visited to wish each other happy new year."
In contrast with the busy community, the streets in Yuci district were quiet, with few people visible and the roadside stores were closed. Unlike bustling metropolises, such as Beijing and Shanghai, in Yuci shopping malls were closed during the first three days of the lunar New Year.
"We dislike the clothes in local stores," Ma said, "so during the week-long holiday, many natives traveled to nearby big cities, like Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi, to go shopping."
Some experts believed that it was the culture of merchants in Shanxi who placed more importance on the traditional festivals.
"Shanxi was famous for its merchants during the Ming and Qing dynasties, which brought prosperity to the province," said Zhang Zhengming, director of the Shanxi Provincial Research Center for Merchant Culture.
According to Zhang, the merchants, who did business outside throughout the year, returned home only during holidays. Therefore, they attached great importance to the holidays and spent a lot of money for the celebration.
Tourists, in search of a traditional holiday, flooded the ancient city of Yuci to celebrate the Spring Festival.
The city, with its history of more than 1,400 years, was decorated with 2,000 red lanterns. Tian Guichun, a staff member at the tourism office, told Xinhua that it was the local tradition to pray in the temple of the city on the first day of the lunar New Year.
Also, traditional songs and dances are performed during the first half of the month. Liu Yue, a manager with the tourism development company of the ancient city, revealed that on the first day, the number of visitors reached 5,000.
At the age of 37, Liu said she felt lucky to be working in the ancient city, so she could be part of the traditional celebrations of the Spring Festival, which are disappearing elsewhere.
She recalled when she was a child what she had expected for the occasion, which children nowadays couldn't imagine.
To children, Spring Festival meant the best clothes. "Maybe because at that time, people were too poor to buy more clothes," she said. The clothes were supposed to be worn when they visited their relatives. However, before the new year, children would show off with their new clothes, until their parents caught them, took off the clothes, folded them and put them beside their pillows.
"On the first day of the new year, children got up early and would drop in at their neighbors to wish them happy new year," Liu said.
But she noted that their real intention was to seek snacks and candies. "First come, first served, although in fact, the snacks and candies in each household were similar, as the gap between the rich and the poor was narrow," she said.
The performance of songs and dances, called Shehuo in Yuci, was at night.
"The streets were so crowded with people watching the performance that after it was over, many shoes were left on the ground," she recalled.
Liu is not alone. Spring Festival was a memory for many Chinese.
In the 1980s when there were still many alleys and courtyard dwellings, or Hutongs and Siheyuans, people would cut red paper to make their own window decoration, like the bottle gourd-shaped pattern which was supposed to keep away trouble.
People sat together with the elderly to make dumplings and steamed buns. They always placed a red dot on the buns for good luck.
Children chased each other, holding paper lanterns, which were always at last burned by the candle inside.
Sun Liping, head of the history research center of the Shanxi provincial academy of social sciences, believes that a major reason for the loss of Spring Festival memories is economic development.
"Good meals and beautiful clothes are no longer special for the holiday," she said.
Development of communications is another reason. "People like to send mobile phone messages, instead of dropping in at each others' home for holiday wishes," she said.
Also, when people moved into buildings, their relationship with their neighbors became looser, Sun added.
Besides, the single-child policy made it hard for children to find friends who can play with them on New Year's eve.
Nevertheless, both Liu Yue and Sun Liping admitted that Spring Festival was still the most important occasion for the Chinese people, as numerous migrants would depart on trains to return home.
"Perhaps it is a natural tendency for the disappearance of traditional flavor of the Spring Festival," Sun said. "But we should try to preserve the culture for the younger generation so they could still feel the happiness that we felt."
