西乡 Xixiang

Recently I took a trip to one of my student's hometown nearby Hanzhong. It was the end of spring festival and he invited me to spend a few days there and participate in their celebrations. During spring festival (which lasts 15 days if i remember correctly), everybody returns to their hometowns and spends time with their grandparents and family. There's a big focus on cooking a lot and eating a lot; and for the men, drinking a lot. They also take time to remember family members who have passed away by this ceremony/ritual that involves burning fake money or something of the sort (I'm not too clear on how all that works). During New Year's eve, families usually sit around and watch CCTV. CCTV stands for China Central Television, and it consists of a network of over 15 channels (all controlled by the State). Some are geared for kids, other for women, etc... but every New Year's Eve there is a big program that brings together many Chinese actors and performers which takes place in Beijing. This is all televised and ends up being what most people watch during the day, waiting for 12:00 o'clock. At midnight there is an insane amount of fireworks and noisemakers going off everywhere, and most families participate with fireworks in some way. I don't know if I should compare it to Thanksgiving or Christmas/New Years in America, as in some ways its a mixture of both. Most Chinese don't celebrate Christmas, and those who do are in the sort of manner one might celebrate Valentine's day. No content, just for fun/out of boredom/excuse to buy or receive gifts. But then again, maybe that's how most people in America celebrate Christmas too haha. I really enjoyed it, and it was especially fun for me because I celebrated 2011 twice! Not to mention, this is now the year of the rabbit, which means good luck for me :)

on a side note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunyun
there's a wikipedia entry about the massive amount of traveling done during Spring Festival. I guess the time period is referred to as Chunyun.