Thoughts on Chinese New Year Outside China
The 24th of January started like every other day.
I woke up feeling a little bit down for some reason and started to go through the list of things that I had to do that day.
I wasn’t really feeling like it until I received a call from my mom.
”Happy New Year Xiao!
What do you mean, is it today?
Yes, today is our last day of the year! So have something nice for dinner, maybe go to a fancy restaurant and have a nice meal!”
From there on we had our usual chat.
When I hang up, I saw that I’ve got two audio recordings from my dad with his wishes.
My father is a little bit more like the stereotypical Chinese dad, I suppose.
He doesn’t want to bother what you’re doing but still wants to let you know that he’s thinking about you.
When I was little we were used to celebrating Chinese New Year at home with a big homemade dinner. My mother would cook together with my dad because and we would celebrate it at home. In Italy, there are not such big Chinese communities.
Unfortunately in the last few 3-4 years, we couldn’t do that anymore.
We now live in different parts of the country and job or other circumstances, don’t allow us to gather together anymore.
To be honest, I kinda really miss that.
Although it wasn’t anything particular, it felt special to me.
It was for me the equivalent of Christmas for westerners.
Just us eating a good meal and having a nice conversation over good homemade Chinese food, with no distraction.
Something so simple, but that yet has become a rarity in our modern world.
These thoughts kinda induced me into a state of melancholy, but also made me think how far we’ve come.
Growing up as an immigrant family was very hard, especially because we were the first Chinese family in the city.
Sometimes I can even imagine where my parents found the sheer force of will to overcome all the obstacles that we’ve been through without knowing Italian well.
They are literally one of the strongest people that I’ve ever met, and I haven’t really acknowledged that until I started living alone.
And then a thought popped through my head:
”Mom and Dad came from nothing moved to another country without knowing the language and managed to give you a decent life.
And now you’re sitting on your ass feeling unmotivated to do the things that you know full well you should.
What’s your excuse?!”
That hit me like a slap in the face.
I already knew all of that, but…
This really proves that in life sometimes we have to remind ourselves what we’ve been through to have the strength and courage to take the path to where we want to be.
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