China Segment

And so it comes again, the beginning of a new Chinese lunar calendar. And with it, fresh gales from the North, as if Siberia itself was bearing down on us here in Shanghai. 春节, Spring Festival, is a misnomer in my opinion. Every year it’s unspeakably cold for this region, and though [...]

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Lantern Festival is the traditional end to the 2 weeks of Lunar New Year festivities in China. These days, the official holiday is only a week, so for most people the Lantern Festival is a bit of an afterthought. Here at China Segment, we fully believe in promoting all holidays (except the lame [...]

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Aside from harsh liquors and odd foods, some old-fashioned Chinese drink my wife calls 糖水 (tǎngshuǐ), literally ’sugar water’. While that is a fairly lame name, it is accurate. The drink is merely boiled water, a generous amount of sugar, and a few Chinese dates. Chinese dates (红枣 hǒngzăo) are not bad, [...]

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The other day I was talking to a friend here. She’s not going home for Spring Festival. She can’t afford it.
It’s not the train ticket that she can’t afford, or the time off work - every business pretty much shuts down over the break, save for restaurants and hotels. She can’t afford [...]

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Literally millions of people in large cities like Shanghai and Beijing are going back to their home towns for Chinese New Year (otherwise known as Spring Festival 春节 chūnjíe). Some of them are seasonal workers, but many of them moved here years ago, got married and have a kid, but the requirement to go [...]

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The gluttony that is Spring Festival.  Eating, playing mahjong, eating, mahjong, sleeping, eating, eating, mahjong, eating, a little nap, eating, mahjong, sleeping… It goes on and on.
Often lunches are large banquet style affairs with lots of relatives.  Dinner is usually smaller and there is snacking all day.  Lunch starts at 11:00 or 11:30, (earlier if [...]

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All caps in today’s title for a special post from China Segment.
Fireworks = yanhua 烟花
Firecrackers = bianpao 鞭炮 (the ‘pao’ is a bit of Chinese onomatopoeia)
China becomes a living light and sound show during Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). I repeat, a living light and sound show.
You’d think that they’d be bored of the [...]

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It’s Chinese New Year (CNY) time again, so I think it would be appropriate to discuss an old tradition that comes to the fore this time of year: re-gifting.
You may or may not have seen the Seinfeld episode where re-gifting is done and immediately condemned as being socially unacceptable.  Ours is a society where it’s [...]

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