What’s a cultural tradition from your country that you love?
As a Chinese, my most cherished cultural tradition—one shared across the world—is the celebration of the New Year, Guònián. Yet in China, it follows the lunar calendar, spanning nearly a month and offering workers their longest holiday of the year. It is the grandest festival in every Chinese community on every continent.
I love Chinese New Year because it holds most of my fondest childhood memories. Family gathers under one roof, opening with blessings and laughter, followed by home-cooked meals that no restaurant can replicate, and stories both old and new shared late into the night.
Those memories still linger. What I truly miss are the surprise of a new dress, the weight of red packets in my palm, and the unmatched taste of my mother’s cooking. Parents gave; children received. Back then, I never understood why my mother laboured so tirelessly through every New Year. Only as I grew older did I realise—it was all for love. She poured herself out so that everyone in the family could have a joyful Guònián. That was her blessing to us.
Now I am the giver, ensuring my family receives New Year blessings in turn. In giving, I taste the joy of the receiver—and I see that this joy is the greatest reward for a mother who gives with her whole heart. In a family, the father is often the breadwinner, but the mother is the magician who somehow does more with less.
Yet beneath all this, what I truly long for is a greater celebration—a new heaven and a new earth, where all peoples, tongues, and cultures are reunited beyond the scattering of Babel (Genesis 11:8–9). No time zones, no distances, no barriers. There, love gathers all, and hatred finds no foothold—for there will be no room for the Gentile.
Year after year, we watch days pass. Old troubles fade, new ones creep in. New Year resolutions often open yet another chapter of worries to be resolved. When will we truly send our troubles away? Scripture points us forward: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2).
May this poem also shed light on your reflections on life.
—
✨The Sweet Potato’s Kin
A humble root’s reflection✨
Fireworks bloom with every year,
Greetings greet each passing year—
But though the years are ushered out,
The heart’s old burdens linger near.
Eat well, then dress in finer things,
Where mammon reigns, the circle spins;
From dawn to dusk we toil and strain,
Eyes fixed on earth, not heaven’s plains.
We seldom look to skies above—
Yet if we did, would troubles cease?
Perhaps the clouds might carry off
The weary soul’s long-prayed-for peace.
—✨
en yan hua fang 