Let the Spring Come...
Autor: paulanachina | Publicado: 2012-01-25T01:47:00-08:00

There is a song in portuguese that says something like this:" everday she&nbsp;uses the same way to do things, wake me up at 6am,&nbsp;give me a&nbsp;smile, and kisses me with a mint flavour on&nbsp;her lips..." the song is about a relantionship and the guy is saying how boring and predictable that relantionship is , everyday is the same.. and it seems that he cant decide if&nbsp;he likes it or not....&nbsp;So why&nbsp;am i talking about this? shouldnt i be talking about my amazing&nbsp;Holiday and how i spent the&nbsp;Spring festival in Ningbo with my friends? SURE&nbsp;and that is where i want to take you...stay with me ..&nbsp;After 6&nbsp;years in China&nbsp;it is hard to find&nbsp;new things to be surprised with, it is hard to be excited over a dish, or a new song , or even&nbsp;a new word that i&nbsp;just learnt... After 6 years in China it seems that my love affair with&nbsp;China has&nbsp;became like that song... everyday is the same...&nbsp;
I have many&nbsp;new friends in Ningbo and for&nbsp;some of them&nbsp;this was their first Chinese New Year, their very first Spring Festival... and they were surprised by the fireworks but it was not long before they realized how boring it is to expend a holiday in China.Why???Cause they do always the same things...&nbsp;exactly the same way.. and with the same people...
The tradition says that you should go home and celebrate the new season&nbsp; with your family , so they all go home, as a result train stations, airports, bus stations, are packed with people trying to get home. They only get 7 days of vacation , and the whole nation is on vacation , at the same time!!! So .. no restaurants, no markets, nothing is really open this days. Ningbo is quite nice and we have malls here, and to follow the western tradition malls never close! not even in China.But if it happens that you are in a city that doenst have a mall.. poor you.. the only thing you will be doing is watching tv at home.
By the way .. that is how a chinese family celebrates the spring festival. they all eat dumplings and wait until 7pm when the national tv starts showing the new year show.Every year at the same time, with the same songs, and artists, and same jokes....
By 4pm they start the fireworks , and every hour after that more fireworks.. until midnight when every home prepares their on set of colorful fireworks and the show goes on for almost half an hour... and wont stop until next day in the afternoon.. 
So if you are lucky to be invited for dinner that night , you will for sure eat jiaozi,&nbsp; and drink baijiu, than watch tv with the family and if you resist until 12, you will help them with the fireworks.. after that you will try to sleep, but you wont be able,.. cause every now and then you will be waken by some more fireworks...
And that was what i did this year... went to a friends house.. had a nice meal, watched tv .. went out at 11 to see the fireworks....Fun right?!
Paula you are so negative! Dont you like China?!
I do..
I m just&nbsp;saying how predictable&nbsp;we are , how&nbsp; bounded to&nbsp;our traditions and old ways... how hard it is for us to try a different route?!
We all do that dont we? every day!
For the past few months i have been&nbsp; struggling with some of this stuff...specially the fact that Chinese always do things on a certain way and never change..never think out of the box, never gives a chance to the new.. 
Than i stop to analize myself.. my own culture and habits... we do that too, dont we?!Here we can say it is much more evident , and i guess because this is a country that didnt begin yesterday and maybe the longer you have been around the stronger are your traditions and culture.
Not that i want my chinese friends to change&nbsp;, or that it would be better if they had a new tv show next year.. but it would be good at least to see some of that old traditions coming back.. like those things you can see&nbsp;at the country side. 
Anyway .. the spring festival should be a celebration for the new season, the winter is over... a promisse of life is ahead of us.. warmer days, sun light.. life is coming back... lets celebrate that...

maybe wake him up with a kiss but with chocolate flavour next time!
Let the Spring come.. with new hopes and dreams.. happy NEW YEAR...