Chun Jie Kuai Le (Part II: Traditions)

As anyone who has done any level of travelling can tell you, or as anyone who has lived numerous places within a country can inform you, for every celebration, a litany of differing tradtions exists, and each tradition stems primarily from local customs regarding the holiday. When I was growing up, my family always ate 'mustard beans' for Thanksgiving and Christmas. As dish consisting of French-cut greenbeans in a honeymustard sauce, Thanksgiving and Christmas were not the same without this special dish. (Of course we had turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, etc., but mustard beans were a family tradition). However, when I mention the dish to others, they look at me like I just said my family used to eat green slugs for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So 'tradition' cannot always be looked at from the standpoint of an entire country, or an entire state or province, or even from the standpoint of an entire village, town, or city. However, Chun Jie certainly does have its traditions. The following should not be considered an exhaustive list, only a list of those that I experienced. However, I believe many of them could probably be observed throughout Yunnan Province and even the whole of China.

The word for year is 'nian.' So, other than 'Chun Jie Kuai Le' (Happy Spring Festival), a person could also greet another with 'Xin Nian Kuai Le' (Happy New Year). The reason 'nian' is so important is because 'nian' is also the name of the New Year monster that threatens the prosperity and fortune of the New Year. Therefore, a few traditions are designed specifically to deal with 'nian,' to keep it from influencing 'Xin Nian.' The first tradition is to display red banners on the doorway to the home (apartment). The 'nian' does not like red; therefore, the red banners exist to scare away the 'nian.' These banners usually include some New Year greetings, one of which I will get to in a little bit.

'Nian' also hates noise, more specifically, the noise of very loud firecrackers. And let me tell you, the noise the Chinese firecrackers send out puts ours to shame. You would think they would be the same, all of them originating in China, but the ones here blow ours away. Add to this the fact that to scare 'nian' away from one's home, one must set off the firecrackers within concrete stairwell of one's building. This is exactly what Jasmine is doing in the above picture. As I took this photo, firecracker shards ricocheted off my chest and legs. If monsters can stand that noise, they deserve to invade someone's home. As soon as I got the picture, I backed off and covered my ears. (By the way, 'nian' is not a dragon. 'Nian' is a monster.)
In Jewish culture, it is custom to offer prayers to those in the family who have gone before you. In some Catholic traditions, it is customary to pray for deceased family relatives. Here in China, it is a Xin Nian tradition to burn fake money for those who have passed on to the next world. Like white envelopes, the fake money is burned prior to the evening meal. Kim's husband knelt and bowed three times before lighting the fire and placing the money in the fire. Like the fireworks, no thinks anything of creating a fire within the small confines of one's apartment. Many people still cook with either wood or charcoal, so what's a little more smoke going to harm?
Much like my family's mustard beans, the 'traditional' meal varies from home to home, city to city, and province to province. Suli, a Junior Kindergarten teacher from He Kou (Huh Co), on the Vietnam border, says her family always has fish, celery, and garlic. They have many other things, but these three must be represented. Here is why. Nian Nian You Yu is a New Year greeting that means "My year has more than enough." 'Nian,' as you may recall is "year." 'You' is the verb "to have." And 'Yu' is "fish," which is a sign of plenty. Therefore, one must eat fish for New Year. Now, celery is a symbol for hard work. Therefore, one must eat celery in order to have a productive year. Strangely, garlic is a symbol for financial skill. So one eats garlic to ensure positive financial dealings throughout the coming year. At our own feast, pictured above, we ate fish, chicken, duck, pork, and beef. We also a variety of cooked vegetables and soup. We drank tea, but we also had juice and Coke as options.
On every English television broadcast, the newsperson always spoke about how the year of the pig is supposed to be a prosperous year. We asked Kim if any year in the Chinese zodiac was not supposed to bring prosperity. Her reply was that every year in the Chinese zodiac is supposed to create this prosperous state. However, it all comes down to how well the people can scare away Nian. However, as the picture above shows, sugarcane is another traditional adornment at Chun Jie. Much like bamboo, sugarcane grows in visible sections. Raw sugarcane is also extremely sweet. Therefore, just like the sugarcane has section upon section and is very sweet, a person places sugarcane by the door way to the apartment to denote that life is just getting better and better, or sweeter and sweeter.

One of the last traditional elements I observed can be somewhat equated with our lucky horseshoe. In our western culture, the horseshoe is a symbol of good luck. However, for the luck to remain in the horseshoe, it must be displayed with the open end up, otherwise the luck runs out of the shoe. The Chines have something similar. The red, wall-hanging pictured above has the character for 'fu' pictured in the middle. The word 'fu' means fortune or blessings. However, when 'fu' is turned upside down, like it is above, it looks similar to the character meaning 'pour out.' Therefore, this character can be and is displayed in both forms, rightside up and upside down, and in each case it means blessings, but upside down means it is a blessing being poured out on the owner of the home, which is a bit different than the horseshoe.

Certainly, many other Chun Jie traditions exist. However, much like holiday traditions in the States, the variations do not detract from the holiday, they simply add to the uniqueness of the celebration.