Zibby Mag

By X.H. Collins

My son loves holidays. The Christmas tree must go up the day after Thanksgiving and come down on the second of January. Planning for what to wear for next Halloween starts as soon as this one is over. At school, reading a passage and drawing conclusions from the hints in it is very challenging for him unless the passage describes food, decorations, and other rituals of holidays. But my cherished Chinese traditional holidays are not in his repertoire.

It’s hard to blame a boy born and raised in Iowa. Our small group of Chinese immigrants has always had Chinese New Year parties with food, music, and lion dances. Still, the scale is minuscule compared to the months-long Christmas music blasted in stores, shelf-after-shelf of Halloween candy, and Valentine’s Day chocolates. Not to mention the presents—oh, the presents—that give him joy and make me anxious. The wrapping! The packaging! The stuff he takes a look at and then tosses!

Other Chinese holidays are ignored altogether. There’s no dragon boat race on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar. There’s no gathering under the harvest moon to enjoy the family togetherness. Once or twice, even I had forgotten an important holiday myself.

Before I had my son, celebrating Chinese holidays meant getting together with friends and having an authentic meal. There might be some card-playing or mahjong-shuffling. There might be a trip to Chicago’s Chinatown. The Chinese holidays were moments when I would slow down to remember that, in addition to being a fresh-of-the-boat immigrant who tried to learn the new ways of my world, I do have people, traditions, and rituals that could sustain me, no matter how far away I have drifted from them.

I don’t recall exactly when I started to make a conscious effort to bring Chinese holidays into the centerfold for my son. Maybe it was the time when his preschool teacher asked me to make mooncakes for his class on Chinese New Year. I was perplexed until I read about the Chinese New Year mooncakes in The Good Earth, a great book I loved.

I decided that Chinese New Year should be the holiday to start with because it is the most important, not to mention a holiday celebrated by two billion people or one-fourth of the world’s population. When I started to go all out displaying my zeal, I didn’t think of fortifying my tradition or spreading my culture. I just wanted my son to know that moon cakes are for the Mid-Autumn Festival, which has the brightest harvest moon on the fifteenth of the eighth lunar month. Moon cakes are not for the New Year, which kicks off on the first day of the first month and concludes with a bang two weeks later on the fifteenth day, the Lantern Festival.

I just wanted him to know that not every Chinese eats jiaozi, or dumplings, for Chinese New Year. In Sichuan, we eat tangyuan, sticky rice balls with delicious fillings, which are not to be confused with yuanxiao, very similar but not the same, only eaten on the day of Lantern Festival, mostly in the North. I just wanted him to know it’s nice to get a red envelope full of money. And the food! The food is not just nourishment for the body; with its meanings and metaphors, food is also ambrosia for the soul.

So I started with food. I asked my dad to teach me how to make tangyuan from scratch. I gathered glutinous rice powder, sesame seeds and powder, walnuts, sugar, peanut butter, and oil. I added dried summer rose petals that I harvested in my yard. I made the fillings, and I rolled the little balls.

I acknowledge that he is an American, not a Chinese boy. Still, I chose to teach him, hoping he could appreciate his mother’s heritage and wishing to open a small window to a big world for him.

In Kangding, where I grew up, we have a special New Year’s treat. It’s called zha guozi “fried fruit,” which is not fruit but like a fried crunchy donut, made into the shape of lotus flowers with one side dyed red and the other side retaining the whiteness of the flour. I have not had it for more than 30 years. When I asked my parents and friends how to make it, the answers were vague because most people don’t make guozi these days. Most people buy them, perfectly produced by small family factories. I experimented with the texture of the dough and tried to make it just right so even Goldilocks would approve. I can’t say I’m very successful yet, but I make a small batch each year.

For the big meal on New Year’s Eve, I call for help. I reserve some dishes several days ahead at a local Chinese restaurant and make the rest myself. We always have fish, chicken, assorted vegetables, and oranges. One year my friend in California sent me the most delicious, homemade Sichuan-style spicy sausage. No matter which day it falls on during the week, we manage to have a New Year’s meal and hope for another year of peace, health, happiness, and prosperity.

Food aside, I wanted to decorate the house for my visual son. I went online, bought door couplets, large Fu signs, and window papercuts of the zodiac animal of the year, and hung them all up with a string of red lanterns and other decors. The reusable Chinese New Year decorations have their own boxes now, along with the Christmas and Halloween boxes.

My son receives red envelopes from my sister and me and layaway ones from his uncle and grandparents in China. One year when he realized he was getting something for this important holiday, he was disappointed; there were no presents! How can you call it a holiday if there are no presents? So I invented Chinese New Year presents, cheerfully wrapped in glossy red Chinese New Year wrapping paper with patterns of lanterns and winter sweets.

I have had mixed results from my efforts. Food is a battle I’m losing. “Just one tangyuan, for good luck!” “It’s a Chinese donut! For good luck!” “Yes, take a bite of everything, please! It’s for good luck!” Good luck means something to him now, so he obliges. But I’m buying my time and hedging my bets. Maybe when he’s 30, he’ll remember these foods his mother made, long for them, and seek them out. The presents, on the other hand, are the biggest hits. I’ve started to withhold a few of his most desired items on his Christmas list and save them for Chinese New Year.

I realize I cannot teach him more than I know.. I acknowledge that he is an American, not a Chinese boy. Still, I chose to teach him, hoping he could appreciate his mother’s heritage and wishing to open a small window to the big world for him.

Several years ago, we went to a local museum. One exhibition room was decked out with colorful Mexican decorations for the Day of the Dead. “It’s Chinese New Year!” my son exclaimed, his voice full of excitement and joy. Aww! Perhaps what I’m doing is working. Not in a way I imagined, but this little sponge has absorbed more than I realized.

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X.H. Collins was born in Hechuan, Sichuan Province, China, and grew up in Kangding, on the East Tibet Plateau. She is the author of the novel Flowing Water, Falling Flowers (MWC Press, Rock Island, IL, 2020). She has a Ph.D in nutrition and is a retired biology professor. She lives in Iowa with her husband, son, and dog. To learn more about the author and her work, visit her website at https://xhcollins.com/, and follow her on Twitter @xixuan_c, Facebook @xhcollins, and Instagram @xixuan_c.