The only thing more amazing than the fireworks on our street last night (Chinese New Year’s Eve) — I won’t even try to describe them, you’d have to see, hear, and feel it to believe it — is the fact that our eight month old daughter slept right through them.

Last night and today are the most special time of the year for Chinese. Last night families crowded the streets in our area to set off an unbelievable amount of fireworks in between family meals, and today (Chinese New Year’s Day) they’ll eat in or out in great Spring Festival family banquets — the restaurants are all packed full. It’s the annual family reunion, which in its ideal form embodies fú, or blessing/good fortune. I’ll let someone more qualified than me explain.

In The Chinese Have a Word For It, Boyé Lafayette De Mente spends most of his chapter on fú talking about Chinese food and banquets:

There is a famous Chinese saying that shíwù (食物) or food is heaven to a peasant, a stark reminder that throughout most of Chinas history the specter of starvation was a constant companion to the majority of the people.

So compelling was the threat of hunger that the Chinese used the symbols of a cultivated field and a mouth integrated with heaven, representing a full stomach, to mean fú (福), or happiness.

Today the ideogram for happiness is one of the most popular “good luck charms” in the country, and is familiar to patrons of Chinese restaurants around the world.

The role that food plays in Chinese life is one fo the most conspicuous and important aspects of their culture, and one that can be fully enjoyed by outsiders as well after only a few minutes of orientation.

A Chinese meal served and eaten Chinese style is a tableau of the culture in action, graphically depicting the hierarchical order within the family or the group, the etiquette that controls their behavior, and the substance of their relationships.

The typical Chinese meal eaten in a restaurant — and the Chinese love to eat out — is an even more dramatic representation of Chinese culture. Evening meals in particular are typically banquet style, a thanksgiving for the food and a celebration of family ties and the bonds of friendship.

Unlike some Western cultures that require people to eat quietly and quickly, when a typical Chines family or group eats out it is a noisy, lengthy affair, brimming with the hubbub of humor and ribaldry.

To the Chinese, the banquet table is more than just a convenient meeting place for a meal. It is the place where they confirm their cultural identity and just as important if not more so, enjoy fú and their Chineseness to the fullest.

It is around the informal banquet table that the Chinese let their formal hair down, nurture the bonds of old relationships, and make new ones. The informal banquet table is thus a doorway — the only easily accessible doorway — to the inner circle of Chinese life.

Outsiders wanting to establish close relationships with Chinese … must eventually enter this “doorway to happiness.”

(If anyone of consequence has a problem with me quoting this much text, just let me know and I’ll remove it.)

We had our own little fú-fest last night with friends and family:

Other stuff about celebrating Chinese New Year’s:

• I pity the fú​
• ‘Tis the season for… RED PANTIES!
• Pun-based Chinese New Year customs
• Spending Chinese New Year with a Chinese family
• The Nian monster is coming! Better get some red underwear!
• 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)

I’m not kidding; that’s exactly what these signs say:

Currently in the Chinese media, and now all over the English China blog world, is the news that China is considering passing a law that would make it illegal to eat dogs and cats. But even if it passes, I have my doubts that those hypocritical pork-eating bourgeois specie-ists will succeed in enforcing their shameless attack on cultural practices that go back thousands of years.

The image on the right is a bag of dog meat one of our Chinese teachers gave us as a gift.

Anyway, I just couldn’t pass up sharing a photo of a sign that says “Cats are friends, not food!” （猫是朋友，不是食物）。 Also visible in the photo:

• “Refuse to eat cats.” （拒绝吃猫）
• “Please show humanitarianism, set them free.” （请发扬人道主义 放过它们）
• “Cherish humanity’s good friends! Refuse to eat cat and dog meat.” （爱护人类好友！拒绝吃猫狗肉）
• “Refuse to eat cat and dog meat. Cherish humanity’s friends.” (拒食猫狗肉 爱护人类之友)
• 请口下留情 is a play on the phrase 手下留情 (“restrain your hand”), as in showing mercy or sparing someone’s feelings by not meting out more punishment than is needed, often in the context of criticizing. On the sign they switched “hand” (手) for “mouth” （口）, so it might mean something like, “Be merciful; please restrain your mouth”.

