Explosions echo through the streets, the night sky bursts with bright lights, and few people are found outside. This is Beijing on Chinese New Year 2011.

What was the United States celebrating at the same time? Oh, that’s right, Groundhog Day. A whole day devoted to looking at a rodent’s shadow to determine if a few more weeks of snow will fall in Syracuse. News flash: Groundhogs don’t predict the weather. While people in the United States were sipping a cup of coffee and watching the morning news talk show, expatriates in Beijing sipped bottles of Johnnie Walker and talked loudly in crowded clubs.

My group of friends spent New Year’s at a club called Babyface — yes, Babyface — which ironically took years off my life. There were neon bars, white lounge couches with a view of the dance floor and copious amounts of my new best friend Johnnie Walker. That liquid gold is mixed with tea and served in round whiskey glasses. The ubiquitous shout of the night is one word: ‘gambei.’ It translates to ‘cheers,’ but that doesn’t give it justice. Gambei means ‘suck down your glass as fast as you can so as to prove you are having a good time.’ Use with this phrase with caution.

House and R&B music bumped through the speakers and into the street that night. As if things weren’t crazy enough, we saw fireworks outside lit out of boxes by kids who should not have been up that late.

The sound of those firecrackers will never escape my ears. They can be heard for miles around in the days leading up to New Year’s, some flaring up from back alleyways and open sidewalks. But the ones at midnight in Beijing put everything else to shame. Daylight reaches Beijing early when these rockets of light blot out the stars and blast like gunfire. The illuminations of thousands of these celebrate China’s biggest day.

Despite the fanfare, few people are out on the normally congested streets of Beijing. New Year’s is a time spent by most Chinese at home, with family. Buses and train stations cram with people leaving Beijing to return to their hometowns throughout China before the celebrations. For most, this is a time to help grandma cook steamed dumplings or to see their baby brother, not a time to feel sick after a dinner of steamed dumplings or to throw down at Babyface all night.

Rather than revel with booze and dancing, the Chinese feel obligated to go home to see their loved ones. It is a must that they come home for New Year’s. Many choose the happiness of their family over their own self-indulgence.

Certainly, it made me think of how I should have spent New Year’s Eve cooking dinner for my parents instead of waking up on New Year’s Day with a massive hangover. After all, when the parties die down; when the wind blows, turning over the scraps of fireworks wrappers; and as people meander the streets, my mind goes back not to the sixth-glass gambei I shouted but to home and the warmth and company of family so far away.

Andrew Swab is a junior magazine journalism and international relations major. His columns appear occasionally. He can be reached at ajswab@syr.edu.

 

Published on February 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm