Feeling of New Year

In the last few days, I chatted with my friends online on what they were doing or how they felt on Chinese New Year's Day. To my surprise, most of them said that they were no longer so happy and excited on that day as they were young. Neither did the people around them. In fact, during the last New Year I celebrated in China, I had the same feeling as them.

I still remember when I was a small child, how exciting it was to celebrate New Year. We could wear new clothes, stick couplets and have a big dinner with the whole family. And then came the most exciting thing, set off firecrackers and fireworks. When 12 o'clock came, the sky would be very colorful. And the next few days, there would be dragon dances or lion dances, guessing lantern riddles and even drama in my village. When there was a dragon dance, we children were always encouraged to run across the dragon because we would get good luck. I liked to make the rounds only to get more red packets, though it was only several Yuan or even fifty cents. I would be very happy. Walking on the street, I would hear 'May you be happy and prosperous' (Gong xi fa cai)! Every one seemed to be very happy with smile on their faces. The streets would be colorful; every house was decorated with lanterns, FU or couplets in red. We could feel that we were celebrating the New Year; We were happy and excited. But now almost everything changes. We have dinner even when not everybody is home. Looking at the street, we cannot see many differences compared with the usual. There is no dragon dance or drama any more. And I do not make rounds any more…I cannot see any difference on New Year. I do not have the feeling of celebrating the New Year's Day. It seems just like an ordinary day!

I do not know whether it is good or not.As economy improves, we are not that into celebrating traditional festivals. The feelings of festivals are fading out. And the younger generations seem to be more into western festivals than Chinese festivals. I find that overseas Chinese celebrate the New Year even more traditionally than the Chinese in China! They still have dragon dances, lion dances or something very traditional.

I do not know whether it is because I grow up so that I do not have the same feeling as I was young or any other reasons. But I do hope that we can carry on our fine cultural traditions handed from history. We are Chinese after all.