Old Stories
You know in china, we don’t seem to have a special holiday for kids, even on children’s day, except watching so-called program played by some fixed children, after that, kids may have a half day off, but no other games to play.
But I do remember there was a day kids looked forward to when I was a kid, that is spring festival. Kids longed for it because they could have new clothes on on that day, they could have some delicious food to eat, for some rich family, kids could have special gift from parents, such as money, which is called Yasuiqian.
Twenty years ago, China was not as prosperous as it is today. Most Chinese people were lack of food and other basic materials. Especially in countryside, peasants did not have money to buy anything except some necessary products for daily life, for example: salt, oil for lamp, if they need new clothes, they would buy some cheap cloth, then hire a tailor at home making clothes for family members. So in my memory, I never bought a new clothes in shop before I went to university, what a pity!! Huh? You see I have a good figure, but I didn’t have any chance to wear any fashion clothes at that time.
So kids felt very eager to the coming of spring festival, even new clothes had been made, we couldn’t put on it till that night--- new year’s eve came. What’s more, after wearing new clothes, we could go to neighbors, saying happy new year to them, and they would give us some cakes made by themselves, sometimes, if lucky enough to a rich family, we could get some candy, I would keep them for a long time till some day I couldn’t reject its lure, but the cover of the candy, it was very valuable, so most of us would keep them as a book mark, sometimes we could trade some we liked with friends . I still remembered one which I wished to have, it was a red candy paper, a classmate of mine showed me, and told me it was the best one for it could make the sky turn red, I didn’t believe in the beginning, but when I really saw a red sky under the small red paper, I wished having a same one, but I failed in trading that with her, for a long time, to get a red candy paper almost became my biggest will .
Well, I left my topic so far. All kids could stay as late as they could on that night. Usually several friends gathered in one family, the first thing might be matching whose clothes was the most beautiful, kids didn’t know whether the quality of the cloth was good or bad, we just compared whose flower in it was the most beautiful, the second object should be shoes. In those days, I never knew shoes could be bought in shop, I thought all of the shoes were made by their mothers. So as a mother, she was very very busy before the eve came, she must finish all the shoes for the family members, it was common that there were more than seven people in one family at that time. So you can imagine how busy she would be, it was said that many mothers did not sleep in order to made a new pair of shoes for her kids. Don’t think the shoes made by mothers are not good-looking, actually they are comfortable and skillful, the bottom is particularly colorful, each mother had their own design, that was why shoes became another subject to show their pride.
The following game was to play cards, there were no TV, VCD, DVD or net bar in those days. Paper card was the only object to play. It was fun since we did not know other games. We had our rules when we were playing, the loser must stand up till he won again, or paste a paper on his nose, if he was not lucky enough, his face would be covered with paper. That was a daytime night for each room must light a lamp till daybreak. So we could stay up as long as we could.
Now we are much more wealthy than before, kids are able to have new clothes whenever they need, all kinds of delicious food are put in refrigerator of his family, spring festival is just a long holiday for them, so what’s their favorite day?
flyheart
