Chinese Lantern Festival

This article has been published by Micro China blogs

Well, it was my first experience of Chinese New Year festival in China in February 2018. My Chinese friends told me many stories about this festival, I heard that everyone goes to their native homes to enjoy this traditional festival of new year with their loved ones. So, I was kind of prepared for this lonely experience and was waiting for the holidays.

It was the end of January, when the campus started emptying up. I used to witness students walking towards main gate carrying their luggage and observed everybody to be in a good mood in lab discussing pleasantly topics and preparing for their journey. I also used to ask my lab friends when they are leaving for their homes and they used to tell me excitedly about their preparation of going to their home. My friends used to tell exciting stories of the event like the fireworks, family gatherings and traditional foods. It remined me of Eid festival back in Pakistan where we were always happy before the Eid days discussing about the Eid festival, preparing for the event and doing a lot of shopping.  I was recalling my feelings of being happy and while going back to my home for the Eid vocations.

So, the day arrived when the holidays started on 11th of February. But instead of feeling alone I was able to joint an event organised by the Nanjing City Municipal Administration for foreigners, called Chinese Lantern Festival.

A friend of mine was also going there, so we planned to leave together. This event involved different small activities where first we were provided training to prepare traditional Chinese Lanterns. It was a very artistic experience to prepare Chinese traditional lanterns and decorating them with artful imaginations. Subsequent to the lantern making activity, the organisers gifted us the prepared lanterns, which I also brought back to my room.

After the lantern making activity, we were escorted towards Chinese Imperial Museum. It involved a detailed exploration of different parts of museum, the first and the most wonderful experience was to visit Chinese Imperial Examination Centre. The whole atmosphere was depicting the traditional Chinese Architecture. We were provided with a guide who was leading us and demonstrating different parts of this ancient heritage. When we entered the exam hall, our guide started to brief us about the examination center. It was a multistory underground building. Where people who were supposed to be selected for high rank provincial as well as state level positions used to come for the selection process. Which involved a serious of exams conducted in one go. The scholar needs to finish the exam at once, he/she never allowed to leave the examination hall until the exam is finished. Imperial examination involved not only mental test however it included a tough physical endurance test. There were a lot of formalities and protocols for the exam, but I only remember some of them. Like the students has to take the exams for 6 nights and 9 days, every exam lasted for 3 days and two nights,  in-total there were three exams. The students had to sleep, eat and do every other activity in the exam cabin. Even the food was torn into pieces before allowing it to the scholar. It was due to this exam that intellectual minds were selected to rule Chinese government and to make rules and policies for the betterment of Chinese society. This has inspired me a lot because this had nothing to do with the monetary status of the student and solely dependent on the intellectual abilities. There were many scholars who tried to pass this exam but failed, however, they achieved international level fame in their area of expertise, but were not able to pass the imperial exam. This shows the high-level competency of this exam.

There were many historical artefacts of the exam hall which were showcased in the museum. It showed how devoted was the examination authority and how determined were the scholars who used to attempt the imperial exam. It also realised me the fact that the foundation of the Chinese society has very strong roots of knowledge and wisdom tested under tough conditions. Our guide was very polite lady and I used to ask many stupid questions about the examination Hall, but she answered me with a smile on her face. I was also fortunate enough to be honoured to step through the gate of wisdom. The scholars who used to pass this exam were only allowed to step through this gate and had proved themselves worthy of passing through it. were considered to be highly intellectual ones, so I was feeling a kind liability to prove myself worthy of passing through this gate.

After having a mind-blowing experience of the imperial examination Hall, we were really tired and hungry, a person who just ate barely a simple toast in the breakfast should have to be super hungry after such a tiring but literary experience. So, we were greeted by our hosts in the restaurant near to the museum.

The outlook of the restaurant was fabulous, with a water stream passing by the place and ancient Chinese architecture with curvy roof tops, reddish outlook and the gloomy reddish sunlight of the evening transformed the environment into the age of ancient kingdoms. This feeling took my soul away to an ancient era, where imperial examination scholars were being greeted after passing the exam. We entered the restaurant and were made to sit by a lavish table with different kinds of Chinese dishes. Since everyone was hungry, the food was served briskly, I was wondering that I was not being able to finish the served dishes and there comes the waiter bringing another, serving in a royal manner. A variety of soups, dumplings, sweet dishes and beverages were served.

At the dinner table, I was able to talk to people from other countries like England, Azerbaijan, US, and Kirghizstan. We had a pleasant gossip there and from there our tour guide took us to our final destination, the rocking, Chinese Lantern display. It was also an ancient building but I was not able to see it clearly because of night, the weather started to get cold and it was miserable to know that it was arranged in the open air. Alas, however, we entered the venue and were surprised  to see there were a lot of people seated in front of a large size stage with huge screens. After a while at around 8 PM the show started with the introduction. The host told us about the history of this festival through a video. Subsequently, Mayor of Nanjing and deputy mayor addressed the gathering. I was waiting to see lights show because I was curious about this event, however, this event was organised in the memory of skilful people who crate artful lanterns. They played interviews of many lantern preparing workmen along with many foreigners telling about their experience of this festival. There were many performances of beautiful kids wearing red costumes and doing well organised and synchronised dances. We were also able to hear to Chinese music in a charming atmosphere. It was getting cold, but thank God the show ended after exactly one hour. So, we escorted from the hall and went out. The weather was severely cold and we had to come back by our own so we used Baidu maps to check the location of the metro station. After finding the near metro station, we took our way towards the metro. While coming back from the event the route around the metro station reminded me of my days in Pakistan, same shops like it used to be on Murree road (famous road in Rawalpindi, Pakistan), I still remember the shops and footpath resembling to the shops at Murree road.

 At last we were able to find the metro and started our journey back. There was a little girl sitting in the train, I got a feeling that she was speaking English but ignored her because I was not ready to accept that such a little girl of age around four can speak such a nice English, but when I came closer to her I realised that she was speaking perfect English so, I asked her some questions and was astonished to know the answers. While she was escorting the train, I gave her my Pakistan flag which she happily accepted and went away waving it. This gave me a very pleasant and patriotic feeling, that at I made a child to smile and the second to see Pakistani flag waving.

I reached  my room at around 11 pm, and straight away came to my bed remembering the exotic event which took me to centuries old Chinese civilisation and a latest lantern festival too. I slept dreaming of being an imperial examination scholar at Nanjing University.