Today is the first day of the year in the lunar calendar. I was vaguely aware it was coming up. But ultimately it was my friend Emma, who is of Taiwanese descent, who reminded me of its imminent arrival. She asked if I was doing anything to celebrate.

My mind drew a blank, and at first there was nothing. Nothing, but a panicky gaping hole where 春节 (chunjie) was supposed to be! Since I haven’t celebrated the Spring Festival in a long time, I don’t remember what you’re supposed to eat or say or do and when… I couldn’t even recall what I used to do with my family before.

Then some snippets slowly popped into my head from a Texas high school cafeteria. Rented out on weekends to a Chinese language school.

My parents enrolled my sister and me in Chinese classes on Sundays when we were kids—quite the first-generation Asian immigrant phenomenon, I’d later find out. I dreaded the rides in our Toyota Sienna on the way to SCHOOL on SUNDAY, well aware that I could very much be doing other useless fun kid stuff with that precious time (mainly Shockwave computer games, Neopets). But I also knew that if I did well in Chinese class, my teacher would reward us with paper “coupons,” which we could then redeem for prizes like small plastic toys, little notebooks, and best of all, those springy, glittery beaded butterfly hair clips, which I liked to collect.

Each year, my Chinese school would host a big Spring Festival event for all. Everyone sitting elbow to elbow at classic American high school cafeteria tables, the rectangular ones with the round stools fixed to them so that they couldn’t be moved. The tables arranged in square formation, an open space in the middle—a stage. Lion dances, obviously. Wushu performances, maybe? Loud. Aluminum trays full of buffet food, my favorites being sesame chicken, beef and broccoli, lo mein, fried rice, egg rolls. The classics. Chinese student speech competitions by age group. I was never particularly great at those... I think there were trophies. And red envelopes for the kids, too. With one-dollar bills inside.

When I got older I stopped going to Chinese school because I suppose I became more of my full self, and my will was getting too strong for my parents to control. They themselves got too busy with work and other commitments, and stopped singing in the Chinese choir they were a part of as well. Pretty soon, our interaction with the local Chinese community became increasingly infrequent, and with that, Lunar New Year celebrations wound down significantly (maybe we’d go to a family friend’s house one year. I remember watching the annual new year’s TV special, not really understanding the xiangsheng comedy act but thoroughly enjoying the acrobatics, which required no language skills). 

Spring Festival became something I forgot was a part of the place “we came from.” Every year it seemed increasingly to spring (pun not intended) up on me at random. One day my mom would tell me that it was time to call our family in China to wish them a happy new year. And we’d get some traditional foods from the Asian supermarket too, like tangyuan and dumplings. Occasionally, we’d make them ourselves.

So what is Spring Festival to me now? I’m not so sure. Anything that has to do with my Chinese(-American) identity usually triggers an onslaught of anxious not-enough-ness. Not good enough at Mandarin, not knowledgeable enough about China and its traditions, not connected enough to family on the mainland, not disciplined or motivated enough to fix all of these deficiencies, and more. These feelings interlace very quickly with shame, and I’m still trying to figure out why.

Today I described to my coworker how distant I felt from the time when Lunar New Year was a bigger thing in my life. She reminded me, rightly, that the small things matter too. That even without the fanfare and intensity surrounding all these traditions, it’s still something that connects you to your family. And that’s ultimately what celebrations are about, right?