Can I Have All The Festivals?
Last night we celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival. There are many stories to that festival as you can read from a blog Life Behind The Wall. I begun thinking how many festivals a year I could celebrate. I can choose from the Chinese and from the Finnish ones.
There are seven official public holidays in China according to Wikipedia. New Year, Chinese New Year, Qing Ming Festival, Labour Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. Two of them are the same in Finland too (New Year and Labour Day).
Most of the holidays in Finland are religious nowadays, but they have their old meanings as well. Because I do not belong to any church I celebrate my holidays the old way. The biggest festivals besides the two mentioned above are: Easter, Midsummer, Independence Day and Christmas. The most important one being of course Christmas.
In total that would give me eleven holidays or festivals to celebrate. (Sure the Chinese National Day for me is just a holiday and don’t have any bigger meaning.) I like festivals because they keep the traditions alive and offer a nice break from the normal living with job or work. I would like to learn more about the stories behind the festivals so later I could pass that information on to the next generation.
Coming next is the National Day but I don’t have any plans yet. It would be nice to go travelling but at that time millions of Chinese are travelling too. I should also save some money for the rainy days to come.
Do you have any plans for the holidays? Or which festival is your favourite?
7 Comments
Sam
well..i think HOng Kong is much better in term of holiday.. We celebrate Chrsitmas, New year day, Chinese New Years, Easter, Naional Day, Hand over Day, Mooncake festival…. We celebrate many different festivals. my plan for the national day holiday is to go back to hk and see my friends and family there…..
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Sara
Sam, So you seem to have them all? From China and from the Western world. I would like to visit Hong Kong, but maybe later or next year.
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Justin
Holidays are nice but I’d really like to see some posts on more thoughtful matters. Surely as a visitor to an completely alien culture, you’d have some observations and comments about Chinese people, Chinese Society, and Chinese culture you’d like to share. I’d very much like to hear them.
Best wishes.
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Sara
Justin, I will definitely remember you wish and will write about that kind of matters soon. I would have lots of things to say but I’m still wondering is there any limit to what I can write? It’s sometimes too easy to mix the others topics to politics for example. I would like to hear your opinion about that.
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Justin Liu
You are being much too polite and considerate. There are already many ill considered views on the internet, it would be nice to add some thoughtful opinions on sensitive issues(as no doubt yours would be).
Personally I would love to hear you be frank about your time in China. I have a feeling your experiences hasn’t all been smooth and don’t worry I’ll lend a supporting voice, if things get too rowdy in the comments section.
Express yourself!
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Chirnaren
I wouldn’t travel in the National day holidays if I were you. That’s the biggest holiday for ‘going on vacation’ in China.
Everywhere will be packed! Many of the other holidays (Spring festival mainly), they go and stay with their families.
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Sara
Justin, Thank you so much for your comment, I really appreciate it!
Chinaren, I was travelling last february, durin spring festival and sure it was hard to get tickets sometimes but otherwise it was ok. But tomorrow I will apply my recidence permit and they will keep my passport for few weeks. Not sure am I able to go anywhere without it.
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