A conversation yesterday made me realize some curious similarities between Chinese New Year and the ancient Hebrew Passover. In a sense, traditional Chinese New Year is a passover.

(I totally stole this photo from Shannon.)

To “celebrate the New Year” is literally, “pass (the) year” (过年). You can greet people with “Pass the year good!” (过年好!). In more traditional areas people still literally congratulate one another for “passing the year,” or perhaps, for being passed by the ‘Year.’ The annoying traditional songs looped in supermarkets for the last week – the Chinese equivalent of cheesy Christmas music overdose – feature the greeting, “Congratulations!” (恭喜!). But why do people start congratulating one another after midnight? What has passed?

“Pass the ‘year’” is a pun or play on the idea that the monster, called ‘Year,’ who comes out at New Year’s to eat people, has “passed” over. It’s as if to say, “Congratulations! The monster has passed you by!” This monster hates the colour red, and people adorn their doors with it across the top and down both sides, similar to what the ancient Hebrews did with lamb’s blood before the Exodus, so that God would “pass over” their homes during the night when God came to kill the firstborn of Egypt. These red banner sets are standard CNY decorations; even our door has them:

(We’re on the right, the neighbours are on the left.)

I suspect most people merely see these phrases and decorations as traditions vaguely meant to bring good luck/fortune and ward off bad. I don’t know what percentage of the population is even aware of the more traditional meanings (especially in the cities), perhaps like many Westerners don’t know why we have Christmas trees, hang red stockings, or where Santa Claus came from (many New Year traditions are dying out). But the roots of these particular Chinese traditions apparently involve adorning the lintel and door posts in red so that a mystical being will literally “pass” over the family without killing anyone… curious. I wonder which tradition is older: the Hebrew Exodus or the Chinese year monster. You can read more about the nián shòu (年兽), or “year monster,” here.

North vs. South: who has the best CNY celebrations and men?
Some more notable Chinese New Year-ness…
In this video, Sufei, the acutely unmarried Jewish girl in Beijing, talks with some migrant workers as they leave the city for their home provinces to “pass the year” with their families, who they only get see once a year. They’re part of the largest annual migration on earth.

She also interviews Beijingers and Hong Kongers about the different ways northerners and southerners celebrate Chinese New Year, and about which place has better men.

Includes a good clear dose of that Cantonese Chinese New Year greeting we used to mimic in elementary school, in case you’ve been wondering all your life what it was we were supposedly trying to say.

The video was all taken tonight from our kitchen and living room windows, or from outside right beside our building (turn up your sound!):

From 5:30pm on, there was no moment without the sound of something somewhere blowing up, and it slowly crescendoed to a frenzied peak at midnight, before tapering down to something sleepable by 2am.

The backyard:

Over our apartment (immediately below the burst in the second photo, top floor, corner, building on the right):

The canal:

Outside our gate, and a New Year’s kiss in the smoke:

Next door:

Bedtime!

Our other Chinese New Year’s stuff:

• The Chinese Santa Claus
• Pun-based Chinese New Year customs
• Spending Chinese New Year with a Chinese family
• The Nian monster is coming! Better get some red underwear!
• Getting kicked when they’re down
• Sharing Chinese New Year’s with the neighbours
• Happy New Year! Congratulations for not being eaten!
• Chinese New Year: a Passover?
• Fireworks
• Happy New Year!(Taibei 2006)

This morning we woke up to fireworks and firecrackers, and the accompanying car alarms. Tonight we’ll go to sleep (assuming we sleep) to the same, only much more so. It’s the last day of the last month in the Chinese lunar calendar – Chinese New Year’s Eve. These huge fireworks stands are all over the city. I assume that most people light fireworks because, hey, who wouldn’t want an excuse to light fireworks? Plus, for Chinese, lots of noise helps make an event rè nao (热闹) – exciting, noisy, bustling, lively, happy, etc.

