China News Service, Yinchuan, February 26th, title: "Remaining foreigners" in a different country
Author Yu Jing Li Zeyang
Hot New Year’s Eve dinner, happy and peaceful reunion year.
When the people all over the country are immersed in the joyous and festive atmosphere, in Ningxia, there is also a group of foreigners who responded to the call for "Chinese New Year on the spot".
On February 26, the reporter learned from the Ningxia Science and Technology Department (Bureau of Foreign Experts) that 131 foreigners spent the Chinese New Year in Ningxia this year. How did their "year" go?
On the day of the Lantern Festival, the reporter visited the foreigners who stayed in Ningxia and listened to how they celebrated the "Chinese New Year" in their own way and felt the strong Chinese New Year flavor.
Malik put into work after the holiday.
Photo by Yu Jing
Watch the Spring Festival Gala give out red envelopes for foreign consultants to taste the New Year locally
The Moroccan NEJJAOUIELBATOUL (Ning Baoyun), who has lived in China for two years, is now a foreign consultant of Ningxia Wisdom Palace Cultural Industry Group. She told reporters that Yinchuan is a "not big or small" city, which has both the prosperity and modernity of a metropolis. , With the convenience and warmth of a small city, this city makes people feel very comfortable. When she came to Yinchuan in 2019, she fell in love with this city.
This year is the second Spring Festival she spent in China.
Ning Baoyun believes that “Don’t travel far, don’t gather, and celebrate the New Year on the spot. It’s not about control, but a need for development. It’s a life experience.” In Yinchuan, I had a New Year’s dinner, watched the Spring Festival Gala, gave out red envelopes, and played with friends. Mahjong, full of new year!
"In order to welcome the Lantern Festival, the community where I live started a day in advance to celebrate the Lantern Festival. I also guessed lantern riddles and packaged Lantern Festival with the residents." Ning Baoyun said, I really like traditional Chinese festivals, Traditional customs, very interesting.
Wang Lixuan (second from left) spending the Spring Festival with friends.
Photo courtesy of respondents
New Year's Wishes to take fiancee home to visit family
Foreign friends in China are also full of rituals when celebrating the Spring Festival.
As soon as I walked into Ahmed (Wang Lixuan)'s house, the taste of the New Year came to my face.
He and his fiancée are busy decorating the room with colorful lanterns to welcome the arrival of the Lantern Festival.
Making noodles, mediating, making a package... Wang Lixuan from Iraq tried to package Yuanxiao for the first time.
"Every year during the Lantern Festival, I buy Lantern Festival in the supermarket. Today I can eat the Lantern Festival packaged by myself. It's a sense of accomplishment." Wang Lixuan, who was making the Lantern Festival, told reporters happily.
During the Spring Festival, Wang Lixuan was very busy. He was invited to walk into a friend's home to experience the vivid Chinese New Year.
"I think the atmosphere of the Spring Festival and Christmas is very similar. The main thing is that the whole family gathers together to chat, eat, and spend a good time together. Chinese culture is very attractive and I like living here very much."
When it comes to food, Wang Lixuan said in a fluent Ningxia dialect that he likes to eat Ningxia’s hand-caught mutton, “The meat is delicious, not greasy or mutated, and the taste is very dripping.”
Regarding New Year’s wishes and plans, he told reporters that in the new year, he should learn calligraphy and paper-cutting with his friends to experience a more charming China.
If the global epidemic improves, he still wants to take his fiancée to Iraq to visit his family and the place where he lived when he was a child.
Happy Cow Year of "Foreign Son-in-law"
Yemeni “foreign son-in-law” Malik, who came to Ningxia in 2017, told reporters that he spent the most important four years of his life here, falling in love, getting married, establishing a career, having children... Now he lives in Ningxia very happily, and Ningxia has become his "The Second Hometown".
Malik said that during the Spring Festival every year, I will celebrate the Chinese New Year according to Chinese traditional methods, such as eating New Year's Eve dinner and visiting the New Year. I feel that the Spring Festival has become an important holiday for him, and I look forward to it every year!
This year’s New Year, Malik also prepared a red dress for each family member. “In China, wearing red represents the celebration and symbolizes the prosperity of work and life in the new year.” Malik Eating the hottest hot pot, drinking red wine, and preparing red envelopes for the children to celebrate the new year.
"This year I experienced making dumplings. It was very interesting. I put my money in a dumpling with my family. Whoever gets the money will have a lot of good luck in the future." Malik said that he was still in Yinchuan during the Spring Festival. The streets and lanes turned around and felt the strong atmosphere of Chinese New Year.
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