articles
China Elevator Stories
31 Dec 2012
I travel to Guangxi province with my boyfriend.
31/12/2013
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
December 31st, 2012 marks the second time that I celebrate New Year’s Eve in China. In the morning, my boyfriend and I arrive in Nanning. We walk down a crowded street to explore the city, when he all of a sudden proposes to me.
In the afternoon, we take a bus to a small town near a village called Bama known for its high percentage of people over 100 years of age.
We arrive in the late evening.
The town isn’t anything out of the ordinary and the air doesn’t seem as clean as we would have expected, but this day is still special to us.
In the evening we celebrate our engagement and New Year by having dinner at a few street stalls.
There are no fireworks, as is common in China, which doesn’t celebrate Western New Year, but walking through the streets of that town searching for food at night still has a special feeling to it. After a long walk, we are able to find a few street stalls and my now-fiancé orders us a variety of shaokao.
We sit on tiny plastic chairs surrounding the tables and chat the night away, and I have a feeling that he is the right choice for me, even though I have known him for less than a month.
Happy New Year!
How do you celebrate New Year’s Eve abroad?