Awakening at Lantern Festival

By Matthias Mersch

Awakening at Lantern Festival

By Matthias Mersch

The best thing about Chinese New Year is returning to Beijing after traveling. It’s not quite the return voyage, but more the state of being returned.Chunyun, the tidal wave of travellers at the peak of Spring Festival, is far from being considered “big fun.” It is more entertaining, which you may only survive with the assistance of a merciful providence.

This year my travel companions—Lao Zhang, Xiao Wang and me—managed to make it again. Like always, at Lantern Festival (and most of the year) we sat in our favorite hangout called “Confucius Café.” The inn is close to the Confucius Temple on Guozijianjie, a street of the Imperial Academy, where in the old days all scholars who were eager to pass the imperial examinations had to flock in a kind of mass rally. Our high spirits were only comparable to the mindset of an examinee who, after uncountable trials, finally passed the imperial exams at the age of 57. For most of the candidates, Guozijianjie, however, was more of a Sunset Strip in West Hollywood: a Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

I am usually the one who complains least: my marriage had put me into privileged circumstances. Living in an environment where up to now fratricidal envy and jealousy have no room to flourish, I am part of a family where everyone was granted by Lady Fortune in the most unbiased way.

You might enjoy our most civilized family life as much as we do: thanks to their status as minors, the sons didn’t haul unseemly daughters-in-law into the house, while the daughters didn’t deliver premarital babies yet. For the time being peace and happiness seem secured within my family.

There was stark contrast to the ways in both of my friends’ houses. This became clear from their personal accounts of Spring Festival—I used to call them “One Tale of Two Cities.”

Lao Zhang was born and raised in a tiny city of a million residents inDongbei, China’s northeastern region. The city is rich in coal dust, the basic reason why he is usually displaying a persistent bronchitis from his leave in his old home town. Especially during winter the air is hard to breathe, so he tends to stay at home. Considering local conditions, he does right, anything else than cocooning isn’t advisable from a medical point of view. But a prolonged sojourn in closed spaces carries its own risks, which is true if you take into account the very special character of Lao Zhang’s father-in-law.

He is a more or less bankrupt manufacturer of gaskets and kind of a taciturn person. This changes whenever the opportunity for a mahjong tournament arises. Then he borrows the mobile phone from Lao Zhang and places a round call among his friends who are expert players. His sweet words depict the bonanza of joyous play and overwhelming loot. Every single call ends with laughter and the absolute instruction to show up at his home without any further delay. No one ever fails to come.

The amusement for the locals is imperial. For Lao Zhang, however, this kind of folklore translates into a heavy investment. Last year it totalled 5,000 yuan ($793). I told him to consider it as part of his filial duties and a demonstration of fostering time honored local traditions. In my view it is less a loss than ahongbao, a present of money wrapped in red envelopes and handed out to younger generations on the occasion of China’s lunar New Year.

“It’s easy for you to talk,” he grumbled.“Thehongbaois consigned long before the clicking of the mahjong pieces echoes through the house! They definitely lay the groundwork for the big rip-off at the table.”

Xiao Wang comes from a minuscule city in the south, located in Hunan Province. Creative folks down there produce what is of utmost importance for China and the world: all sorts of New Year rockets and fire crackers. Xiao Wang’s roots are our profit. Traditions are holy to Xiao Wang, they do include paying respect to the not inconsiderable number of relatives who died while setting off fireworks, and the habit never to touch a firework on New Year’s day. He thinks it’s essential to let the fireworks off at Lantern Festival right in front of our beloved Confucius Café. So he ruthlessly smuggled the latest and most promising development from his parents’ factory through the X-ray machines at the train station. Thanks to a cleverly impregnated sack made of calico—which resembles the Michelin Man—he always succeeds.

Even Xiao Wang himself looks like a hero from the world of make-believe: With his mighty bald skull he takes after Telly Savalas as A.J. Maggott in theDirty Dozen. With the smoldering tip of his cigar he sets fire to the fuse. Xiao Wang is not a José Carioca, who lights a Brazilian cigar in the Habana Club: Since he graduated from university in Germany he smokes Handelsgold, a tribute to the economic miracle. With the solemn nonchalance of the master fireworker he jumps out of the range of the mighty bomb.

No staccato of sound bites. No vain light show. A sole massive manly block of sound. BOOM! Awesomely powerful. There shall be peace for the year to come.

The author is a German living in Beijing