But there is a traditional story behind the fireworks and people wearing red (Jessica’s teacher’s grandmother is wearing red everything: socks, undies, and long-underwear included), I suppose occupying the place that Santa Claus does in the West. It goes something like this, as our friends told us last night: Long ago monster called the nián (年; same character as “year”) lived on the mountain, and would sometimes come down and eat people, especially around midnight on New Years. The nián shòu (年兽 – year monster) hated the colour red and fire/loud noise (I never got a straight answer on this point). So, when New Years approaches, the people would dress in red, especially if they belong to that year’s animal (this coming year is the year of the mouse, last year was the pig), and light tons of firecrackers and fireworks. When the nián looked down from the mountain, it found a sea of red, smoke, and loud noise, and was too afraid to come down and eat everyone. I’ve heard speculation that the traditional greeting of, “Congratulations! May you get rich!” grew out of congratulating one another for not getting eaten, but I have no idea if that has any basis in reality or not. We had some local friends over last night, and one of them had to explain the name of the monster to the other. You can see an fuller version of this story online here.

The CNY decorations have pictures of cute mice in them this year, including Mickey & Minnie Mouse and Tom & Jerry. I took this picture of Mickey Mouse yesterday at Tianjin’s “Ancient Culture Street” (a cool-looking tourist trap). He’s holding a sign that says “Spring” (春; chūn), for the Spring Festival.

People being preparing for the Spring Festival weeks in advance; the lunar calendar prescribes certain preparations for certain days leading up to and passing Chinese New Year. CNY is the biggest holiday in Chinese culture, and everyone who can returns to their hometown to “pass the year” with all their family members (and most of the businesses close for a week). One older man told us how some years there was literally “standing room only” in his family’s house.

We passed our first Chinese New Year in Taiwan as guests at a family’s home, where we shared a huge meal, played má jiàng (麻将), and then found out the hard way that all the shops close for a week and it’s hard to find food (especially if you’re deaf, dumb, and illiterate)! Last year we were in Thailand. This year we spent the day with friends yesterday, and plan to run around all over the city on the week off.

过年好!

Pronounced: guò nián hǎo
Literally: pass year good
Means: (a Chinese New Year greeting).

Yesterday James and I biked through the Tianjin foreign concession areas (see photos here). I was hunting for the site of the Tianjin Church Incident. This church, along with its orphanage, was burned down – twice – in anti-foreign uprisings. Priests, nuns, and local believers were killed. China calls the first time the Tianjin Church Incident (天津教案); the West calls it the Tianjin Massacre.

I thought the Tianjin Incident might be remembered as a tragedy, but it’s actually celebrated as a point of national pride and resistance against foreign aggressors in China’s official historical narrative. Both the Tianjin Museum and the Ministry of Culture website quoted here present it that way.
According to ChinaCulture.org:

Considered as a haven for orphans and young children, the church, in fact, caused great harm to Chinese children. In June 1870, angry residents of Tianjin City swarmed to the church to find out why the church abused scores of children, sometimes beating them to death. As a result, the French consul shot Tianjin County Magistrate Liu Jie, injuring his retinue. The people of Tianjin, in turn, beat up the consul and his secretary and burned down the church, including other French, English and American churches, and the French consul’s office. The incident is known today as the Tianjin Church Incident.

In 1893, imperialists used the indemnity to rebuild Wanghailou Church and other churches. During the Boxer Uprising in 1900, the church was once again destroyed. The existing church was rebuilt for the third time in 1904. [Full text]

That’s not the version you’re likely to get in a Western text-book.

Here’s what were told in a history lecture by a guy with a degree: Anti-foreign sentiment was generally high across the country. Even though many missionaries personally sacrificed greatly for the benefit of the Chinese people – like the nuns taking in diseased and abandoned children – they still benefited from and were protected by the imperialistic foreign governments that had violently humiliated China through war and forced, lopsided trade ‘agreements.’

Locals began to notice that many of the children taken in by the nuns died. Aside from the regular high mortality rate, an epidemic made it even worse. The nuns apparently also gave a small bit of money to people who would rescue abandoned children and bring them to the orphanage. Rumours started spreading that the nuns were actually buying and eating Chinese children. I imagine that a rumour-mongered misunderstanding regarding the Lord’s Supper (a.k.a. the Eucharist a.k.a. Communion) probably played into this. The order of events is not exactly clear, but apparently local Chinese authorities sent someone to the church to investigate the rumours. An agitated crowd followed him. French authorities sent an apparently belligerent consul to discuss the situation with local Chinese officials, and this also drew a crowd. The French consul became angry and fired his gun twice, the second time mortally wounding a Chinese servant. The crowd saw this and beat the consul and his advisor to death before storming the church and orphanage, killing over 20 priests and nuns, over 30 local Chinese Christians, and burning several other churches. The French government extracted punishing reparations.

