My Spring Festival

Updated: 2015-03-06 15:29

By Gao Ying (高颖)

Grandma's home. We had a grand dinner here. Photos provided by Gao Ying

It took me almost 24 hours to go from Shanghai to my hometown, a small village in Shanxi Province. And there is no direct train in my hometown to arrive from Shanghai, so I also needed to transfer to another coach from Luoyang. Then it will take me another 4 to 5 hours. Living in Shanghai gives me the chance to experience what the Spring Festival travel rush really is. And still there are so many people who were standing in the aisle when we were sitting. I won’t forget the atmosphere in the train I took. It was hot (around 25 degrees Celsius) compared to the outside temperature. And it was crowded and smelly. I guess people who have had similar experiences would know that in this kind of situation, you would have a problem in going to the toilet, because there are people everywhere. And everybody was happy though it was not comfortable for everyone. Why? Because we were heading back to home, sweet home, to celebrate Spring Festival with our families.

When I got to home, mom was preparing the food (steamed buns) for the New Year. I can see she was very happy. Her far-away daughter was at home now. Then we talked a lot about what happened in the university and in Shanghai, and what happened in our village as such. I was happy to see mom can manage our home pretty well, because unlike other families, my dad stays at home and mom goes out to make money. And dad never took care of our home, even though it is new one. So home feels like a home when mom is at home. Because it was only four days before Spring Festival when I came back, I did not help mom to clean all our house and buy food for the New Year, which are the traditional before the festival. Time always seemed to fly by quickly when I was at home. Mom thought I was very tired at the university, so she let me sleep until 9 o’clock. She is very understandable and tolerant, a great mom.

Then in the afternoon before Spring Festival, I helped mom and dad to paste Spring Festival couplets on both sides of our gate. It had the feeling of New Year. My sister got married in Baotou in Inner Mongolia. She was planning to go back by car on the first day of Spring Festival, but on that day, it snowed. Sister, her husband and younger brother cannot come back that day. I could see mom was a little bit upset. And as mom does not like one of my aunts, she did not join the grand dinner at grandma’s place because that aunt was there. I was sent to call mom, but mom already cooked at home, so I also did not go to the grand dinner. Here is the difference between North China and South China. We had a grand dinner on the first day of Spring Festival, but people from South China have the dinner on New Year’s Eve. And people in our village collected money themselves and built a basketball court. On the first day of Spring Festival, there were basketball matches. Many villagers came to see the match, even reporters from our county television.