“I’m very much looking forward to going home this time,” Xiaobai said.
“I’m so excited to see the whole family!” she added.
The young man who is engaged in communication in Hong Kong told the BBC that it has been three years since he last returned to Shanghai.
The meeting with her family was in the Spring Festival of 2020, before the new crown epidemic officially declared a pandemic; in the following years, China’s zero-clearing policy began to require travelers to be quarantined for several weeks, so she spent the New Year outside for several years.
With the recent lifting of most epidemic prevention restrictions, millions of Chinese will return to their hometowns this weekend to celebrate the New Year. However, the sudden cancellation of the zero-clearing policy has led to a sharp increase in the number of confirmed cases in mainland China in recent weeks, casting a shadow over the hearts of the people on the biggest holiday of the year.
Because, New Years is often a time for families to come together, congratulate each other on success and start over. But this year’s Spring Festival is bittersweet for many Chinese families. Even though red, which is full of symbols of festiveness, is added in most areas, it is also the color of the Spring Festival-but this year, it is difficult not to see white in many places, and this is the color of mourning.
inadvertently celebrate
Some Chinese families were eager to gather around the dinner table as usual, while others were in no mood to celebrate. Because, they are mourning the death of a family member or caring for a sick relative. Others were celebrating but with a heavy heart, knowing exactly who was missing at the table.
For example, Melody Liu in Xi’an lost her grandfather just weeks before Chinese New Year. It was a chaotic period, she told the BBC.
The family couldn’t find an intensive care bed for the elderly for several days. Then, as crematoriums and funeral homes filled to capacity, they desperately tried to find a final resting place for their grandfather.
Melody and her family are no longer in the mood to celebrate Chinese New Year this year. However, she said the family still meets because the 90-year-old grandmother has not yet heard of her husband’s death.
“We told her grandpa was in ICU, but we couldn’t tell her the truth!” Melody said.
“I think he’s still here, looking after our family,” she told reporters.
Her grandfather worked in a state-owned unit and would send her family a holiday gift every year. Melody’s family has also continued the family New Year’s tradition—buying new clothes for her grandmother and wearing them to the photo studio to take a family portrait. Wear red and hope for a better year ahead.
But she said this year was different: “I don’t look forward to the New Year anymore because it’s really the worst year for us.”
lucky family
Xiaobai said she felt lucky.
While she keeps hearing stories of friends who have lost family members to COVID-19 — her 87-year-old grandmother just recovered from the infection.
She is therefore looking forward to reuniting with her family. This is an annual opportunity to bring grandparents, parents, parents’ siblings and cousins together at a feast. There is always sweet and sour fish or fish at the banquet, which symbolizes abundance – it is pronounced the same as the word “more than” in Chinese. Another unchanging dish is glutinous rice cake or nian gao, which means “higher every year” from the pronunciation.
Food is at the heart of Chinese New Year celebrations.
This is what Zowie Li, who grew up in Wuhan, couldn’t go home for the New Year because of the epidemic in the past three years.
For as long as she can remember, my grandmother has been a menu planner and head chef. Dumplings, spring rolls, sausages, rice wine – all made by myself. The key dish is the local specialty “lotus root folder”.
Although Zowie has been away for the past three years, she says she cooks her favorite dishes to ease the nostalgia: “My family’s New Year’s traditions have become part of my life without knowing it.”
But this year, she wasn’t looking forward to the spring feast — since her grandparents recovered from the new coronavirus, the elderly are no longer as energetic as usual.
Low-key or increasingly smaller Lunar New Year gatherings are not uncommon in China, given the number of people who have contracted the virus or have been in contact with someone who has tested positive.
Cherish every reunion
Kelly’s 93-year-old grandfather has been hospitalized with the coronavirus since late December.
“I just want to go home and see him one more time,” Kelly said as she flew back to Chengdu, Sichuan from Hong Kong this weekend. She added that this is the first Chinese New Year without a family reunion dinner – something she has been involved in for the past three years.
This year, Kelly’s mother was diagnosed. The rest of the extended family was visiting sick relatives, leaving Kelly alone to spend the day with his newly recovered father and grandmother.
But she told the BBC that she was grateful to be able to spend this time with her grandmother: “Because there are very few opportunities like this in the future.”
What was supposed to be a festive night with family reunions has sparked fears over COVID-19 as variants of the virus continue to spread across China. During the festival, it has even become a common way of greeting each other to ask each other if they have been diagnosed.
“You ask relatives before you make plans to visit them, or even before you book a manicure,” Lai Xinfei, 31, who lives in the tech hub of Shenzhen, told the BBC.
She told reporters that manicures, hairdressing and false eyelash extensions are new holiday traditions for young urban women. “Most businesses will say that all staff have recovered – that’s the only way you can book a grooming session.”
But in Beijing, the authorities declared that the Chinese Communist Party had won a “comprehensive victory” in its fight against the coronavirus.
The official media “People’s Daily” published a comment saying that “China strives to achieve the greatest effect of prevention and control at the least cost.” But Melody, like many others, was unimpressed: “We have had free COVID-19 tests and vaccines for the past three years. Why can’t we have free COVID-19 drugs? We had a full three years to prepare, and it turned out like this disappointing.”
Unlike past Lunar New Years, Melody no longer has aspirations of getting rich or getting promoted.
She told the BBC: “I just hope that the family is safe. Because if you work hard you may have a career and other things, but you have to be lucky to have a family.”
BBC Chinese CorrespondentLok Lialso contributed to this article