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Today, 19 March, is the equivalent of St Patrick’s Day for Chinese Catholics.

Did you ever wonder why at least half of the Chinese Catholic men you meet are called Joseph?

St Joseph was proclaimed the patron of China in 1925 and today over half of the churches in China are dedicated to St Joseph. The photos here are of St Joseph’s in Beijing and St Joseph’s cathedral in Tianjin.

The reason Joseph was picked, or so it is said, was because he exemplified key Chinese ideals: humility, simplicity, authenticity, diligence and faithfulness.

I only found out this recently myself, I had often wondered why St Joseph’s name was added to that of Mary in the prayers of the Mass in our house. Also today our Chinese contingent are off to celebrate in Dublin with the Chinese Catholic Community at Westland Row Church.

What might Patrick and Joseph have in common? (Besides many Irishmen being called Patrick and churches – such as the in Maynooth College — called after the saint.)

Well, both were foreigners but people were prepared to learn from them despite that.  Patrick built on the ancient sense of sacred in the Irish to show them a more personal and compassion side of God and Joseph illustrated the Chinese ideals of authenticity and simplicity in a new way to give the people direction and hope in coping with hardship and persecution.

Every time I meet a teacher, or even someone in teacher training, I tell them about China and they show an interest in going to a country that is said to be a ‘teachers’ paradise’ because of the positive and friendly attitude of the students.

Not so long ago it would seem adventurous to go to China but now many young Irish go there for studies, on business, touring or as teachers in language institutes.

What is unique about our Aitece program is that the teachers  go to 3^rd level institutes where the teaching hours are not crammed and they have time to get to know the students and the country.

They are paid by the government but Aitece gives them logistical and moral support with an orientation course and follow-up to check they are settling in well.

In the photos are a couple from Navan,  Ruairi and Mary Sommers, whom I met in February just before they went back to Wuhan for another semester. This is their sixth year in China and they would like to keep going back though family obligations are beginning to tell.  The other photo is of Ruairi representing Ireland at an international event in Wuhan.

Look up www.aitece.ie

The 15-day long Lunar New celebrations are coming to an end. The biggest show was at the weekend when 10,000 people, including politicians and tourists, gathered to at the CHQ for a display of Chinese arts and crafts.

On the previous Saturday (17^th) I attended a less-noticed and smaller celebration, at which mainly Chinese families attended. It was out-doors on a dry but chilly night at Hill Street playground.

A traditional lion dance led the program of 12 acts by and for local Chinese. The 9^th presentation was made by the Chinese Catholic Community Choir. I admired the enthusiasm of the families involved. Despite the late hour and the lack of opportunities to practice, they put in a spirited performance.

They may be among the smallest of the Chinese communities in Dublin but they are gradually finding their voice!

The Lunar New Year Festival finally came but is not gone – it goes on for 15 days. However it comes so late you can see why some call it the ’Spring Festival.’

We had one of the traditional activities – cooking dumplings — at our house, with fourteen friends.

It involved a lot of work. The process includes many steps and even with willing helpers it takes a few hours.  But the making is half the fun.

The latecomers played their part by showing their appreciation, though there were a few plate-fulls left over.  The greatest embarrassment would be to run short!

For those thinking of their families back in China it was only a minor distraction but the spirit of the Lunar New Year (or Spring Festival) was alive in Maynooth for at least one evening!

And there were more celebrations the next day (more on that next time.)

Last week we had an international gathering in Dalgan with the heads of nine international organisations coming together from India, Africa, Mexico, Australia, the US and Europe to discuss the social, cultural and religious challenges they were facing.

There were also forty other participants listening to them, putting questions to them and sharing they own experiences.

As might be expected at such a gathering, there was a lot of discussion on the value of listening to people from completely different background but with the same human hopes and needs.  With social media narrowing our view to our own immediate concerns and world, social progress depends on getting a broader idea of what is happening and seeing the implication of sharing the one planet with millions of enthusiastic people out there with loads of different ideas and practical wisdom.

Many of the topics were familiar – the environment, the status of women, listening with young people, taking a new look at religion —  but the reason they created excitement was because of the fresh and personal way they were expressed.

People were asked to send back their reflections on what impressed them and we look forward to build on that.

