Consider This from NPR - Holiday Traditions in China and Ukraine Offer Comfort During Uncertain Times

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

In China, huge numbers of people are expected to travel and gather with family this weekend for the start of the Lunar New Year, just as the country experiences a major surge in COVID infections. NPR's Emily Feng reports that the holiday may be bittersweet for some. We also hear reporting from NPR's Wynne Davis, who collected recipes to help ring in the Lunar New Year.And in Ukraine, many Orthodox Christians marked the feast of the Epiphany on Thursday by plunging into the frigid waters of the Dnipro River. NPR's Elissa Nadworny talked to some of the brave swimmers, who said that this year the ritual felt like a needed respite from the ongoing war.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu forward. Holiday celebrations can be a through line in life. Every year, they bring you a little reminder of your past. That's how it is for Joanne Molinaro in Agora Hills, California. I generally cannot think of Lunar New Year without remembering the number of times we would go to my grandmother's home. As a kid, she'd complain. It was like a tiny, small apartment that was always extremely hot and, you know, crowded with fake Christmas trees. She had a bunch of those

all over. And then like dried fruit and fish everywhere. It was kind of a hodgepodge of random things. But when she remembers it now, she thinks of the grandmother she misses. She cherishes her memories of those visits. She had one of those Korean-style tables, which is right on the floor, and she'd have these bamboo mats rolled out for all of us, and we'd show up dressed to the nines in our hanboks, which is traditional Korean dress, costume. And after we'd eat, we'd do this thing where we'd pay our respects to our elder generation. Joanne Molinaro is a food writer now.

She's behind the website and cookbook, The Korean Vegan. So naturally, some of her memories are attached to what her family ate. Takguk, which is the very traditional Korean New Year's dish. It's a rice cake soup. And the broth itself is also very light colored. It's supposed to symbolize the purity of a clean slate. Your new year is starting. There's no blemishes in it yet. And that is a very comforting feeling knowing that I have this whole year to start over. That soup always brings back

another Lunar New Year memory from years ago, one that's bittersweet. This was the year of my wedding, my first wedding. And my mother made this takguk, and she slides the bowl over to me. And with it was an envelope, a hallmark card. And it's my mother's handwriting, and it's signed by both her and my father. And it turns out that my parents were very worried about my upcoming wedding. And they really didn't want me to go through with it. And they were begging me to reconsider. Molinaro was furious. Her wedding was in four months. She had her dress. Everything was on the books. She screamed at her parents and walked out the door. The soup was untouched. Many years later, that marriage has ended. She says there was a lot

of grief and pain tied up in that relationship, and the memory has changed. I think about, sure, being hurt by that conversation, but I also think about how much my parents loved me. That took an immense amount of courage for them to say what they did at that time. But they would have done anything to protect me, no matter how old I was, how headstrong I was. That's what I remember when I think of Baku. Consider this. Through the ups and downs of a life, holiday traditions can be an anchor. Coming up, we hear how traditions in two other parts of the world, China and Ukraine, are providing people comfort during turbulent times. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Friday, January 20th.

This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. This weekend is the Lunar New Year. It's a time for celebration in many Asian communities around the world. In China, it's a time to travel and see family. And for the first time since the start of the pandemic, people there can travel without mandatory COVID testing and lockdowns. But the holiday also falls in the midst of a huge surge in COVID infections and a struggling economy. NPR's Emily Fang reports.

The transport ministry in China estimates people will make some 2.1 billion trips this month for the holidays, mostly departing from big cities and fanning out into the countryside. But Yue Guirong is heading the opposite way. She left her village and has just arrived at this Beijing train station, weighed down by packages. What's inside, we ask her. Seafood and her specialty, sea duck eggs, she says. Packages of hometown snacks for her son.

