Time To Go Home

From my memory, Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is the most solemn and joyful celebration. It holds a meaning similar to what Christmas means to westerns. Spring Festival reminds me of time to go home. My memory about the festival all starts from the smell. The smell from grandmother's kitchen, from the large silver pot, with the sweet aroma of maltose and candied lotus root (I hope the translation is correctly). Surrounded by the pleasant smell, it seems to be the happiest time in my childhood.

Candied Lotus Root

"Maiyatang"
(a kind of candy but I got the translation of maltose and I don't think that's correct)

The morning of New Year's Eve is filled with hope and vividness. I always get up early, and can't help jumping on my bed. My parents usually stand in front of our house, holding the spring festival scrolls that they bought earlier in the market, and deciding the most appealing way to hang them. Talking about those scrolls, I have to mention the small market beside my house. Starting from the week before Spring Festival, the market is crowded with various stores, selling assorted spring festival scrolls, happy-word crafts, and all kinds of deft designs. My parents like to join the morning market, choosing carefully from hundreds of scrolls for the one with the most profound meaning, searching elaborately from thousands of happy-word crafts for the most gorgeous one. It turns out that every year we receive numerous eulogies from our neighbors for the decoration. Every time I can't help myself smiling for that praise; it feels like I win the whole world.

Spring Festival Scrolls(left and right sides) and Happy-word Craft(center)
It means "we sing for the past year, and we celebrate for the upcoming year".

At night, there comes to my favorite and most exciting one—fireworks show. Traditionally, everybody goes outside with their fireworks, and lights them in a huge square. The reason that Chinese like to display fireworks comes from a fairy tale. In Chinese, Spring Festival is called "nian". Long time ago, there is a monster named "nian", and it intrudes a village and kidnaps children every year. Then one day some villagers find out "nian" is afraid of fire and light, therefore they invent fireworks to fight the monster. Eventually "nian" does not bother the villagers any more. That is why Chinese people like lighting fireworks during Spring Festival. With the incessant sound of fireworks, I walk into my grandparents' house, saying "Happy New Year". My grandmother then gives me some snacks from her three-stores snack box at the corner of the dinning table. First store cookies, second store candies, and third store dim sums (a kind of Chinese cakes). It is the box of fortune, the one that contains her blessing and expectation. Our family then sit around the table, and enjoy grandmother's home-make dishes, cheering and laughing. The house is always bright and cheerful.
Time flies. I grew up, and became even taller than my grandmother and my mother. I can help them hang the lanterns with ease, and stick the happy-word craft in a breeze. I can even pick up the most absorbing spring festival scrolls by myself. However, it has been a long time since last time I celebrated Spring Festival with my family. Along with the growth of age, Spring Festival symbolizes not only candies and fireworks to me, but also implies memories of reunions in that small house filled with fun. Since the year I went abroad to study, I have celebrated Spring Festival in silence, without fireworks, without the smell of grandmother's food. Nevertheless, thanks to the technology, I can video chat with my families and friends even though there is time difference.

Fireworks in Shanghai

 When the clock strikes twelve at Chinese New Year's Eve, I hear the voice deep down my heart,

"it's time to go home."