Chinese New Year (Guo Nian) seemed to have come and gone but on returning to Xi’an it is obvious it is still in the process of going, pleasantly. Back in the village, my girlfriend is actually from a small village outside town, New Year was spent trying desperately not to eat a feast of fine proportions at every home in the neighbourhood. However, when the neighbourhood consists of fields and homesteads drifting off into the far distance and when everyone seems to be a second father, an uncle, a sister, an elder brother or an aunty this can prove quite difficult. Even harder, having arrived at the destination where you have actually planned to have dinner, is to politely find excuses for why you cannot now eat all the delights laid before you. In areas of China where maybe the selection of food on offer is not usually of the widest variety, come Spring Festival things are different. Fish are found, pigs and chickens are killed and even the odd dog finds its way to the plate. This is the time of year in China to treat yourself and, as best you can, everyone else around you.
Now, having left the festivities behind and returned to the provincial capital of Xi’an, the centre of western China, I have found a sleepy city still suffering the feeling of loss, the loss of its population to neighbouring towns and villages. Many of the restaurants remain closed and the streets relatively quiet. There is still a week left of the 4 week holiday I have had from my school and this has meant I have spent the last days in true holiday spirit. (Many Chinese people still seem to get atleast a couple of weeks off for Spring Festival) It is a quite splendid feeling to enjoy the festivities, of for example our own Christmas celebrations, but have days to savour them, instead, as it is for so many now back in the West, a few days of dashing around to see family knowing full well that work is lurking in the background. Ofcourse, the more China develops economically or specifically the more it adopts Capitalist fundamentals, the more its major chains open earlier and the more holidays are cut short. Let us hope the number of family run businesses can hold off the onslaught of larger franchises and keep a hold on this great time of year and the opportunity it offers for reconnecting the increasingly disparate Chinese family.
As an aside and with reference to the subway system that is being built here in Xi’an, it is marvellous to have returned to discover Chang’an Lu (the main southerly tributary from the city centre and the south gate) free from a couple of sections of subway related road closures that have been causing disbelief and despair for months. These closures seem to have coincided with a noticeable increase in car use over the last year or so and have accordingly led to a noticeable increase in the number of minor accidents. I will refer back to these issues in later notes but it is enough to conclude here, with the observation that people maintain the habit of crossing the road and swinging out of junctions as if cars were still a strange anomaly here in Xi’an, they are not. This week I am able to trundle down the street on my bike with an absentminded holiday attentiveness, next week I will not be able to do so but then I will be back at work.
* This is not my picture but I like it.
西安