She wanted to bring him a taste of home, and she cheerfully took the 24-hour slow train to Beijing from her home in southern China. The rules were really relaxed from departure to arrival, she says. Travel went very smoothly. At the same Beijing train station, 22-year-old Chen Junjie is getting ready to leave for the tropical south. He's had a rough three years. Most of his degree program in Beijing was spent locked down on campus.

He says, I think in the last four years, I really only had a year and a half of class. The rest was just online. Some weeks, he couldn't even leave his dorm. So he's understandably excited to reunite with loved ones. They're planning a big party. Large gatherings were not allowed during the past three years, he says. So this year, my entire extended family can finally get together. Even my grandparents are coming, he says.

Looming over all this frenzied holiday travel is the prospect of more COVID transmissions, however. Because over the last month or so, China's seen nearly 1 billion people infected by the virus. That's according to a new Peking University study. China's public health authorities have warned smaller localities to stock up on medical supplies and to vaccinate the elderly. But there are no rules stopping someone from traveling now, even if they're sick. Taxi driver Wang Feng says he's trying to put off going home to rural northwestern China. He's not worried about COVID. He made it through the first peak, and everyone he knows has already gotten it. If you do test positive, just stay at home, he says. No one cares anymore about COVID.

What's really on his mind is money. After three years of the pandemic, I'm nearly broke, he says. Normally, he'd come home laden with gifts of alcohol and cigarettes for the men and new clothing from Beijing for the women. But China's economy has been tanking. It posted its lowest economic growth figures in four decades for last year because COVID controls and now high infections have hurt the working class like Mr. Wang. So no gifts.

Mr. Wang says he feels a lot of pressure. He's the sole breadwinner in the family and he still has a mortgage to pay off. And his income declined, he says, as people spent less on taxis. It's a Chinese tradition to wear new clothes on the first day of the Lunar New Year this weekend. But Mr. Wang says he's showing up in the clothes he's wearing right now. He hasn't had the money to buy new clothes for three years. NPR's Emily Fang. People in Ukraine face a different set of challenges, and they are marking a different holiday. Orthodox Christians there celebrated Epiphany on Thursday, and in Ukraine, it's a tradition on that day to jump into the icy cold waters of the Dnipro River,

a way to start the year fresh with a clear mind. NPR's Alyssa Nadwerny joined a group of plungers in the city of Dnipro. Along the bank of the river, groups of friends huddle in their bathing suits and towels, deciding who will go first. About a half dozen men in their 20s race into the water. It's a tradition loosely tied to the holiday that celebrates the baptism of Jesus Christ. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine has long said there is no religious reason to be in winter water.

But it's tradition. What is the thought that goes through your head right before you get in? Faster. Faster, faster, faster. get in? Faster. Faster. Faster. Just do it faster. Don't scream. Nikolai Pastuchenko has been plunging for many years. This year, he says, the dip is a needed distraction, especially now and here.

A Russian missile decimated an apartment building last Saturday, killing more than 40 civilians. He says it doesn't really feel like a holiday this year. It doesn't feel festive. Then he wades in waist deep, does the sign of the cross over his bare chest, and then he ducks. Once. Twice. Three times.

Lilia Zhezhkina is bundled up on the shore, watching her husband Vitaly plunge. It's cold just watching, she says. In years when the river is totally frozen, people cut holes shaped like the cross and jump through them. This year is warmer than in the past. The river isn't frozen, but there are floating chunks of ice.

Which prompts the question, what are all these people getting out of this? Stanislav Bozhenov explains he gets a sense of clarity when he plunges. It's like freedom, he says. Something he relishes since he's on break from fighting on the front line. Yes, he says. It does feel like small daggers all over your body.

It's hard to describe, he says. You just have to do it yourself. Ready. So, I do. It is very, very cold. That was NPR's Very Cold Alyssa Nadroni reporting from Dnipro, Ukraine. At the top of this episode, you heard reporting from NPR's Wynne Davis. There's a link to her story on recipes for the Lunar New Year in our show notes. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers. This message comes from Indiana University.

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