Editor's note: As billions of Chinese travel home for their most important holiday, the Spring Festival, how do foreigners in China celebrate the holiday? China Daily asked some foreigners a few questions to get their perspective during this special time of year. Take a look.
Erik Nilsson (from the United States)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
I wish I were eating Peking duck and jiaozi during the festival. However, I'll be in Thailand, dining on delicious spicy food.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
The thing I look forward to most is spending time with my parents, wife and kids. We have for years adopted the Chinese tradition of family reunions during Spring Festival. But this has become more meaningful now that we have two children.
3. What is the biggest change in your life during the past year?
Personally, the greatest change in my life has been that my kids are growing up. My son has grown from a baby to a toddler, and my five-year-old daughter is obsessed with science.
Socially, last year, a volunteer group I started in Yushu provided ear surgery for a disabled nomadic boy, paid full tuition for three poor Tibetan college students and sent tons of clothes and supplies to schools on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Professionally, a highlight of the previous year has been winning the Chinese Government Friendship Award — the highest honor bestowed upon foreigners for their contributions to China's social and economic development — in autumn, as well as giving a speech at a roundtable with Premier Li Keqiang during a Spring Festival reception for high-end foreign experts.
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
A delicious fish, served whole, with a light and garlicky sauce. The fish is a symbol of abundance for the coming year.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
Visit a temple fair in Shanghai.
3. What is the biggest change in your life during the past year?
Eat healthier foods, organic if possible. I don't get enough exercise but avoiding too much food with processed sugar, etc, will give me a healthier life.
Siva Sankar (from India)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
When the Year of the Monkey arrived in 2016, I was in Shanghai. At the city's busy Yuyuan Gardens, I had sumptuous Buddhist vegetarian fried rice at what seemed like one of the popular eateries there. It was made of fluffy rice and loads of different vegetables and was full of subtle, gentle flavors and nutritious ingredients. Don't quite remember the dish's name. Ever since I have been trying to eat more of it but to no avail.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
Relax, eat, travel, make new friends, visit new places, experience local culture and food, and read a bit. I have booked a four-day tour of Mount Sanqing and Wuyuan village in Jiangxi province. I will be traveling with a group of 20 expatriates.
3. What is the biggest change in your life during the past year?
Rapid receding of my hairline – am balding super fast -- borderline addiction to Chinese e-commerce sites, apps and WeChat, deepening friendship with tens of non-resident Indians in China who were strangers till last year, and cultivation of the ability to accept not-so-pleasant things like Beijing's smog as facts of life.
David G. Blair (from the United States)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
My wife makes lots of delicious Yunnan dishes. I think the mushrooms are my favorite.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
What I want to do most is write, write, write and to learn about the Chinese economy. I also dream of riding my bike from Beijing to Xishuangbanna.
3. What is the biggest change in your life during the past year?
The best change was moving to China and getting to live with my wife. It is an interesting life here. It has been a big transition from being a professor to working for a newspaper.
Anne Ruisi (from the United States)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
Dumplings! My late father's family is Italian, so I was raised on ravioli. When I had my first dumpling, I thought, 'What a wonderful twist on ravioli!' A few years ago at a Spring Festival dinner where I was a guest, we made our own dumplings and it was so much fun! I love cooking and that was a treat. My favorite dumpling is steamed pork with cilantro but I also like fried beef dumplings.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
Get some rest! I am working through most of Spring Festival, including New Year's Eve, so I will be in Beijing. But, I really hope I can attend one of the temple fairs. I love seeing families enjoy the games and performances. Strolling through the vendor area is fun and I usually end up buying several mementos and playing some of the games. During the Year of the Horse I won a couple of stuffed animals.
3. What was the biggest change in your life during the past year?
My beloved mother died in October. She had been ill for about two years after breaking her hip and was suffering from the early stages of dementia. I last spoke to her about a week before she died and she was fairly cognizant. My sisters called me the day before she died to tell me to come home immediately, but I didn't get there in time. It's been difficult sometimes to live so far from my family and I felt terrible I was still on the plane when she passed away. But my family said that when they told her, 'Anne is coming home,' she smiled.
Peter Nordlinger (from Canada)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
This is unknown as I am not much experienced with Spring Festival dishes. However, it's safe to say that dumplings, beer and chocolate would make me look forward to the New Year.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
I think Spring Festival is a time for everyone to slow down and reconsider their roots. Even Beijing itself seems to do this. So, I too will relax over the first few days of Spring Festival, after which I will be in Vietnam, where a similar Spring Festival is occurring. It will be interesting to compare the celebrations.
