Christmas vs. Spring Festival
Spring Festival (a.k.a. Chinese New Year) is the biggest holiday in China. Christmas is the biggest holiday in the US. My wife just experienced her first American Christmas, and her #1 observation was: it’s a pretty quiet holiday comparatively. Spring Festival is a non-stop, week-long barrage of fireworks. Noise is a big part of the celebration, as the origin of the tradition was to use fireworks to scare off a monster.
She did find it interesting, though, how people would hang lights on (and station inflatable snowmen in front of) their homes. It’s vastly different than the Chinese tradition of pasting red banners around the door. Her favorite was a house in Salt Lake that’s notorious for syncing its lights to the radio. I’m always amazed how “all out” people go for Christmas decorations.
The practice of giving/getting lots of presents on Christmas day was also new to her. In China, they do give each other gifts, but it’s in the form of a red envelope with money inside. When exchanging Christmas gifts, however, you’re never quite sure what somebody’s going to give you, which is what makes it so fun.
My wife enjoyed the presents aspect of Christmas but still felt Spring Festival trumps it overall. Her reason: the food. While candy and cookies and big dinners are certainly a part of Christmas, they don’t quite match the 30+ dishes you would find in a typical Spring Festival meal. To her, it would be like having Thanksgiving dinner without turkey. There’s no substitute for traditional food.
Response to “Christmas vs. Spring Festival”
Comments RSS Feed – All CommentsNathan — 29 December 2011 @ 1:55 pm
Christmas in Guatemala was a long night of fireworks, too, but New Year’s even more so. Dodging calchiflines (imagine tiny, rocket-powered paper airplanes) in the streets while ametralladoras (literally, machine guns; strings of black cats, really) was just part of the experience. We Americans are so sedate by comparison.
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