Chinese New Year, just like every other holiday in the world, can’t be about anything else but family and food. During Chinese New Year’s celebration, people spend time with the whole family, eating traditional cuisines, and if budget and time allow, people sometimes go travel after the first three days of celebration at home. To summarize Chinese New Year simply: Eat, sleep, and repeat.

New Year is the day that all Chinese international students think of home, skype with family, and have meals with their friends.  Even after six years of being abroad, this holiday is still emotional to me. Just reading posts, seeing pictures from friends and receiving greetings and wishes from family takes my heart instantly back to the 5000-mile-away home.

Not like at home, I didn't say "happy new year" to everyone I meet, and I didn't get to go door to door to family and friends and deliver greetings. It is a day that has mixed feelings to me, that I sometimes prefer hiding my emotion. Because others wouldn’t understand, how special this day is to me, or to the sons and daughters that are away from home due to studies or work. New Year is just another year, nothing special. Life goes on.

Things don't become special until they are far away from you. Some peers back home would think that I am living a good life overseas partying every day; Some that don’t know America or Germany well asked me why I don’t have school break for New Year, or why I am not coming home. First time I was abroad my Grandma said to me on the phone, “You don’t have school break for (Chinese) New Year there? Are you coming home next year?”

Who doesn’t want to be home for Christmas, who doesn’t want to be home for Chinese New Year. A way of thinking, or a philosophy—Work hard today for a better life tomorrow— secretly influences every generation. A lot of Chinese people would sacrifice “the life in the moment,” because they believe their effort will pay off someday. Tomorrow is the thing that strives them. It is this belief “tomorrow will be better” that motivates them sitting in the library on the other side of the world, while their family are gathering together for a great start of a New Year. Looking at the calendar, it seems like I won't be home again for Chinese New Year 2016. 

This year I had a dinner with some Chinese peers in Germany. Maybe the food here doesn’t taste the same like home, maybe it is not the same spending New Year without your family. But a little red New Year’s package from host family touched me, simple words like “Happy New Year” from my American and German friends touched me, an invite to a dinner touched me. I sat among these Chinese students that I don't even know well, hearing our laughter, speaking my mother tongue, and thought of home… at that moment, my dish was spiced, it tasted like home.

Home—Miles apart, still in my heart. Stay hopeful—of the things ahead; Be grateful—of the people you have. I wish everyone a HAPPY New Year with good health, prosperity, and good luck!

Little FYI: Chinese New Year’s Day is the first day according to the Chinese lunar calendar. It falls between January 20^th and February 20^th of the Gregorian calendar every year.  This year is on the 19^th of February. It is the biggest holiday, not just in China, but also within all Chinese people’s heart. The official holiday lasts three days, however, as a kid I always celebrated it for more than five days because we have school break.

Since November I have already felt like listening to Christmas songs. The only thing that seems a bit unreal to me is the weather here in Freiburg. Although I grew up in the subtropical belt, to be honest, I do miss the snow back in Madison. It's beginning to feel christmassy and I miss hearing to the snow crunching under my winter boots.

This is going to be the 6th year that I spend my Christmas abroad. China is not a Christian-oriented country nor is Christmas celebrated, but as a kid I always had this fascination to foreign countries. This fascination comes from English-speaking movies like"Home Alone" and  "Jingle All the Way." People in the movies spoke another language as I do, and I wanted to learn it and be able to speak it. As so much I wanted to go abroad, I went as early as I could. I went abroad alone when I was fifteen.

Since my first year abroad, Christmas has become more and more meaningful to me. Being abroad means that I get to experience the holiday culture, especially Christmas. For the last few years, I have spent my Christmas all over the world: 2008 in Atlanta, 2010 in Cottbus (very east side of Germany), 2011 in Wisconsin, 2012 in the Netherlands, 2013 in Norwich (UK), and this year is going to be in Heidelberg (southwest of Germany).  From the South to the Midwest in the U.S., and from East to West in Europe, no matter where I went, there were always kind people that I could spend winter holidays with. As December approaches, everything looks more festive: streets with lights, stores with Christmas music, cinnamon scents, everywhere looks, sounds and even smells like Christmas. I was excited that one day I said "I want to celebrate Christmas!" Then my friend asked, "Celebrate Christmas? Are you Christian?"  Oops, I guess used the wrong word in this not-first-language-of-mine. No, I wasn't brought up as a Christian, but I still cherish a holiday like Christmas, where family come together and simply enjoy time with each other. In this way, I call it celebrate. Celebrate with people you care and love. And be grateful to the warmth that can be found in the cold winter days.

When I was little, my parents would always put something next to my bed on the morning of December 25th every year and told me that Santa gave me a present. Somehow I doubted if they were lying to me. "Is it really Santa? No...it must be you!" No matter how hard they tried to defend that wasn't them, deep in my young little mind, I knew it was my parents that did it.

My dad used to tell me, "Daughter, if you can read English newspapers, then you are really top." Since then I always thought I must be able to read newspapers in English someday somehow. And that little thought has been realized. 

Sometimes I still find it unbelievable of how I stepped out of my motherland and have been so far from home for so long already. I guess it was all this childhood fascination that leads me to today. All I wanted in the beginning was to learn the language. And it seems that I haven't only gained the language skills, but also harvested family, friends, love, and more.

A day trip to Strasbourg, France.
Strasbourg (or in German Straßburg), is a city at northeast France and borders with Germany. It's one of the biggest city in France.
The first two pictures show the Strasbourg Minster. The rest is the city part called "Petite France" in Strasbourg. It is a historic district of Strasbourg. The houses at Petite France have Barock style and present the 15th century's architecture. Many of these houses were totally destroyed during WWII and were rebuilt after war.