As the Chinese celebrate the New year in Russia without relatives
Young Chinese encroached on the sacred and pierced the great wall of ancient traditions. Increasingly young people prefer to spend the main holiday of the year in the circle of friends or with your significant other — the main thing is to separate from parents. “Газета.Ru” tells how modern Chinese celebrate the New year outside the home and what they do, if you were on holidays in Russia.
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Chinese New year is often informally called “lunar new year” because it comes according to the lunar-solar Chinese calendar. The holiday lasts more than a week every year is dropping out at different dates in the Gregorian calendar. The Chinese believe that on this day, nature awakens, and the patron of the year becomes one of the 12 animals of a certain color. In addition to color and choose another element: this year, people in China are waiting for a yellow dog, which protects the element of earth. But the single color remains the enduring symbol of the holiday: red, in China it can be found everywhere.
Chinese new year celebrations in General, not much different from Russian: the television holiday show and the abundance of dishes on the table. However, the appeal of the Chinese President to the citizens takes place under the “European” calendar: XI Jinping congratulates the people of China on December 31.
The majority of Chinese living in Russia, seeking to return home for the new year holidays. Therefore, a formal event, for example, in Moscow Chinese cultural center held until February 16. However, even if to escape to his homeland failed (all the same traffic load on new year’s eve prohibitively high, as ticket prices), many Chinese citizens, especially the young, do not worry.
Chiu-Yun Fang 23 years, she is studying in Moscow in the Moscow state University on an exchange program. She would not go to Taiwan to stay with relatives for the holidays. Instead, Yun-Fang and her friends go to Chinese and Georgian restaurants in the capital of Russia. Her parents reacted with understanding, though in other families would be offended.
“This will be my first New year away from home. I normally celebrate in his hometown in Taiwan. During the holidays almost all go to the South, so in Taipei at that time few people. To be with family these days is very important, but not everyone can. New year’s eve comes the most important day for everyone: family always sits down and has dinner together. Although each family has its signature dishes, chicken, fish, pork are the three essential element of a festive table,” says Chiu Yun-Fan.
As an alternative to the traditional family get-togethers in recent years more and more popular is travel on all holidays. Favorite destinations: Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and other countries in South-East Asia. But widespread domestic tourism.
Major Chinese city for the New year are empty, all leave for their provinces, many companies do not work for a week.
But the streets are relatively deserted for the first couple of days of holidays: then the villagers use the time off to mass to see the main sights of the country.
During the holiday in the cities usually go to restaurants and watch the parades of dragons, occasionally shuddering from the noise of the fireworks. The louder the firecrackers, the better, because it is believed to wards off evil spirits. However, in recent times the joy for the Chinese is severely limited.
The use of fireworks was so massive that the level of air pollution with harmful substances and so is not safe from an environmental point of view, China has risen to critical levels. Therefore, the government from January 1, 2016, has sharply restricted the sale of fireworks: they can not buy in 282 cities, including Shanghai and Zhengzhou, and violated the prohibition of the sellers and producers will be penalized. Therefore, ordinary Chinese have to settle for just the city fireworks show.
Tired of walking (or bored in the family), the Chinese spend time in another favored form of Christmas activities: watching TV series. The craze affects almost all segments of the population, but the youth prefers TV series of foreign production than domestic.