For our personal encounters with cats and dogs as food in China, including a downloadable translated menu from a local dog meat restaurant, see here:

• Dead puppies (don’t look, Grandma!) – menu included
• Obligatory cat eating post
• 龙虎斗

This is a dog meat restaurant near our old apartment:

The last time we ate dog, at a Korean restaurant with one of our teachers and her Korean fiancé:

Honestly, it tasted better at the dump-of-a-restaurant two photos up, but it wasn’t great at either place. Not like some of the donkey I’ve had.

So I’ve just got off work and I’m about to leave the building for the ten minute walk to the subway. One of my upper level English students sees that I’m planning to eat a pear on the way and she’s immediately concerned.

“You’re going to eat that outside?”

“Of course!”

“But it’s cold and windy! You can’t eat that outside!”

“Why not?” I know exactly what’s coming.

“You’ll get wind in your stomach!” The other students voice their agreement.

I know what she’s talking about because I’ve heard this before. Fear of getting cold “wind” in your “stomach” is considered at least as reasonable as covering your mouth when you cough to avoid spreading germs. But this time, instead of having the same old predictable conversation about how foreigners don’t know anything about getting “wind” in their “stomachs” or our “fire” going up and down, I decide to have fun with it.

“It’s no problem. Foreigners can’t get wind in their stomachs. Only Chinese people can get that disease. Getting wind in your stomach is a special disease only for Chinese people.”

She doesn’t believe me, and gives me an annoyed look to boot, like she’s not sure if I’m making fun of her/China/Chinese medicine or not. And I’m not, mostly; I’m just curious to see what will happen if I appeal to inherent biological differences between foreigners and Chinese (something that’s not uncommon for Chinese people to do in other situations) instead of chalking it up to cultural differences that affect how our respective societies understand health.

When Tianjiners wear face masks (口罩) in public it’s not because of air pollution or swine flu. These are cloth face masks, not medical face masks, and people wear them because it’s cold outside and they don’t want to get “wind” in their “stomachs” (受风 — to receive/suffer wind). I put quotes around those words because in Chinese medical theory they both carry important nuances and added dimensions that don’t correspond exactly with what we normally mean when when we say wind and stomach. (I borrowed this image from a Chinese website. It’s supposedly from Tianjin.)

For more about Chinese medicine:

• Chinese Medicine: Getting a Clue (Part 1)
• Q&A with an American doctor who practices TCM

A fun, though admittedly overgeneralized, essay by a Chinese living in the U.S. that uses Chinese food to illustrate Chinese thinking: Learning about the Chinese Mind through Chinese Food

How come China, with its allegedly glorious ancient civilization, did not have a scientific revolution, while ‘backwards’ Europe did? Here’s one answer, from Prof. Dr. Kenneth J. Hsü: “Why Isaac Newton was not a Chinese”

Midnight on Christmas Eve 2009 in Tianjin, China (they call it “Peaceful Night” 平安夜):

If you put New Year’s, Mardi Gras, Valentine’s Day and the commercial side of Christmas into a blender and then reincarnated the unappetizing mush into an overpopulated midnight carnival, you’d have Christmas Eve in Tianjin. Clowns, stage shows, blowing artificial snow (soap-sud machines), a countdown to midnight (pictured above), and a bunch of foreigners performing Christmas carols (us) were all out two nights ago among the masses and their blinky, battery-powered headgear. In between our two performances on stage there was a choreographed Michael Jackson dance routine by five 5-foot tall pelvis-thrusting minors who looked way too young to be grabbing the front of their pants that way in public (pictured left).

Random strangers occasionally asked to get their picture taken with us, since we’re foreigners. We obliged, of course, and I got my revenge when I saw this line up of 90-pound Santas:

But it was all for a good cause. A local company decided they wanted to get into the real spirit of Christmas by holding a fundraiser for the Special Education Project. They aggressively hawked these LED Christmas candle things all day and night to the throngs of people on Tianjin’s two busiest outdoor shopping streets, which is Christmas Eve Central for T. The two girls pictured on the right had me and a friend cornered before we had a chance to tell them we were with the group they were raising money for.

