By Qianyu (Margaret) Cheng
The time that I love the most is spring festival. Being the first day of the year in lunar calendar, spring festival signifies a new beginning, and it is always time for family to be together. Among most countries in Asia, people celebrate spring festival as the most important day of the year. Lunar New Year always starts at mid February-ish, which is exactly the time when midterms go on. As a result, being an international student like me, it is no way to gather with my family at all - I cannot just drop my midterms and go all the way home. However, even if I cannot be with my family, I am not alone. As a junior, I am already used to being away from home when spring festival comes. U of I gradually becomes my home away from home.
On the spring festival of my freshman year, we celebrated lunar New Year in dorm kitchen. In China, especially in Northern China, people have homemade dumplings to celebrate lunar New Year. Even though none of us knew how to make dumplings from scratch, we still bought some from stores and found them as delicious as homemade. It was my first year celebrating spring festival without my family, so I almost burst into tears when I was Skyping with my whole family at the other side of earth. However, the hot dumpling soup and smiles of friends warmed my heart. My nostalgia healed up when I began busy preparing for midterms.
At the second year, I moved out to an apartment, so the idea of making dumplings all by my own came out. When my roommate and me shopped grocery in a store, clerk handed us over a red lucky money envelope. When I was a kid, I got lucky money every spring festival. At night, I hided them under pillows, and felt asleep peacefully hearing the noises of firecrackers. Once upon the time, in ancient China there was a monster called Nian, which means year in Chinese. The monster came out every year at the night of spring festival, so that it could swallow every kid it found. Nonetheless, it was afraid of red color and sharp noises. So that’s why in lunar New Year, kids received red enveloped containing money, and people fired up firecrackers, so that Nian would be scared away. I was so happy receiving the lucky money in United States, and later on we made the greatest dumplings ever. Friends gathered around and had a potluck in our apartment. It all felt like coming back home.
Now comes the lunar New Year of 2015. Compared to when I was a freshman, I became more mature and I learned so much in the past two years, even much more than what I learned back then. University of Illinois becomes my home away from home. I appreciate these experience, with friends and faculties. They are with me always, no matter if the sky is black or blue. I would never forget the life when I am an ILLINI, and the time when I am here in Champaign. This year’s spring festival also comes with midterms, dumplings, joy, and much more. But no matter how we celebrate it, I will always remember the theme for spring festival: family, friend, red and love.
Thank you for reading and Happy Spring Festival!
