Yes, it is a first for our family! For this Chinese New Year, we have not joined the mass exodus, but rather stayed in Beijing.
In fact, this is the time of the largest migration on earth - the entire country moves east to west, south to north, north to west; most people return to their villages, migrant workers leaving their construction sites, ayis leaving families they care for, waiters and service people taking a pause, store owners closing shops. Regular life takes a halt - everyone hops on an overcrowded train, and goes home.
Well, it should be that simple. This year again, buying the train ticket was like playing lotto: tickets are made available 10 days before departure. Now imagine the entire country trying to board trains to arrive home (wherever it is in the country) at the same time. In the past years, people have started lining up as early as midnight to get a ticket in the morning. Now this year, they started allowing online booking and phone booking... 14 days in advance. Which means that those who needed it most - the migrants, illiterate and without a computer - could hardly get a ticket when the ticket office opened 4 days later.
All this is important stuff for these people. Celebrating the new lunar year in family is a major event, but it is also the only real holiday most workers get in the year. For several of them, it means going to see their child, whom they had to leave with the grand-parents, as schooling in the city is too expensive for children of migrant workers. What a hardship! I cannot imagine been away from my kids for a few weeks, even less a full year!!!
So this year, for our lovely Ayi, we felt generous. As we were not able to let her go for her usual 2 weeks (the official holidays are 3 days, and most workers will work over the previous and following weekends to make up a full 7 consecutive days off-work, but her and others are often able to negotiate a longer break). She is from Anhui, a southern province, a long journey home. To help her maximize her stay, we offered her a round-trip plane ticket (shh! it is a secret - other ayis should not know, some might get jealous!). I even took her to the airport; as it was her first-ever plane ride, a little coaching ensured a smooth departure. Here she is ready to go!
For us expatriates, Chinese New Year means something different. Oh! What promises we heard: noise and chaos, impossibility to sleep at night due to the number of loud bangs from the fireworks, no stores opened, no restaurants, no local travels due to lack of tickets or crowded destinations, overcrowded temple fairs, blablabla. But despite the bad omen, we stayed on. And ... in retrospect (even if it is not completely over - the fiesta lasting well over 2 weeks!), these days in Beijing have been simply fa-bu-lous! yes yes, FA-BU-LOUS!! What a bliss!!!
First, for a whole week and half, there is NO traffic!!! just that is absolutely amazing. Then, as there is not much happening, everywhere we went, it was just low key, no crowd, no stress. And having the kids with us at home, without our work schedule interfering, was nice: no suitcases to pack, just the regular small chores (lunches, laundry) but yet the feeling that we were all there for each other, together... And then, furthermore, work-wise, everything is kind of slow, so even if there is work for some, it is usually not too stressful.
And the best of all, for me, is the fact that we got a personal firework by our place every night. The first night was interesting: it started out in a crescendo - small and sporadic, coming from a few directions around us, sometimes in the street just below our place. Then as midnight approached, it came from everywhere, from behind every building I could see from our windows, from down in our street and from across the stadium and form further away, and it was popping all over and went completely wild when midnight rang. It was truly beautiful, loud and magic. Yet, my three men were sleeping like princes waiting in vain for their princesses. And even if I went to wake up mon petit prince Noam to let him watch this magic scene (I like to play the princess), he could not care less, and just wanted to get back in bed. So I ended up sitting by myself in the TV room, sipping some wine while gazing at this urban orgasm of lights, toasting the new dragon in town.
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