Xin Nian Kuai Le

Yuandan is the “New Year” in the Gregorian calendar, given that name by the Republic of China in 1913 after the 1912 abdication of the Qing Dynasty and the symbol of radical change, but China goes with the lunisolar calendar, the old Agricultural calendar, so its lunar new year is more popularly referred to as the Spring Festival observed for 15 days. The “boom-booms” last that long with many going up in the sky at midnight!

Though xin nian kuai le literally means “fresh year happy you,” its objective message is more than just the turning of a calendar leaf; it is focused on “happy” as the key word for wellbeing, usually translated as “happiness” with the word for the “ba,” the state of bliss, a homonym for number eight. Numerology prefers 8s, that’s why Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Koreans on Saipan compete for vehicle plates and telephone numbers with 8s. Anyway, the end of the spring holiday points to a new turn toward prosperity in a new dispensation as spring promises new crops into full harvest in the fall.

Commercial South China uses the phrase that is more familiar to Southeast Asia and Saipan: Kung Hei Fat Choi, “congratulations, you be prosperous,” for which the younger generation merrily add: Hongpao na lai, “Keep the red envelop coming.”

The hongpao is the stuffed red envelope traditionally handed out as a gift, adults proffer to the younger generation, or elders to unmarried offspring, containing crisp Chinese renminbi. Chinese children in the U.S. assertively remind their seniors to forget the Washingtons and the Lincolns, even the Hamiltons as not worth stuffing, but their eyes lit up with the Grants and the Franklins! China is cheaper. Mao’s red at 100 renminbi is under $20!

Time as the measure of change marks the European perspective, thus the AD anno domini, the Year of the Lord, marks the resurrection of Jesus from the grave as the starting point of a new dispensation, canonically agreed upon in Constantine’s desire to unify the empire, also positioning the winter solstice as the time of incarnation and the onset of the Western calendar.

On the other hand, though China also counts years (currently three markings, two in the 4710s and one in the 4650s vie for academic recognition), the hoi polloi bask more on just the family obligations and social requirements of the holiday. It is the time, nay, a social imperative, for family reunions, not unlike the Christmas to New Year ethos in the West that sends road traffic into frenzy. The season is the busiest in-country travel time of the year, with many travelers stranded in stations for shortage of berths in the still relatively inexpensive train rides.

In the countryside, shops close for 15 days, though the urban revelers go for seven, but the current political dispensation now only has three days of official holidays, but as I mentioned earlier, the boom-booms last for 15 days!

During the Cultural Revolution, not unlike the NAACP’s promotion of MLK Day as a “day on” rather than a “day off,” workers were encouraged to make the spring holiday a working day, unpopular among the ranks. During Deng Xiao Peng’s economic reform and opening up, the holiday reverted back to its four-millennium practice of family reunions.

The mythology surrounding the holiday is that of a ferocious creature named Nian that periodically alighted on villages, human settlements and neighboring farms, devouring helpless creatures until folks discovered fire (sparklers), noise (firecrackers) and red (banners and door signs) as tools to thwart the monstrous ogre.

President Xi Jing Ping and the CPC counseled “austerity” as appropriate for the times, given the state of the global economy of reduced manufacturing demands that once fueled China’s economy. With red streamers and banners lit by red globes of lanterns gracing the first six-floor façade of my office building in Shenbei, Shenyang, Liaoning, a new satellite city where five downtown universities relocated in the late ’90s, being austere is a relative reality.

I occupy a portion of the Hui Land Development housing project north of Shenyang Aerospace University. Five clusters of blinking lights keep a festive atmosphere in a sedate “British” architecture (uppity Jardines of Hong Kong is the developer), but austerity is more the rule this year than the exception.

Being in the middle of winter with snow still on the ground, the young upscale residents will be excused if the firecrackers banned in the housing area crack the silence at midnight to celebrate the spring holiday.

But as holidays really are anywhere in the world, spring holiday is best observed from the heart rather than the din of firecrackers and the billowing colors of red, gold and smoke. Prosperity and abundance are interior qualities that cannot be replaced by flash, dash and color. Xin nian kuai le. Kung hei fat choi.