Wheat-dogg's World

JISHOU, HUNAN — While folks in the West were celebrating Valentine’s Day, the big day here was the beginning of the New Year, and the Spring Festival. I arrived in Jishou on the 12th, so I could spend New Year’s Eve and Day with one of my friend’s family.

Spring Festival is rich in traditions. One of my freshmen, Wu Chengjun (Smile), is from the countryside of Huayuan County west of Jishou.

On her own, she has been blogging in English in her QQ space about the Festival. They were so interesting and honest, that I asked her if I could share them with my friends in the States. She said I could.

I’ve made corrections to Smile’s punctuation and some of her grammar, but everything else is her work. I hope you enjoy reading her diary entries.
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11/2 — the Year of the Ox
The day after tomorrow is the Spring Festival. My folks bought many things today, such as meat, vegetables, fruit, hot food, new clothes, and sweet wine, which you can drink with a kind of bread made of rice. The fruits are not only apples and pears, but … I don’t know its name in English. It looks just like “1.” It tastes sweet. In Chinese it is: zha gan. Though when we talk about fruits, we may remember bananas, we don’t buy it during Spring Festival,I don’t know the reason. Maybe it’s dear. Maybe the children dont like the softness (because every parents think first from their children — I just personally think that). Of course, you can find many red pictures with a good word on them, such as fu (福). The picture means good luck ^_^！