You can read a translation of the report from the Chinese official sent to investigate the affair here. The church is a bike ride away from our neighbourhood.

James and I rode around the old concession areas this afternoon. The concession areas of Tianjin are full of modern history and give the city a unique flavour. These are the areas that foreign governments siphoned out of the previous dynastic government in order to further economically exploit China. This means that large areas of Tianjin contain whole city blocks built by the French, British, Italian, and others, and the architectural styles can’t be missed. You can see some more of the architecture in the previous bike ride’s photos. I wasn’t so much after the architecture this time.

Things to look for in this gallery:

• Sexualization/objectification of women in patriotic art.
  Notice the statues of the woman, worker, and soldier. Women are often depicted in Communist art in Tianjin, celebrating their newfound political status and roles. In this case, as in some other specific similar sculptures I’ve found here, their exaggerated figures are magnified by the wet t-shirt contest look. I have yet to see anyone in this city with that kind of figure. These particular statues honour heroes of the devastating Tangshan Earthquake in 1976. Click here for examples of how women were objectified/sexualized in official propaganda posters.
• A French home with no front door. Bienvenue! … or, non.
• Fascist architecture.
  I’m told this isn’t all that common, but the retro-futuristic building that looks like it belongs on Mystery Science Theater 3000 is actually a piece of Fascist architecture in the Italian concession area.
• Monuments to the liberation of Tianjin
  Soldiers with guns and flags. One of these monuments stands beside a French-built bridge, which was the entry point of the Communist armies during the “liberation of Tianjin.”
• Some kids in a “dog rides the rabbit.”
  Some kids in a three-wheel covered taxi were watching us at a red light, so I took their picture. The local name for this kind of taxi is a “dog rides rabbit” (狗骑兔子).
• The twice-burned cathedral of the infamous “Tianjin Incident.”
  See this post: The Tianjin “Incident”. The Wànghǎilóu church (望海楼教堂) and its nunnery/orphanage was torched twice, and many people killed, in two separate anti-foreign uprisings (1870, 1900). The warehouse-looking structure sitting beside the cathedral houses an actual congregation. Next door to that, a small church hospital is still in operation.

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Welcome to our friendly neighbourhood cài shì chǎng (菜市场), where we buy our fruits and vegetables. Not to be confused with “street markets” (which are like cài shì chǎngs except all over the road), “night markets” (which Taiwan specializes in and Tianjin sadly doesn’t), “flower-bird-fish-bug markets” (where you go for plants and pets), or supermarkets (which I can’t stand no matter what continent they’re on, but which are also plentiful in Tianjin). If they aren’t indoors or underground, they’re at least covered. Jessica does the supermarket shopping, and I do the fruit and veggie shopping in the cài shì chǎng.

The fruit, veggie, and tea sellers featured in portraits here are the people we buy fruit and veggies from on a regular basis. I hope to eventually do a writeup on Mr. Yán (闫, who’s given name translates “wooded peak”) and Mrs. Zhāng (张, who’s given name could translate to “Sunset Glow” or “Red Clouds”), the married couple who sell fruit. You’ll also see some medicinal alcoholic drinks (with whole seahorses, snakes, starfish, and turtles inside), special apples with characters sunned into them, some whole cooked turtles that just looked cool, and some shots at the end of the first cài shì chǎng from our old neighbourhood.

You can read about our first experiences in trying to navigate a Tianjin cài shì chǎng in Mandarin, the first street market we saw disappear, and see photos from the flower-bird-fish-bug market here:

• Flower-Bird-Fish-Bug Market
• Before & After: Tianjin’s transformation at ground level
• Classroom vs. Real Life, part 2

You can also compare these cài shì chǎng photos with pictures from the local ‘wet market’ we frequented in Taiwan, and some of Taiwan’s really fun night markets, which Tianjin is sadly lacking:

• Keelung Night Market with Zhi-ling and Wen-di
• Shilin Night Market with Sunny, Rachel, and Cathy
• The local wet market
• First night market Culture Sharing class

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