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The Different Spring Festivals

时间:2022-02-06 17:37:21 其它英语写作 我要投稿

The Different Spring Festivals

by Jack T.Y.Yu(俞铁婴)

The Spring Festival is the biggest and the most formal festival for Chinese people. Yet, in the 1970’s the Spring Festival was not it is now. It’s a far cry between them. There are a lot of experiences in my memory. I remember when I was in the middle school, every year before the Spring Festival, the No.1 task of every family is buying festival goods, the most important being foodstuffs, in order to spend a satisfactory Spring Festival. Being the biggest child of the family, I was given the task of rushing out for buying all the festival goods with purchase list and money in my pocket, usually on foot. Almost all the festival goods on the market were in short supply, from chicken to fish, from vegetables to cake... I thought out everyway possible and bent over backward for buying all the festival goods. It was just like fighting a battle and I was quite proud of bringing fruitful baskets back home almost every time.

The early bird catches the worm. One year I remember, a few days before Spring Festival, I made many cards, nearly 100 pcs., with numbers on for buying chickens. I got up at 3:00 o'clock, and went to the big foodstuffs store to distribute the cards at the gate. As soon as I finished the distribution I went back home sleeping for a while & waked up at the crack of dawn. I rushed back to the store to organize the crowded endless queue in order according to my cards number, keeping anybody without card out of the queue. I kept the top 10 cards and gave them to my neighbors, classmates and friends as festival gifts who thanked me a lot just for being able to buy a few chickens. The notice on the gate said : "Two chickens for each person only."

Another thing impressed me deeply was, one year, three days before the Spring Festival, I took my 3-years-old younger brother by the hand going to by fireworks. When I saw the dragon like long queue crowded in the shop yard, I arranged my little brother standing by the corner within my sight where was not so crowded waiting for me. I myself rushed into the crowded queue searching familiar faces, just like looking for a needle in a haystack. At last, thanks God! My sight was fixed upon a young guy! I was lucky enough to find a fellow student who studied in the same school with me. Though we never talked with each other before I was sure we met each other in the school yard several times. With this idea flashed across my mind I acted at once. I went up to him patting his shoulder saying : “ Hi! I was here after you, wasn’t I?” watching his eyes with smile. People in the queue looked at me with doubts. My schoolmate replied loudly:“ Yes, correct! You’ll miss if you come one minute later!” On hearing this, they had nothing to speak of. In fact, everybody present knew clearly that, I cut into the queue. Seeing we two young guys who seemed not afraid of fighting for shopping, they gave in. And besides, we made it smoothly, giving the right excuse. In this way, I was ahead of the game, having bought several packs of fireworks and said "Good-Bye!" to my schoolmate whom I’ve been still keeping contacts with for friendship till now. When my little brother see me buy the fireworks so quickly, he was as happy as a lark, walking on air! Hand in hand, we two went back home singing songs, as happy as a clam.

On our way home we passed a foodstuffs shop by the roadside. Catching sight of persimmon pies on shelf, which he had never tasted before, he thought it should be very delicious. He dragged me by one hand and pointed to the persimmon pies with another, murmuring : “ Buy! Buy!” Although I knew that he was still wet behind the ears and had little knowledge about food, he was the apple of my eye. I would like to jump through hoops for him all the time. I bought 10 cakes of persimmon pies and packed up, telling him : “When we are back home, mother will cook porridge with these pies for you.” My little brother was very happy and nodded with thanks, smiling from ear to ear. However, as soon as we arrived at home, I was given new tasks of buying eggs and fishes. And I went out for the shopping immediately. The next day, when I asked mother to make porridge, enabling little brother to enjoy persimmon pies, the persimmon pies were nowhere to be found. I felt rather upset for it seemed that something had happened. At last, when we discovered three cakes of persimmon pie remained in the plate at the corner of the closet, mother, father and I were all eyes. My dear little brother had eyes only for persimmon pies and he was too anxious to wait for the porridge. He had eaten seven cakes of persimmon pies once continuously! As the result, he was badly suffering from stomachache which had to be cured for years afterwards. Even now, he who has become father himself, still feel uncomfortable at his stomach sometimes.

Nowadays things are altogether different. It has been great changed for people to spend the Spring Festival. Large supplies of all kinds of festival goods are available in all large shopping malls, supermarkets, from seafood to meat, from vegetables to fruits etc. Most families just ordered meal parties in the restaurants and many people drive their own cars to visit relatives and friends which was unimaginable when I was young. All in all, the Spring Festival is not it used to be. From the different Spring Festivals we can see that the living stand of Chinese people has improved a lot. Even many foreign countries arrange colorful activities for celebrating Chinese Spring Festival now. The Spring Festival of Chinese people has now become the festival global-wide.

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