Since we’re associates of the N.G.O. that was receiving the money, the company asked us to put together some songs for before and after the midnight countdown. We had a group of carolers, which included some of our local friends and students, two guitars and a flute. They wanted us to get the crowd into it, and below you can see the line of police in front of the stage holding back all our rabid 粉丝. Ok, maybe they’re not actually our fěnsī, but they were in a good mood and it wasn’t hard to get a response from the crowd; all we had to do was show up. They’re supposed to play part of it on TV today, so I may have finally made it on TV in Tianjin. :) Here’s our the helmeted crowd control:

It didn’t actually feel all that Christmasy, but at least it was something to mark the day. Actually, packing into an apartment with a bunch of friends (Chinese, German, Brazilian, Canadian, American) earlier in the evening to practice the songs over snacks and coffee wasn’t a bad way to spend a Christmas Eve. For two of my students it was the first time they’d done anything to celebrate Christmas, so that was kind of special. A few more photos below (none of these photos are mine; I was too busy playing guitar).

All these blobs are the blowing artificial snow soapsud bubbles (it looked cooler in real life):

These are the LED things they sold for the fundraiser:

If I can find any photos of us on stage, I’ll add them below when I get them.

圣诞快乐！

Friends who also wrote on this surreal experience:

• Lindy — Christmas is for Shopping…
• Rob (the other guitar player) — Merry Something!
• Shannon — Merry MardiEasterValentineHalloweenNewYearChristmas! Ho Ho Ho?

[2010 Jan 08] Here we are in the newspaper:

The caption says:

The other day Tianjin TV’s “Art & Entertainment Food 8 Street” news column at Heping Lu business walking street held a groundbreaking special evening party, not only was there brilliant cultural performances, also can’t count the many different kinds of interactive games spectators were invited to participate in. Additionally, foreign volunteers working in Tianjin from the USA, France, Italy and etc. countries also got on stage and sang impromptu songs for the audience. Newspaper reporter: Cao Tongshe

Of course, we didn’t have anyone from France or Italy, but hey, who’s counting?
[2010 Jan 18] Finally got hold of some shots of us on stage:

Other Christmas and Christmas-in-Tianjin posts:

• Christmas Eve… with Chinese characteristics
• An UnChristmas party in Tianjin
• “And the 2008 Tianjin Grinch Award goes to…”
• Christmas doesn’t have to be Made In China
• 圣诞快乐! (Merry Christmas!)
• Some Tang dynasty poetry for the Christmas we’re missing
• Take this, capitalist!
• 聖誕快樂! – Shèng dàn Kuài lè! (first Christmas in Asia)

Last night was “send cold clothes” (送寒衣 sòng hán yī), the day in the lunar calendar when millions of Chinese go out to the intersections to send burnt offerings to their ancestors. Here’s the sidewalk outside our apartment complex this morning:

Drawing circles around the pile is part of the tradition, it apparently helps the stuff intended for your ancestor not get mixed with anybody elses’ or stolen:

For better photos and a fuller explanation, see:

• There’s hell to pay
• Sending Winter Clothes to the Dead in Tianjin

Passed some street vendors selling paper clothes and ghost money while on my way to get Muslim food for dinner:

Chinese character tattoos are apparently pretty popular in Vancouver. Here are the ones I saw on people during the eight months we were there. Clicking on individual characters below will open a dictionary list of associated words.

I saw 成 (chéng) on a woman’s neck in the airport. With just a single character and no context, I guess it could theoretically mean all sorts of things; 成 is part of the words for grow, change, become, succeed… She had sort of the trendy hippie/new-agey/alternative thing going on, so I’m guessing she meant change or becoming.

勇敢 (yǒnggǎn / brave, courageous) on a guy’s neck on the Seabus.

There was more than one 爱 (ài / love), of course. For some reason both times I saw this it was also on people’s necks.

力 (lì / strength), predictably, was on a guy’s shoulder.

生 (shēng / life, birth, to be born) was on a guy’s hand on the bus. From overhearing his conversation it was obvious he was some kind of an evangelical Christian, so I wonder if he was going for life or born again or something, maybe with another tattoo that I didn’t see.

