Spending Chinese New Year in Beijing

Spending Chinese New Year in Beijing

  1:17 PM    Jlu17

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During the weeks preceding and following Chinese New Year ("chunjie, 春节"), the Beijing streets are heavily decorated with everything red -- red lanterns, red envelopes, red banners, etc. Half of the stores are closed because the store owners are also celebrating. Many of the small shop owners are actually part of the large migrant population ("liudong renkou, 流动人口"), so they close their shops to return to their families outside of Beijing. I could no longer order delivery from one of my favorite small restaurants, 西安小吃, because the owner wanted to return to her family in Xi'an halfway across China. However, the traffic also gets better as the Beijing population travels outside of Beijing, and by the day before Chinese New Year, I was able to freely bike wherever I wanted. 

This year, Chinese New Year coincidentally fell the day after my birthday, so I had the privilege of pretending that Beijing was celebrating my birthday. One of my cousins who lived in Beijing decided to take me ice skating over the (what I think is artificially) frozen pond in Houhai (后海). I finally learned how to ice skate in Beijing.

 

Also, my friend and I decided to explore Beijing a little more the week before chunjie. Everything was red, and all of the temples were filled with people sending their last prayers before heading home.

 

Even Sanlitun, the most foreign part of Beijing, was decorated with lanterns.

My birthday was the same day as the New Year's Eve (chuxi, "除夕"). Two former SYA students (one who was also a Poly alum who had the same host family as me) decided to join my host family to celebrate. We ate a lot of food and played too much mahjong ("麻将"). 

We didn't set off any firecrackers ourselves, but there were plenty of fireworks being set off around us that we didn't miss out. A kid set off a small firecracker next to my foot, but luckily it was too small to do damage. There were larger, much more dangerous firecrackers that hurt people, but I didn't see that happen on my relatively quiet residential street.

This was around 1 am, when most people already finished setting off firecrackers. There were still enthusiastic stragglers.

Chunjie doesn't end when New Year's Day is over. There is still a week of "temple fairs", for lack of a better word ("miaohui, 庙会"). Different parks in Beijing host fairs everyday filled with food and activities. There are usually way too many people at each fair. There were basically seas of people flooding the fairs every day (人山人海, which means mountains and seas of people). My friends and I spent a lot of money trying different foods.

Lamb skewers are always a crowd favorite, so the crowds are often densest around these stands.

We visited around 4-5 different 庙会s. They were usually held at parks, and some parks simultaneously held both a 庙会 and an ice skating rink. 

Literally a sea of people stopping traffic to enter the miaohui.

 

Some places had "ceremonies", where Chinese people would pay a lot of money to be serenaded by people in costumes. It was mostly for show, so while the crowds were huge, the actual number of customers were scarce.

 

There were also other stands where people could buy goods. Here, the man is spelling out a person's name in a visual manner.

We ended the week with empty wallets and full stomachs. It was nice to see how every park added its own touch to the temple fairs around Beijing.

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Screening of Pelé: Birth of a Legend

Screening of Pelé: Birth of a Legend

  8:04 PM    Jlu17

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For its 2nd GIP event of the year, Poly hosted a screening of Pelé: Birth of a Legend. I had the wonderful opportunity to watch the film and hear the Q&A afterward with the co-producer, Ivan Orlic. I loved the film even though I had no previous knowledge of who Pelé was.

Pelé and the directors and producers of the film 

The film follows the story of Edson Arantes de Nascimento, internationally known by his nickname Pelé. In 1950, Brazil's loss in the World Cup caused Pelé to promise himself to help Brazil win the World Cup. He and his friends, known as the "shoeless ones," endured taunts because of their socioeconomic statuses while they played in tournaments, but Pelé eventually attracted a scout. 

After his close friend's death, though, he stopped playing entirely and started working with his father. His father encourages him to take up soccer again, and he becomes so skilled that his previous scout decided to take him to play professional soccer. His "gingo" playing style clashed with the coach's idea of how to play "proper" soccer, though, so Pelé adopted the more sophisticated "European" playing style.

The Brazilian team dealt with a lot of cultural discrimination when they reached the World Cup finals. Eventually, though, Pelé's playing style helped unite the Brazilian team and win the World Cup against Sweden. The actual Pelé also makes a cameo during the film.

Pelé with the two actors representing him in the film

After the film, the co-producer, Ivan Orlic, participated in the Q&A session with the students. He discussed his journey from studying marine biology and fishery management in Michigan State University to being the CEO of his own company, Seine Pictures. He also talked about working with Pelé and the hidden difficulties of filming in Brazil.

Orlic answering a question with Charlie

Overall, as someone who has no knowledge of famous soccer players, I found the film to be well-written and clear. The cinematography was also absolutely beautiful (and the film was the first to be filmed in 5K!). I loved the consistent them of cultural discrimination that followed every action that Pelé took to achieve his goals. His journey is truly incredible.

Here's the official trailer for Pelé:

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