 

There is a colourful selection of New Year customs in Asia and they have one thing in common: they show you how to get rid of all the bad luck of last year and start anew on a path that will bring you good fortune in the New. In Ireland we try to do something similar by making good resolutions that will not repeat the mistakes of last year. However in Asia they don’t just rely on themselves, they call on a lot of helpers!  I wonder which approach is the more effective.

‘Couplets’ on red scrolls such as ‘Dragons and phoenix bring prosperity’ or simply, ‘Happy Spring Festival’ are hung beside doors.

There is a fish dish at the main meal because the words for ‘fish’ and ‘extra’ are similar, hence the greeting, ‘May you have fish every day,’ meaning may you have extra (food or luck) every day.

Food is offered to the Kitchen God so he will give a good report for last year and take care of the house for the next year.

Fortune telling is an obvious way to prepare for the next year and see if any bad luck is holding  you back.

Respect is shown to ancestors for a number of reasons including the practical hope that they will forgive any lack of attention and extend help in future.

Gifts are given to relatives and friends for similar reasons and usually they are in the shape, and  colour, of gold nuggets  (gifts of Ferrero Rocher chocolates have become very popular for that reason.) Debts should be repaid too.

Don’t wash your hair as the word for hair is like that for fortune and you dont want to wash it out on the first day of the year!

Fireworks are set off and Lion Dances danced to scare off evil spirits and start the New Year without them.

There are plenty more, if you have time to fit them in!

We have to wait two more weeks for the Chinese (or Lunar) New Year so maybe that’s why this blog is sticking to New Year traditions.

The latest insight comes from Dr Qiu, a researcher at Maynooth University, who told me that that the Lunar New Year celebration is not the most popular winter festival in China. He claims that Dong-zhi, the winter solstice is and that makes sense as it is the day when the sun stops its decline and begins its ascent into a new year.  When you think of how Newgrange was designed to precisely mark that moment,  we can see more resemblances between important days in ancient Ireland  and China (and Korea). Dong-zhi is celebrated as Dong-ji in Korea.

There is a story that a famous Han scholar on a cold winter’s morning saw children suffering from chilblains on their ears. He ordered his apprentices to make dumplings lamb and other ingredients and gave them to the poor to keep their ears from getting chilblains. Since then the  dumplings are shaped like ears and people, especially in the north of the country, eat them on Dongzhi. In the south there is less wheat for dumplings so instead they eat red and blue rice balls (there is  another story based on yin and yang to explain that). In Korea they ate red bean porridge called padjuk and gave gifts of calendars.

I hope these customs don’t change in a world that is gradually getting duller and limiting its menu to hamburgers, pizzas and curries.

We talk about the Chinese New Year but it is also the Korean and Vietnamese (Tet). The Japanese also used to celebrate it on the traditional date – the second new moon after the winter solstice — but changed to the solar January 1 when the country began to modernise in 1872. Maybe they wanted to show they were moving from a moon-important agricultural society to a sun-clock checking industrial nation. However, they retained many of the ancient practices – just changed the date.

Korea is best at keeping the original customs – they observe a 15 day festival ranging from the first glimpse of a new moon till it reaches its fullness.

The day begins with donning traditional dress, performing the charae honoring ancestors, followed by rice cake soup, visits to elders, family meals, festival games and presents of money in red envelopes to younger people. There is no visiting on the third day as it is expected that by then everyone’s good will has been strained and everyone should take a rest.

The Chinese, maybe because of Mao’s efforts to destroy traditional culture, give less attention to ancestor on that day but share the gift-giving and red envelopes, set off more fireworks, consult fortune tellers and put more emphasis on wishes for material success such as the Cantonese, ‘Earn much money!’ popular greeting.  A fish is also served at the main meal with the wish, ‘May you have fish every year’. ‘Fish’ has a similar pronunciation to ‘extra’ so the sentiment is ‘have extra every year.’

In modern China, a big event, not to be missed, is the New Year Special on China Central TV. It’s  more popular than the Queen’s Christmas speech in England and the emphasis is on pure entertainment.

In Ireland for some reason we only recently paid much attention to January 1, Christmas was our New Year or, maybe, Easter.

Kim Yong-Hae in Seoul says she can find no memory of a Korean ‘Womens’ New Year’ and reminded me that the New Year was an agricultural ‘slow period’ anyhow.

The photos show what is offered to the ancestors in Korea on New Year’s morning and public greetings in Guangzhou (thanks, Garreth).

