For international students, no matter how many years they study overseas, "thinking of relatives every festive season" is still the most suitable verse for the Spring Festival. The "new year's taste" that once felt ordinary needs to be deliberately pursued after going abroad. Therefore, Chinese New Year's Eve rice and dumplings, the hot Chinese taste and the red-hot New Year decorations, the music of the Spring Festival Gala and the Chinese language of the compatriots gathering and talking freely, have become the expression of their thoughts about the motherland and their loved ones.
International students Chinese New Year's Eve meal Source: Provided by overseas students
The Spring Festival must have passed, and the Chinese flavor is the obsession of the Chinese people during the Spring Festival
Will there still be a Spring Festival?
For international students, if they are in a foreign country, if they live in some more remote cities, it may mean that there is no taste of the year. However, for the above question, they gave a unified answer - "must be over".
This is the fourth year of Shenzhen's Xiaoliang's PhD in Germany, he has long been accustomed to the long winter in Thuringia, but also adapted to the coldness of the Spring Festival alone outside, "no Chinatown, no New Year's flavor, want to eat a morning tea, order takeaway from the next city." "But in China, he doesn't like to eat dumplings, and he is too lazy to do it, in recent years, he will always be on the day of the Spring Festival, specially chef, to pack a meal of dumplings for friends.
"This year, I also planned to pack it, but because I was injured by skiing in the Czech Republic, it was inconvenient to cook, so I had to cook some frozen dumplings." Dumplings, which are indispensable to many people's Chinese New Year's Eve meals, also seem to have become the obsession of many Chinese people for the sense of New Year rituals.
International students make dumplings together Image source: Provided by overseas students
Interestingly, Guangdong Xiao Zou misses the soup at home the most, "Cantonese people Chinese New Year's Eve rice and do not eat dumplings, I miss the soup cooked by my mother, although it is very annoying that my parents read me every Spring Festival, but the soup they cooked for me is still the most expensive, and I want to cry." ”
Udine, California, San Diego, Manchester City, Toronto... Despite being around the world, these students still have a Chinese stomach, and to get together for the Spring Festival, they have to warm up the next year with hot Chinese food.
The Spring Festival especially misses a kind of red, called Chinese red
"There is no Chinatown in and around my city, and there is no Chinatown."
Chinese New Year's Eve night, the domestic lights flicker, and the Chinese red illuminates the night sky, but the students who are outside need to find a touch of red that belongs to their hometown. Chinatown does not seem to be very attractive to overseas students, but during the Spring Festival, they still like to look at Chinese elements and look at the familiar Chinese red.
"But affected by the epidemic, in the past two years, even in cities with Chinatowns, I am afraid that everyone will not dare to go to the pile." A Cantonese girl who took the time to go to London's Chinatown a few years ago, she said, just to take a look.
British Spring Festival style decoration Image source: provided by overseas students
This is the first year that you have come to the UK, and the one-year postgraduate time is not long, at least after this Spring Festival, you are not far from returning to China. "I can go home this year, so I'm not very sad, but when I see everyone in the circle of friends Chinese New Year's Eve, my heart is a little sour."
Therefore, a few years ago, she prepared the blessing word and couplet, hung it with her roommate on New Year's Eve, and specially bought a red skirt for herself and a red scarf for her pet cat.
Decorating dormitories for international students Image source: Provided by overseas students
Occasionally, intimate schools will decorate chinese students in many places in the canteen with Rich Chinese style decorations, the student union will also spontaneously organize the Spring Festival Gala, and even the embassy will send warm blessing red envelopes for these children.
A university canteen in the United States Image source: Provided by overseas students
A German university student union organized an online Spring Festival Gala Source: Provided by overseas students
Finding the taste of the year is a way to relieve homesickness
When it comes to Italy, the background concert is the familiar Neapolitan minor, or the Venetian boat song, music is everywhere in Italy, so Xiaoyang, who loves classical music, chose to cross the ocean to study here as an adult, which is his third year in Italy, but he laughed and said that he missed the song "Unforgettable Tonight".
"Every year during the Spring Festival, I have to go to class as usual, I still have the same old way, I made an appointment with my girlfriend, pulled my dog, ate a meal, and video with my parents, which is considered to be the Spring Festival."
For overseas students, if you are lucky, you will catch up with the end of the semester, if it is not coincidental, the Spring Festival is the day of school, and even coincides with the final exam. At the moment of anxiety for academics, thinking that the country is the Spring Festival of family reunion and liveliness, the loneliness and sorrow in my heart will always be a little more.
Circle of Friends for International Students Image Source: Provided by overseas students
"In the past, in China, I always felt that the new year back and forth on that set of processes, very boring, but now I especially miss the ease of staying at home and listening to the elders. The first year of the Spring Festival in the United States, is my worst memory, especially sad, even regret to come out to study, after the better, but the Spring Festival and parents video, always want to cry. ”
Chao Chao High School chose to go abroad and has now lived on the other side of the ocean for five years. He also said excitedly: "Many people in China say that the Spring Festival Gala is not as good as before, but I now like to watch the Spring Festival Gala, not falling for a second, and when watching the Spring Festival Gala, I feel that the whole room is lively." ”
Far from the familiar living environment, away from relatives and friends, embarking on the road to overseas study, the loneliness brought by helplessness has become a negative emotion that every international student cannot escape, and "Nian" is more of a nostalgia for them, so looking for the taste of the year is their way to relieve their nostalgia...
Producer: Xie Yanxia
Planner: Xie Jiangtao Gao Chunming
Coordinator: Aoyi News reporter Lin Shiyan
Photo: Aoyi news reporter Liu Jie