Celebrating Chinese New Year in Britain

Celebrating non British holidays and traditions while living in Britain as a non Brit can be tricky. I’ve tried to celebrate Thanksgiving and the 4th of July in order to give my children first hand experience and knowledge of them so that they will eventually become part of their history. There is also the element of fun that comes with celebrating holidays but when you’re not allowed to miss school or work because they are not national holidays here, it’s difficult to actually celebrate. Furthermore, when there are no other Americans here to celebrate with, it becomes even more difficult. However, I persevere because I feel its important for my children to grow up knowing and experiencing American holidays and traditions alongside their native British ones.

We’ve just had two weeks of Chinese New Year which is a massive celebration in China and also around the world. Seems like it would be easy to be able to celebrate it here with the parades in London and schools recognising it as well. (Could you imagine if schools here celebrated the 4th of July? I don’t think that would work very well!) So what’s it like to be Chinese and celebrate Chinese New Year in Britain away from family and friends? I asked Linda who is a Chinese mother married to a British man and is ‘Bringing up Brits’ in the UK. This is what Linda says:

“I am British Chinese and I have lived in the UK with my British husband Stewart for nearly 16 years, we have two lovely children, Alison aged 14 and Callum aged 9. I have always tried to keep the Chinese culture alive at home by cooking Chinese meals, socialising with local Chinese families and celebrating Chinese festivals. This Chinese New Year is the year of Horse, this festival  is the longest and the most important Chinese festival. Its two week celebration started from 31 Jan. and ended on 14 Feb. In China, people may take weeks of holiday from work to prepare and celebrate the New Year, it is a time of family reunion, families and friends gather at each other’s homes for visits and meals.

Here in the UK, although I had to work during this period I had arranged some hot pots with some Chinese families and it was great to enjoy the feast at home with families and friends and say Xin Nian Kuai Le (Happy New Year) and Gong Xi Fa Cai (congratulations and wishing you prosperity) to each other. The children were very happy to receive “lucky money” in red envelopes (see the picture below). We also went to the local Chinese church to join the banquet, tasting many delicious dishes brought by all the Chinese families in town. Although China is so far away from us all, we find our sense of community through sharing our culture together.”

If you’d like to share how you celebrate holidays and special occasions from your own culture while living here in the UK, with me. Similarly, if you are living in any foreign country (doesn’t have to be Britain) and you’re raising cross-cultural or multicultural children and would like to share your story, please get in touch with me as well. I would love to hear from you. I think it’s fascinating that no matter where we come from, we try to pass on our own culture and traditions to our children.

And Linda is my next guest blogger – watch out for her upcoming post later this week!

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Meghan Fenn is the author of Bringing Up Brits and co-author of Inspiring Global Entrepreneurs with Heidi Mulligan Walker. Meghan is also the Director and Chief Designer at her own design company, White Ochre Design Ltd.  And, she is an award winning expat blogger.