A Festival For the Senses

By Lyndsey Biddle

Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

There is red everywhere; hanging from rooftops, on the walls, on the ground. And earsplitting blasts night and day, lights shooting across the sky, explosions. No, I am not describing a war scene; these are the sights and sounds of the Chinese Spring Festival, or Chun Jie as it is called in Chinese.

Spring Festival occurs according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar and usually falls towards the end of January or early February. The Spring Festival starts a week prior to the well-known Chinese New Year. The Chinese hold a number of interesting beliefs about this time of year and uphold many unique New Year traditions.

I lived and worked in the city of Tianjin, just a short train ride south of Beijing, for three years. While experiencing just one Chinese New Year is enough for most foreigners, I had the pleasure of taking part in three. And I think my ears are still ringing these many years later from the firecrackers that blasted my eardrums for days on end.

That is the first thing that comes to mind when I think about the Spring Festival and New Year, the incessant blasts, night and day. China is, after all, the birthplace of fireworks and firecrackers, so why not go all out, right? The reason for all the firecrackers is primarily to ward off evil spirits who try to make their way to Earth during the New Year. During the Chinese New Year you can find makeshift stands selling an incredible variety of fireworks including the kind that are illegal in the West and only set off during official events far far away from the crowd. I remember seeing young children purchasing and setting off these industrial sized fireworks and it still gives me the chills. My neighbors at the time were extremely diligent in scaring off the evil spirits because they set off the loudest firecrackers I have ever heard just ousted my apartment at all hours of the day for two weeks straight. Needless to say, I was a bit sleep deprived.

The other thing that stands out during the Spring Festival is the red color everywhere. Red is considered a lucky color and gold represents wealth, so in every home and in every street there are red paper decorations, lanterns, and the like. One popular decoration is the Fu sign. Fu means luck and prosperity. The Chinese will place the sign up-side-down on the wall in hopes of brining luck down into their house.

There are countless other Chinese New Year traditions including the giving of HongBao which are red envelopes filled with money that are given to children. Families will prepare NianGao, a sweet cake, which is made to appease the Kitchen God ZaoWang who comes to each family during the New Year to make a report on the family. Most importantly though, Spring Festival and Chinese New Year are a time for families to come together and catch up. In today’s modern China, this is for many Chinese the only time to return home and be with their family.

Lyndsey writes for Briefcase Direct, a website that offers luxury briefcases direct from the manufacturer.

Lyndsey currently lives in Kolkata, India.

AVAILABLE LIGHT ADVENTURES

The world is getting smaller; half a day and we are half the world away. We can check our e-mails on our mobile phones or even watch the mid week sports on the commute home from work. Increasingly we talk about getting away from it all, finding our inner peace, challenging our minds and bodies outside of our comfort zones.

My wife and I elected to take the “get away from it all” seriously and live now in a quiet corner of Yunnan Province in South West China. Located at 2400m (7874 feet), the town of Lijiang is a World Heritage Site with a wonderfully preserved Old Town (Dayan) and the looming giant of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain rising to a height of 5,596 m (18,359 ft) to the north. The unique Naxi (Na-shee) culture and the scenery attract hundreds of thousands of Chinese and overseas tourists every year; all of them “getting away from it all.”

Yunnan is a remarkably diverse Province; to the south, tropical rain forests are home to the last herds of wild Elephants in China, many South East Asian bird species reach their northern limits and the hillsides are sculpted into the most dazzling rice terraces in the world. To the north and west lie impenetrable mountains, the last peaks of the Himalaya, with only a few roads invading their secrets; and there, some say, lies Shangri La, as described in the James Hilton book, Lost Horizon.

Two hours out of Lijiang, crossing the 3000m-elevation zone, you enter Tibet: the change is abrupt, architecturally and culturally. Though not geographically part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, this corner or Yunnan, along with neighboring areas of Sichuan, harbor preserved societies rich in their independence and traditions, solidly recognized as Tibet. Yading National Park, one of the most remote in China, offers probably the best mountain scenery north of the Himalaya, especially in October when the foliage is at its maximum intensity.

For me, the pleasure of driving through deserted valleys or over majestic high passes, Buddhist Stuppas decorating the roadside, is my Shangri La. Pausing to let Yak herders move their beasts to higher pastures, or to watch old women bent double with massive loads of firewood, punctuate the peaceful journeys.

As we climb onto the actual Tibetan Plateau, its scale and unforgiving wilderness are humbling; lying mostly above 4300m (14,200 feet) and referred to as “the Third Pole” it is simply and literally breath-taking. Up here it’s all about extremes, empty space abounds, the worlds highest mountains influence the climate and create a rain shadow extending over the whole region, keeping the plateau a cold, dry place.

And at the heart of Tibet is Lhasa, and at it’s heart, the Potala Palace. Not much can prepare you for this place, incongruously perched on a small hill in the middle of a mostly flat city itself surrounded by bare mountainsides. History, faith and spirituality coalesce in the thin air forming a powerful intoxicating elixir; few leave unchanged.

Available Light Adventures runs a series of photography tours of the area; designed by photographers, for photographers.

Available Light Adventures has earned the PTR five star rating.

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About

Alister Benn & Juanli Sun

If everyone’s life journey is a book, then ours is a mysterious adventure, thriller and a love story. Since we met in Beijing in the spring of 2000 it has been a roller coaster of discovery, travel, learning and romance. We’ve journeyed together to over 20 countries looking for paradise, somewhere to finally put down our roots; collect books, guitars and art, somewhere “to chill.”

We first came to Yunnan in April 2004 in search of secretive birds and big mountains, finding both, but not expecting the germination of the first seeds of an idea of home. By October 2006 we were ready to commit and lived here for 13 months, our longest period of time in one house since we met. Were it not for work pressure dragging us off, I doubt we would have left, but we returned in the summer of 2008 and are still here, this time we hope, for good.