Our experience of the Chinese New Year through sight and hearing accompany us in this brief memory.
At the stroke of midnight between January 28 and 29, 2025, the Year of the Dragon will end and the Year of the Snake will begin.
I arrived in China in the Year of the Rabbit, and at that time I told myself it would be nice to live here for a complete cycle of animals of the Chinese zodiac, now I have already lived through two Years of the Rabbit, which means I have been in China for more than twelve years!
Two Rabbits, two Dragons and soon two Snakes. Cristina, who arrived in China between the Year of the Rat and the Year of the Ox, owes her Chinese name to this festival: a few days before New Year’s Eve 2009, which in Chinese is called Chūn Jié – 春节 – Spring Festival, she had to register for the driving test, she needed a Chinese name and the girls chose to call her Chūn Nà – 春娜.
There are many traditions for the Spring Festival, which is the most important festival for these people. The way we celebrate the New Year as foreigners in China has changed a lot over the years, but the way Beijingers experience it has also changed a lot.
Cristina didn’t yet know how to speak Chinese, but she remembers that the little girls of the house would drag her for two or three hours every evening between one window and another to watch the colorful fireworks. Little rest during those weeks under the blankets!
I remember that thirteen years ago during the two-three weeks before the New Year, stalls selling fireworks, which originated in China, appeared on every corner of the metropolis.
It seems that gunpowder was invented by the Chinese around 800, although the date is uncertain, what is certain is that it was some monks who began the art of making fireworks. At the beginning the use of gunpowder was only for recreational purposes, for celebrations of festivals and religious rites, a peaceful people in short, whose thoughts did not immediately run to more sophisticated ways to attach and oppress others. I remember huge stalls with fireworks of any shapes and dimensions, the brand had a logo with the face of a smiling panda, lots of people queuing to buy their supplies for the two weeks of celebrations.
In the first years in China we didn’t know how to celebrate this festival, the few foreign friends left for some trip, the even fewer Chinese friends left Peking to return to their villages to celebrate the New Year with their families.
We waited for midnight with a simple dinner, without yet knowing well and knowing how to cook the typical dishes that characterize this festival.
At midnight the long-awaited moment came: the fireworks began to be set off, a din, accompanied by a lot of smoke, enveloped the celebrating city; according to the tradition the fireworks served to chase away the Nián Shòu – 年兽 – a monster that appeared at the beginning of each new year to frighten the habitants of a Chinese village.
Shortly after midnight, Cristina and I went out, on the road, where all our neighbors had gathered to celebrate and chase away the Nian (which means year), dust and remains of fireworks everywhere, the poor street cleaners had a huge job the next day to restore the city to its original appearance.
One year Cristina ventured out at 1am to accompany a friend home, and it felt like she was driving through the wreckage of a bombing: the smoke obscured the view, she had to slalom between the remains of the fireworks boxes scattered on the road, every now and then a flash of lightning in various directions, deserted streets, she feared she wouldn’t be able to return home, but even that adventure now has its charm!
I have only experienced this tradition for a handful of years. In 2014, in fact, the municipality of Beijing banned fireworks in the most central area of the city, inside the fifth ring, in an attempt to combat pollution which in those years had reached very worrying levels. Since then, at least in the city, New Year’s Eve has been a little sadder and has lost much of the charm that we were able to breathe.
Now that we live outside the sixth ring, will we relive the tradition of fireworks? We don’t know yet, but what we know is that we won’t go to the city to celebrate, but we will stay here, in the countryside, and wait and watch!