Come to thing of it, I’ve also seen 爱、力 and 生 on coffee mugs at the supermarket.

No doubt cultural influence still flows mostly from the West to China rather than vice versa, but I think it’s interesting how these mundane examples suggest that cultural influence from China is at least trickling in our direction.

I walk into our old neighbourhood to get my bike out of the bike park where it’s been stored the last eight months, and Dà​niáng​ is sitting outside our old stairwell just like she always does. The Chinese gourd vines she’s planted cover the entrance and reach up to the third floor. She doesn’t recognize me until I smile and wave.

“Oh, it’s you! You’ve come back!”

“Yeah, we’ve come back!”

“Ha, at first I didn’t recognize you; you have a beard now, and also foreigners all look the same.”

“Yeah, I know, we’re all chàbuduō…

Ah, Tianjin. It’s good to be back.

If we do ‘math with Chinese characteristics,’ then we can say it’s been “60 Glorious Years” since the end of China’s civil war and the beginning of the current dynasty. Here are some interesting reflections from two very different Mainlanders who’ve lived through it all.

A poor Chinese lantern maker, born in 1934:

In my lifetime, we’ve been through so many political movements. All national ones which were no concern of ours, like the 1954 Suppress the Counter-Revolutionaries, the 1957 Anti-Rightest movement, the Cultural Revolution, sending intellectual youth to remote country areas, stuff like that. But I never stopped making lanterns. I never though making revolution meant getting rid of festival traditions! I always thought the reason I was brave enough to carry on with my craft in secret was because I wasn’t educated, and had no idea what feudalism, capitalism and revisionism meant. I didn’t know about Party principles, or what the revolutionary Four News were meant to be. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand that. Most ordinary people had about as little education as I did. In fact, how many of those anti-everything revolutionaries with their movements for this and that understood what is was all about? Making revolution was just a pretext for people to settle private scores. If those movements really had been good for China, then we wouldn’t have been poor for so many years. People today wouldn’t be so fixated on money, and wouldn’t ignore traditional arts like they do. [pg. 220]

From an interview with an American-born Chinese female general, born in 1930, who worked 40 years in military education:

Xinran (the author): After the end of the feudal Qing dynasty, China never stopped changing — from Empire to Republic took just a few years, and the change from GMD to CCP also happened quickly. Especially in the cities, regime change was really rapid. It’s like you said, in Shanghai people’s political outlook changed in twenty-four hours. How is it possible, in your view, for ordinary people to cope with such rapid change?

General Phoebe: Ordinary people don’t care. You change the dynasty or the emperor, it’s all the same to us. We’ll follow any emperor, so long as you don’t stop us going about our business . . . I think they got used to things, and didn’t care. It’s “I’ll obey anyone, any authority, who’s good to me”.

Xinran: Political authority is like a god for an awful lot of ordinary Chinese.

General Phoebe: Authority is very important, not just for a nation, but also within the family. The patriarch of the great Chinese family is an authority who cannot be disobeyed by family members. A family without an authority figure will quickly disintegrate; the children and grand-children may scatter, and some will begin to fight between themselves. Within the family, the main head of the family is basically a ruler. If he or she is an enlightened and wise one, then they can deal with all family relationship problems, and guarantee that future generations have family rules to follow – rules which can make those family ties indissoluble and keep generations together. When that authority weakens, then other family members may involuntarily gravitate towards a new authority, and this may bring conflict in its wake. Interestingly enough, we can see the reappearance in national history of the traditional cultural consciousness of the great Chinese family, as the “cells” of family life penetrate the bone and marrow of the nation. [pg.282]

(Quoted from China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation by Xinran, a collection of extended personal interviews with members of China’s most fascinating generation.)

P.S. – This is more about people than politics. Please remember that in the comments.

Related Posts:

• Chinese women & high heels
• Mainlanders and their past; Mainlanders and their selves — from China Witness by Xinran
• Why Mainlanders are taking it personally, racially, and facially – the short answer
• What do the Olympics mean to “their China”?