Castor Comploj - China

Hello folks,

It is getting colder and colder and the holidays haven't begun yet. While in all the rest of the world in the past two weeks there was Christmas, the New Year and the winter holidays, here I couldn't feel anything at all. Christmas was a day like all the others, New Year too, and I have always gone to school so far.

It was a bit strange to pass the end of the year without having celebrated Christmas with my family, but I can say I liked skipping our happiest festival just for once, with the beautiful snow and all the happy faces during this period. It was really ... different. That's why I liked it.

My holidays will be in February, the schools still haven't decided which days will be off, but fact is that during the first two weeks in February there will be a festival, the biggest one in Chinese culture, wich is called 节 (chunjie) and is the Chinese New Year.

This will be a festival I will be able to enjoy for sure. All the Chinese family, including grandparents and all the other members will have a big dinner, I was told. I am excited for the biggest festival of the year. According to Chinese beliefs, on this day everyone gets a year older, because the moon restarts its cycle on this day. Babies in the North of China (in the South it is different) are 1 when they are born, and the next  Chinese New Year they already get two years old, and then the counting goes on from that day on.

Modern Chinese culture was "developed" mostly by the former governor Mao Zedong and the philosopher Confucius, who once said, "The children in the family have to come home as quickly as possible after being out, to spend the most time possible with their family, because they, and everyone else too, know that parents, brothers and sisters are the only ones in the whole world who love, and will love forever the children, just like no one else does." That's why   Chinese children come home as quickly as possible after school, to spend time with their parents and study for school, and after all they really  have a lot of homework.  Chinese children have dinner after coming home from school in the evening, study afterwards and then sleep to be prepared for the next day. Most of the students also have extra lessons on weekends and during the holidays. If the children come home late they are often considered as being bad.

The Chinese way of thinking is a bit narrow-minded in my eyes:  Maozedong is considered the leader of this nation, and for everyone in my city he is like a god. Anyway, talking about politics is quite a no-no here. It was quite difficult at the beginning to adapt to the culture of the "People's Republic of China", but after getting used to it you can see the two sides of the same coin.

Greetings from China,

Castor Comploj