The heavy snow excited soooooooooo many people, and you can see pictures on facebook and other social networks. For me, the more exciting thing is: the Chinese New Year coooooooooooomes!!!!!

For the Chinese people, the Chinese New Year, namely the Spring Festival is our biggest festival–as important as the Christmas for the Westerners. We have big family gathering on the eve of the lunar calendar New Year, which varies in solar calendar year to year. For this year, the lunar New Year is on Solar 23, Jan, that’s to say, we have party on 22, Jan. For us, we are lucky, because it’s on Sunday. Otherwise, we will have classes and working for deadlines in classrooms.

Normally, in China, near the Spring Festival, every family will post red couplets, and some other red color paper-cuts decorations. One of my friends went back to China before Christmas, and brought a red couplet for me:

HAHA, Very special and beautiful! You can easily identify my room from the others, can’t you?

The Chinese character “福”， which means “Good fortune & Happiness” is a very popular decoration. However, for the foreigners, it might be hard to recognize it, because we post it upside down.

  The Chinese Character of “福”, which is upside down

 

        The paper-cut decoration of “Year of Dragon” on my window.

For me, it’s my first year that I cannot spend the New Year’s Eve with my family. Commonly, on New Year’s Eve, every family will prepare a very big dinner. Firecrackers will light the night as day time at about 00:00. Every year, dad and mom will prepare red envelopes for me and my brother. OK, Tingting, come back to the reality, you are in Gothenburg, no big dinner, no firework, and no red envelope from dad and mom…..Yes, I won’t feel that lonely because we several students here will organize a party to celebrate in my room. It will be special!

As the Chinese spring festival is in the winter, snow decorated my memory of Spring Festival in my childhood. Unfortunately, as the weather is becoming warmer and warmer, we can hardly see so heavy snow during the Spring Festival. It is a pity for Spring Festival without snow, the same as Christmas with snow missing!! I should say the weather in Gothenburg is soooooooooooooooooooo lovely, that it surprised all the Chinese people here—the heaviest snow comes before our Spring Festival!! It’s amazing! I am sure the happiest people at this time are the Chinese people.
Thanks to the snow, we had a wonderful prelude for the New Year’s celebration—we had Snowball fights this afternoon!!

I am excited now, because tomorrow a party will be held in my apartment—to celebrate our new year!!
Happy new year to all the Chinese people, especially to those who cannot go home!! Wish you a fruitful new year!!

PS: Actually, I want to post the blog tomorrow, but I am afraid that we are engaged in the happy times and I will forget it!

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