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Chinese New Year - Essay


learningtowrite 32 / 50  
Feb 7, 2008   #1
Today is the second day of Chinese New Year. I just want to wish all the mods in this forum a year full of joy and good health. And thank you for the great work you are doing!

This I wrote about Chinese New Year in my country. Please give me some comments. I think my vocabulary is really really bad:( Thanks in advance!

A traditional festival

February, winter trembles on the edge of spring, the season of hope and happiness. People rejoice in the breezy seasonal wind, which knocks on their door unexpectedly over one night sleep, counting days to welcome our most important festival of the year.

I grew up, bearing in mind that Lunar New Year always come in winter, because it took that kind of bitterly cold to bring about the bursting joy for everyone in the city. Together with the chilling breeze, the drizzle does not leave the country till the end of the festival. Yet, the streets are always flooded with people hurriedly on their way doing shopping before all the shops are closed during the week of Lunar New Year. In any corner of the city, we can always find the knitted eyebrows on the face of young wives too focused sewing so that her child would have new clothes to wear in the festival, the sweat glistened on the face of the husbands trying to rearrange the furniture and the beaming smile of little children running around the kitchen waiting for their turn to taste "banh chung" (a special kind of pancake). The festive mood begins to dispel the chill in the air, and warm up the whole country.

Lunar New Year comes every year with delicious food, bright red decorations and most importantly for kids, lucky money (hong bao). My mother often found herself in the middle of domestic concerns of any typical housewives. Questions like "Do we have enough food for the entire week?" or "Do we have enough hong bao (red envelopes) to bring luck to all the children in the block?" were frequently considered. My mother took upon herself the responsibility to ensure that our family would have an enjoyable festival, and it was always my pleasure to help her throughout the preparation process. I remembered holding her hands walking into the streets, which have changed into a new auspicious red outfit to buy some parallel couplets written on red paper to bring luck to the family. I remembered staying up until three in the morning with my mother to make "banh chung". As we sat by the cooking fire, I used to stare at the glowing embers of the fire and observe it crackling in the silent night. My mother would massage my hair gently and asked if I was exhausted. As I fell into her embrace, my vision was blurred with the red sparks of the fire.

Those cheerful memories I packed neatly in a corner of my mind and never left them behind as I went abroad. Every now and then, I catch a glimpse of the joyful festive mood of the locals in Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving, but nothing can compare to the icy city in red I always knew in Chinese New Year. It has been several years since my mother stopped making "banh chung" but ordered them from some fanciful restaurants. Children now no longer get their new clothes from the caring hands of their mother. Sometimes, as I turn the calendar to February, I wonder, how long it will take Chinese New Year in my city to shrink into just another public holiday.
EF_Team2 1 / 1,708  
Feb 8, 2008   #2
Greetings!

Thank you, and happy new year to you, too! :-) I love the imagery in your opening paragraph. I'd make one small correction: over one night's sleep

I grew up bearing in mind that Lunar New Year always comes in winter, because it takes that kind of bitter cold to bring about the bursting joy for everyone in the city.

In any corner of the city, we can always find the knitted eyebrows on the faces of young wives too focused sewing so that their children would have new clothes to wear in the festival, the sweat glistening on the faces of the husbands

Although you are writing about something that happened in the past, you are remembering it today, so say "remember" instead of "remembered":

I remember holding her hands, walking into the streets, which had changed into a new auspicious red outfit, to buy some parallel couplets written on red paper to bring luck to the family. I remember staying up until three in the morning with my mother to make "banh chung".

My mother would massage my hair gently and ask if I was exhausted.

the joyful, festive mood of the locals on Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving,

making "banh chung" but ordered them from some fancy restaurants.

Sometimes, as I turn the calendar to February, I wonder [delete ,] how long it will take Chinese New Year in my city to shrink into just another public holiday.

The way you describe it makes me wish I could be Chinese! :-)) Good work!

Thanks,

Sarah, EssayForum.com
OP learningtowrite 32 / 50  
Feb 8, 2008   #3
Thank you very much! I think I was really careless about all those tense-related errors:D

I suppose there is a China Town almost everywhere in the world, so this time they should be celebrating too, just not as grand as in Asian countries.

Thanks once again, and happy new year=]


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