Last Saturday, Feb 9th, is Chinese Spring Festival, also known as Chinese New Year based on the lunar
calendar. One of my friends, Jie, invited me together with some other friends to his apartment to spend the festival together. It is a great opportunity for us international students far away from hometown to celebrate the traditional festival together and meet new friends from different parts of China. The party started from 11 AM and we had hot pot for lunch. Since it's the first time to meet for some of us. The lunchtime talk is basically focused on self-introduction and ice breaking. After that, we divided into two groups to play. One group (5 persons) played a card game called "Wars within Three Kingdoms (Sanguosha)", a very popular game among Chinese international students; the other group (5 persons) played Wii U games, and I am one of them. Our favorite Wii U game is called "Ghost Hunter". Basically, one person needs to be the "ghost", the rest 4 should constitute a group of ghost hunters. During the game, the ghost is invisible by the hunters and can attack the hunters without being noticed; what need to be done for the hunters to win is to use the flashlight to shine the ghost for several times (when the ghost approaches, the others' game handles will vibrate).
Playing games together is really a good opportunity to build friendship within a short time. Since we are so involved in the game, what we care most is teamwork, efficiency, competition and, most important, fun. Playing games is also a chance to better know others. After several rounds, I have a better idea about who is even-tempered, who is imprudent, who is tactical and who is weak/innocent. No matter how mach we differ from each other, what we have in common is that we are all pretty serious about and enjoying what we are doing. The "ghost" will scream extremely loud while being shined; in the same way, hunters will jump up and cheer and hi five. These emotional expressions are our spontaneous reactions to what is happening to the characters in the game, who are also the projections of ourselves.
And for the New Year Eve dinner/ Family Reunion Dinner, which is the most important part for Chinese to celebrate the festival, we made North China style dumplings. We Southerners often won't make dumplings, so it was a lot of fun for us from the South to watch the Northerners making dough. And we were so excited to learn from them.
This week's "play assignment" brought me so much fun and most important, new friends!
That food looks so incredibly good! It is so interesting how important food and games are to celebrations such as this are -- especially games when people don't know each other well. It really does help break the ice and teaches us each so much about one another. It also allows us to laugh and put down our defenses, usually. Laughter, I think, is so important in helping share our true personalities and when we can laugh -- and for that matter cry -- with one another, we allow other people to know us much more deeply. I think that is something that Chinese and American people have in common. We as people both enjoy laughing and having fun. That is not true among all Asian people, I've discovered. Many other Asians are far more private with their emotions or at least less willing to really, really laugh when they think something is funny or when they really enjoy something. I think it is a true universal language!
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