Archive for January 2012

Warmest Festival in Coldest Winter

This is my first year away from home. Though my home university is in the different city from my hometown, I will travel back to home to spend the traditional Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) with my family as most Chinese students do. However, as an exchange student to Queen’s where the distance between home and school is half of the earth, I naturally gave up the old way. Beyond my expectation, it brings me more sense of union as the concept of family expands to the big family of Chinese generations.

New Year Eve Gala by Queen's Chinese students

As known to all, the Spring Festival is the biggest national event and even the worldwide celebration for many Chinese generations spreading overseas. When I was a child, I felt very mysterious and curious every time I saw those Chinese abroad show their celebrating way and express their greetings to the motherland people through the TV screen. I haven’t expected one day I would become one of them in the second decade of my life, which would also be one of the most memorable experience here in Canada.

Unlike those big cities such as Vancouver and Toronto where quite a number of Chinese people are gathered, I even couldn’t imagine if I can have a half-like Chinese New Year in Kingston. However, when I came to the Wallace Hall in JDUC on Jan21, I suddenly felt I was back in China, where I saw several big round tables, festival stage with red decorations as well as many happy Chinese faces. Correspondingly, round is similar to union in Chinese pronunciation, red is considered to be an auspicious color since ancient times while happiness is always the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year Festival. It is said to be an annual event happened in JDUC created by Queen’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association(QCSSA). I certainly wouldn’t miss this representative celebration on campus. Listening to the Chinese traditional music, enjoying the snacks and chatting around the table, I got quite relaxed after a week’s tiredness. The following show imitating the evening New Year Gala of CCTV(China Central Television), were nicely designed and performed by Queen’s student volunteers. Ancient costume show, Chinese Kongfu, cross-talk…… I was lucky enough to become an audience of a live Chinese Performing Art. Actually, the program was the spiritual feast of the evening party, accompanied dinner of various Chinese food served to be the real big feast. Yangzhou Fried Rice, Dumplings, Peppery Chicken……it was indeed quite a long time ago that I enjoy those delicious dishes since rushing pizzas and hamburgers here almost every day. The final chorus of Grateful Heart highlights the party while expressing the gratitude and dedication of each Chinese overseas student.

Dumpling Banquet

Besides the campaign run by student association, I went for the celebration of Kingston Community the next day, when almost all the Chinese family in the city as well as Chinese students get together in the Kingston Chinese Alliance Church. We started making dumplings since the afternoon. With several tables separated in the room, tons of dumplings were produced in each group. In face of this enjoyable task, no matter who made a dough by hand, who used a rolling pole to produce a piece of dumpling wrapper, who mixed the filling with vegetables and meat, everyone behaved to be an expert in this “national new year food”. It is especially interesting when children joined in to learn making dumplings, different versions representing different areas of China “argue” with each other. From such a small dumpling, you can see the diversity of China. Just as most Chinese dishes don’t have a quantized regulation, dumplings(jiaozi in Chinese) of different shapes yet symbolize the same festival meaning: wealth(shape similar to the golden ingot money of Ming Dynasty), union(mixture of various fillings and flavors), and new year blessing (jiao in Chinese means the leaving the passed year and welcoming the next year).

After the hilarious dumpling dinner, all went upstairs to watch the video of 2012 CCTV Chinese New Year Eve Gala. The amazing Chinese stage art brought everyone at present not only the joy of watching performance also the ethnic pride resulted from the deep cultural meanings shown in each program. Maybe inspired by this, also as a music student, after watching I couldn’t help going to the practice room to present a Chinese Concert with my violin. Tonight there is no Bach, no Bruch, but only the Chinese tone ranging from thousands of years ago to the modern time. Spring Festival Overture, Missing Home, Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto…… I found my own way to celebrate our own festival by home music, coincidently, to continue the tradition called shousui (staying up late all night on New Years). At this beautiful eve, I felt extremely happy and excited to leave the traditional melody flowing in the air beyond the sea.

First Chinese New Year without the accompaniment of family, however I have the union of a bigger family. First Chinese New Year away from China, however I experienced the most representative Chinese celebration at Queen’s and Kingston Community. First Spring Festival spent in the coldest winter, however, I would say it was the warmest one that I felt.

Written by: Zixuan (Essie) Liu, exchange School of Music