3. What was the biggest change in your life during the past year?
It has been a stable year without much change, which reminds me of the English idiom "no news is good news". The slow pace makes me feel as if I'm living a novel, turning a page each day and finishing a chapter each year. I plan to keep reading just to see how it all turns out.
Nelly Min (from the United States)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
Dumplings, of course! We are lucky to live in a city with so many great choices for dumplings, not just at Spring Festival, but any time of the year. My favorite dumplings are the ones with vegetables that stay crisp, like at Baoyuan near Liangmaqiao.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
Would have been nice to travel, but Beijing is actually quite pleasant during Spring Festival, as so many people leave the city to visit family in other parts of China. That means crowd-free subways and traffic-free roads all week for us "natives" who stay behind. We will share some traditional Korean rice cake soup with our Korean friends in town, play mahjong and enjoy some leisurely time off.
3. What was the biggest change in your life during the past year?
Learning to use a few new (new for me) apps, with help from Chinese friends and colleagues, has changed my life in the past year, especially two: Didi Chuxing and Maoyan.
One is a private taxi service, much like Uber, and the other is a movie theater app that helps you find movies and theaters around town. You can also buy tickets and snacks, and they are usually much cheaper than at the theater.
Having access to Didi and Maoyan makes living in China so much easier!
I can also add a growing list of other apps: Jingdong and Taobao, Band, Alipay and WeChat wallet. They existed before, but it was only in the last year that I finally incorporated them into my daily routine.
Rosemary Bolger (from Australia)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
Can't answer that yet as this is my first Spring Festival in China. I'm keen to try some new things and hopefully there will be some delicious dumplings involved.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
It wouldn't be a New Year celebration without fire crackers, so I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing them go off at midnight. As I still have to work most of the week, I'll be making the most of a quiet Beijing, getting to sit down on the subway, not having to queue up for tourist attractions (those that are still open, anyway) and taking a taxi without having to worry about traffic.
3. What is the biggest change in your life during the past year?
That's an easy one... moving to China!
Tyler O'Neil (from the United States)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
This will be the first year in a long time that I will actually be in China for Spring Festival as I usually try to use this time for a vacation. I've decided to save some money and stick around Beijing this year, so I'm going to use it as an opportunity to practice cooking as many restaurants will be closed for the holiday. I've already stocked up on a bunch of vegetables, eggs and some meat, so I guess I'll be experimenting to see what I can make this year.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
Spring Festival is a time to relax and reconnect with loved ones, so I'm looking forward to drinking wine with friends and sleeping in.
3. What is the biggest change in your life during the past year?
I was bitten by a radioactive spider and have since developed enhanced senses, the ability to climb up walls and onto ceilings, and glands have appeared on my wrists that allow me to shoot some kind of sticky spider-silk out of them. I would love to swing from rooftop to rooftop, fighting crime and keeping watch over the citizens of Beijing, but hutong houses are a little short.
I'm considering a move to either Shanghai or New York.
And I started working at China Daily. The switch from television to print has been pretty interesting.
Emre Demir (from Turkey)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
As a foreigner living in northern China, of course I enjoy eat jiaozi and totally agree with what Chinese people say: “好吃不过饺子，好看不过嫂子！”
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
Spring Festival means going back home for Chinese, but for me, it means staying at home and reading. I already ordered a lot of books for my spring festival reading.
On the other hand, I really enjoy Beijing city during the festival. At that time, in terms of population and atmosphere, I feel Beijing is back to her 1930s self, which I know about from novels and biographies. During that time, we have a chance to think about a city’s limitations, capacities and possibilities. These days I am working on my new book, some short stories that happened in Beijing. Before I start the writing process, I really need to see the space in its quite empty state.
3. What is the biggest change in your life during the past year?
Changing is a process and always in progress.
2016 was a hard year at the scale of global, national and personal levels for me. I think this hard period taught me a lot, increased my endurance, reduced my sensibility.
Andrew Moody (from UK)
1. What's your favorite food for Spring Festival?
Spicy river fish, that you can actually taste the mud. Yunnan food is a particular favorite since it is where Chinese and Indian cuisines merge.
2. What would you like to do most during the Spring Festival?
I would also like to be more competent in Chinese than I am.
3. What is the biggest change in your life during the past year?
Seeing the world from a different perspective and not just a British one. It is also quite useful to have this new outlook since the world is likely to become more Easternized in the future. Working a lot with younger people – which most China Daily reporters are – is also energizing. They are also useful in helping you sort out daily life technology issues.
