Musings on the boon and bane of celebrating the Chinese New Year

A new sort of salutation has crept into greetings for the Chinese New Year, when millions of people traditionally travel to hometowns across China to celebrate with family.

On Monday, five days before the start of the Year of the Dragon, I was shopping at a store near my home. The salesgirl suddenly exclaimed to an incoming customer: "You have not gone home yet?"

The customer, who appeared a bit nonchalant, replied, "I am leaving on Wednesday."

While riding in the elevator when I returned home, an elderly middle aged woman I didn't know asked me, "Aren't you going home?"

I said "no," and put the same question to her. She replied that she wouldn't be returning to her hometown in Hubei Province for the holiday.

Who can blame her? Hubei has been much in the news recently for reasons that might dent travel enthusiasm.

Due to ice, sleet and snow in Hubei, Hunan, Anhui and Henan provinces, people on the go have often found themselves stranded on highways, and in railway stations and even airports. There were heartwarming reports of villagers along some highway succoring trapped travelers with basic food and hot water.

Despite the challenges of travel and other reasons for staying put this holiday season, the deep-seated motivation to return to hometowns persists. The outward-bound masses from big cities leaves urban areas overstretched for services.

On Monday, I asked a stall owner in a wet market whether the market would remain open during the festival.

Even though she was very busy at the time with customers, she stopped to tell me, "It's not a matter of whether we will be open or not. We will. It's a matter of prices. What costs 20 yuan today will be 30 yuan by then."

The ubiquitous deliverymen on Shanghai streets are fewer in number and seem to be riding their scooter with more determined speed.

In a survey, The Paper, a Shanghai-based online news portal, asked netizens to cite what were some of the most formidable issues for those heading to family reunions in hometowns.

I, for one, was raised in an environment where the Spring Festival meant new clothes, firecrackers, plates of dumplings, meat-heavy delicacies, and an unending supply of sunflower seeds ready to be cracked. There was no CCTV gala show on television at that time.

Xinhua

But today, there's a more mixed picture.

Of course, children always delight in all the celebrations. For adults, the holiday can sometimes be more trying.

The obligatory visits to relatives often result in kvetching to unmarried children about the need to find a spouse. And the somewhat coercive practice of having to give envelopes of money, called hongbao, to younger family members and gifts to older kin can be a nuisance.

A new year ushers in the opportunity to take stock of the year past and muse about what should be changed. Many residents of smaller towns or villages will be asking themselves: Should I move somewhere more advantageous?

The anonymity of a big city tends to deflect questions about one's personal life. Not so in more rural settings, where any village busybody may inquire about your income, your marital status or your plans to have children. It's an environment where it's hard to equivocate.

Unlike in cities, where the age of marriage eligibility is loosely interpreted, villagers will always tut-tut and demand some explanation why someone 30 years or older remains unattached.

Such nosiness is probably great fodder for a national demographic in dire need of more children, but it can be embarrassing sometimes.

There have been reports in the past about young singles "renting" a companion to accompany them home and stop interference in its tracks.

The time before Chinese New Year is considered a legitimate time to demand payment of old debts. Small wonder that many shiftless debtors prefer to stay away from homes in the runup to the change of year – though they may make an appearance when the calendar changes and the danger has passed.

Spring Festival is regarded as a time for turning a new leaf on life. Before the lunar calendar moves forward a year, the rural tradition is to have a bath in a public bathhouse and get a haircut to go with all those new clothes.

The mix of old customs and modern-day conventions is inevitable. But one constant remains – the belief that a new year comes with hope for better times and a spirit of getting on with life, no matter where it takes us.