Red Revolution

  

     If you go to China in Chinese New Year, you can see the ‘Red Revolution’ around China. On the literal meaning of ‘Red Revolution’ is there’re a lot of red flowers around the city and a lot of red decorations on the street in Chinese New Year in China. On the other hand, ‘Red Revolution’ means something about traditional Chinese New Year. The story of the Chinese New Year has existed for centuries. However, the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations were beginning to thin out abroad. I cannot feel the festival atmosphere, hold the traditional ceremonies or take part in traditional activities in to the U.S. As the time passes, I am beginning to fit in American style Chinese New Year, while also missing traditional Chinese New Year.

 

     A few days before Chinese New Year in China, I can see many kinds of traditional red decorations in the city, and I felt the heavy atmosphere around my hometown. The red decorations were handing on trees, walls and constructions. My family decorated our house as beautiful as city. For example, we pasted red stick couplets on the wall, put some red products in home and put orange trees in front of the door. All of them meant luck in China, so a lot of families did the same thing in Chinese New Year. When I moved to the U.S, I also felt the atmosphere here, but just a little bit. In fact, it was almost the same as any ordinary day. I was trying to find out the reasons why I couldn’t feel it. Because this was a Chinese festival, the Chinese living in THE U.S didn’t have vacation for this festival, so they didn’t have time to do anything special for the Chinese New Year. As I known, some areas have Chinese New Year holidays in the U.S. I hope this policy will extend to other areas.

     Likewise, most Chinese have traditional ceremonies for the Chinese New Year. On first day, people cannot wash their hair.  I knew that I must wash my hair every morning in China, but I can’t wash my hairs in first day of Chinese New Year. If not, my mother will blame me. She would say “Don’t wash away your luck in first day of the year”. At that time, I did not break that rule, but now I can wash my hairs in first day, because I am far away from China, I can skip this ceremony no one will know. To be honest, I think some ceremonies should be kept, but some can be ignored. One ceremony is paring for the New Year lucky in temple.  After that, my family and I went back home to make a sweet soup balls. The sweet soup balls signify reunion in China, so this was the reason why we made and ate a sweep soup balls in first day.

 

   

  Furthermore, I can take part in kinds of traditional activities in Chinese New Year. The first traditional activity is setting off firecrackers and watching firecrackers. The lore about fireworks and firecrackers is based on a story form centuries ago, there was a beast called Nian which lived in undersea and mountain. It was appear in every spring. People were scared about Nian will kill them, and then they set off the firecracker to drive Nian away. Nowadays, the people keep practicing this tradition in China. In the U.S, I didn’t watch the firecrackers in Chinese New Year. If I wanted to watch firecrackers in America, I have to wait for July 4^th. At that moment, I missed the memory of Chinese New year in China when I was watching firecrackers. Giving New Year’s greeting was my favorite activity during the Chinese New Year, because I can get a lot of lucky money after I give the greeting to my relatives. I still gave New Year’s greeting to my relatives, but the any problem is I can’t get lucky money from them, because I was far away from them.

 

     In spite of all the loss of memories about ‘red revolution’ is gone, I still want to experience the feeling of the Chinese New Year. Maybe in the future, my offspring will not know what traditional Chinese New Year celebrations are. I am afraid that they will not know how the importance of traditional Chinese New Year for Chinese. I don’t want to lose the traditional festival for my family, so I hope I can get them back in the U.S. Revolution has not succeeded yet I should still work to be done. Even though the atmosphere has changed, I never forget the original feeling of the traditional Chinese New Year.