Nollaig na mBan has come back into vogue. It was celebrated recently on 6 January, the day known as  Little Christmas, or The Three Kings because of the Three Wise Men from the East who sought out the infant Jesus in Bethlehem.  Nollaig na mBan seems to have had a stronger tradition in the south than in the rest of Ireland. It was the designated day for women who had worked non-stop during the Christmas and new Year festivities to rest and have their own celebration.

I remember there was something similar in Korea after the week-long Lunar New Year festival. However I could not find any mention of it on the internet – maybe someone out there remembers it?  I have been assured there was no such custom in China before, during or after the  Chinese New Year.  Maybe this indicates that Korean women are more influential than their Chinese counterparts.

The lunar (East Asian) New Year is late this year (mid-February) but during the recent festivities I have being thinking about it and the colourful symbolism that goes with it, promoting cheerfulness and celebration. More on those symbols later. For the present, my symbol of New Year promise is the daffodils that are growing in our front garden since mid-December. Even the recent heavy frost has not been able to restrain them. They are a tribute to all the hardworking women (and men) who cope with daily challenges and disappointments to keep popping to bring a moment of delight and optimism to a world still in the gloom of dark early evenings and late mornings.

Street vending in China’s cities is territorial. You meet the same people in the same spots in the same districts, not always downtown. Every vendor has a nose for crowds. Some sell specialty items, like handicrafts or wire bicycle models.

 

I have always regarded footpath vendors as hardy, calculating and agile people who lend extra colour to well-frequented shopping areas. The window displays of shops, restaurants and opticians are professional. So too are the outdoor stall displays of fruit and vegetable sellers, fish vendors and purveyors of potted plants – they are colourful, pricemarked and, yes, aesthetic, but in an institutional way. The footpath ‘casual traders’ compete with institutional capitalists using less money and more ingenuity.

 

I have seen China police officers sweeping a cluster of pavement traders away on certain occasions, probably under orders ‘from above’. It might be during the run-up to a holiday period. It might be a symbolical assertion of police vigilance against the street sale of electronic goods which have, let us say, fallen off the back of a lorry – the popular electrical stores with their high overheads don’t welcome that kind of competition. In a busy street near the main Bayi Square of downtown Nanchang I saw sudden alertness and movement by half a dozen pavement vendors of phones, radios, computer tablets and acessories. A pair of uniformed police further up the street had been spotted questioning somebody about his displayed goods and lack of official permit. Near my vantage point individuals quickly wrapped their wares in cloth bundles and skedaddled. On the following weekend, in dry weather, the pavement vendors were back at their usual pitches, no police to be seen.

 

Along an unpaved side street near the north entrance to my Changchun university there used to be a dozen or more casual traders. From daybreak, vegetables, fruit, and fish brought in from the countryside were displayed on barrows, car boots, makeshift sheltered stalls, and on the ground. This morning market was authorised by the city council while a nearby shopping mall with residential apartments was under construction.

 

Knicknacks, children’s toys and second-hand clothing vendors had their pitches too. Before Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) sellers of decorations and fireworks were prominently busy. A bloke playing a chanting sequence on a battery-powered amplifier displayed a ‘fortune chart’ and sold Buddhist ‘good luck’ charms and pictures. Older people stopped and bought, while younger people passed by in agnostic disdain. I once picked up for twenty yuan a second-hand leather briefcase and carried in it books, lesson notes and CD audio material for English classes around the campus. I brought it back to Ireland as carry-on luggage, and nowadays bring my research files to local heritage committee meetings. I bought winter gloves and pullovers too. Sometimes I bought household things like bowls and peeling knives. With regularity I bought fish, fruit and vegetables knowing that they were fresh. Such intimate commerce helped me to relate to the local community. I think stallholders liked to see the occasional foreigner around their suburban area.

 

During the Spring Festival some city streets are designated as pedestrian by city councils and vendors of fruit baskets, potted chrysanthemums, greetings cards and handcrafts are granted permits to sell from standardised stalls along the street centres. Bunting and temporary festive displays are carefully set up. Police patrol the bustling streets every day.

 

In Beijing is a designated street space in the antique shop district where antiques and pseudo-antiques of varying price and taste are set out on the ground every weekend.  It was near my hotel and I browsed without buying, but took a photograph I cherish.