Looking back, looking ahead

The China my grandparents described was a water-and-ink landscape full of ancient myths and rituals, its people well versed in Confucian etiquette and manners as was appropriate for a land that had nurtured 5,000 years of civilization.

Words cannot describe the shock when I finally landed in Beijing on my first assignment in 1981. It was nothing like what I expected. China was in transition in a century of changes, and too busy to bother with traditions.

The spouse, born three years after 1949, tried to dilute my bewilderment later by explaining that China was an old misshapen vase that needed to be shattered and recast so it can be better - a painful but necessary process.

Another 30 years forward after the 1980s, the new Chinese vase has obviously taken shape, and is in need of decoration. So it is that its people are now looking further back for inspiration, and many old customs have been dusted off the shelves and revived.

Festivities, though, reflect the vast changes that had happened in the interim.

One of the first rituals is the annual exodus from city to country as China's vast workforce goes home by train, plane and automobile. Another rite is the buying spree, now usually online, as the affluent young shop for imported delicacies to bring home to their parents in the towns and villages.

Some things will withstand the test of time.

The reunion dinner where every family member gathers around a banquet featuring the best of regional delicacies is a tradition that celebrates the bonds of blood and kin.

The Lunar New Year holiday is also a time to rest and recuperate before another year of hard work arrives. For many of us, that time is almost upon us and we prepare to labor on in the Year of the Horse.

Related: Pony tales for the new year

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