Every Spring Festival, all my Chinese friends always ask me what Spring Festival is like in Canada. After all Spring Festival is a huge event in China, people all go home to see family, eat lots of good food, and look forward to a fresh start in the New Year. So what is Spring Festival like in the west?
Well, for starters, it’s not called Spring Festival.
The average Canadian knows Spring Festival as Chinese New Year. And no, there’s no national holiday for it. Since Canada is a huge mix of people from all over the world, it would be crazy for every ethnicity to get a holiday to celebrate their biggest holidays.
For us, the closest holiday comparison to Spring Festival would probably be Christmas. Everyone gets about a week off for the Christmas holidays and they take this time to travel home to see family, eat lots of good food, and look forward to a fresh start in the New Year. See the similarities?
I always associated Chinese New Year with the lion dances. First there would be thundering drums and cymbals to set the mood of the performance, then slowly the performers would come out, covered in multi-colored costumes that had all sorts of decorations hanging of them. Some had bells, others had ribbons, and some had layers and layers of different patterned fabrics. All the big Chinese restaurants would usually put on a show; it was really something to see!
They didn’t just walk around either; they would dance furiously to the music and perform acrobatics that were so impressive. Most of the lions had 2 or 3 performers under the costume. My favorite part was when the performer in the head of the lion would jump on the thighs of the performer behind him and it would look like the lion was 10 feet high! Sometimes, there would be another person who had a ball of cabbage on a string and the lions would fight to see who could get it.
It’s weird; I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lion dance in China. Maybe I just haven’t been to enough banquets.
When my friends back home ask me what Spring Festival is like in China I always say this: “I saw more fireworks in one night than I have in my entire life combined. It’s absolutely insane”. Fireworks and Chinese New Year don’t go together in Canada because you can only use fireworks on National Holidays, and sadly, Chinese New Year isn’t one of them.
I don’t have a large family in Canada. Chinese New Year was usually a home-cooked meal at home by my mother. Steamed fish was something we always had with little slices of green onions and sizzling ginger infused oil drizzled on top. It was a time for family and it’s something that I treasure more and more every year!
What about you? What’s the best part of Spring Festival for you?
