Capers With Carroll

World-wide, Chinese New Year is celebrated by Spring Festival and Chūnyùn (春运), the greatest annual migration on earth. In 2008, the 1.3 billion Chinese took 2.2 billion train trips within the 40 day travel window. The celebrations include feasting, fireworks, dragons dancing in the streets, and time with family and friends. Apparently, also, they google the phrase Xin nian kuai le.

I know this last detail because over the past six weeks, this blog has been celebrating its fourth annual Capers Virtual Chūnyùn. I began seeing traffic pick up in mid December, helping to make that my most-visited month ever. Traffic continued steady through January and then spiked on Saturday the 29th. For the first time in the blog's six year history, page views topped 1,000. All by itself, Wednesday—Chinese New Year—brought 429. Five days into February, its totals now exceed all of January. Just four days this week, Monday through Thursday, out-performed the whole four month period, April to July.

Credit Google.

I'm assuming the vast majority of my traffic came from overseas Chinese. This past month, if Sweden’s nearly 13,000 Chinese expatriates went to google.com.se and searched for Xin nian kuai le, they got 272 000 results, of which my 2008 New Year’s greeting was listed 2nd. The United Arab Emirate’s 180,000 Chinese found me 3rd, and sent me 29 hits. Also at 2nd, Singapore’s 3.6 million found me 300 times. Myanmar’s million-plus found my 2008 message 4th and December 2010 update 5th. They made 139 visits. The UK’s 400,000 Chinese clicked on me 111 times. None of my visitors clicked in from China itself, but there, “新年快乐”would be far likelier to get lost in the crowd than would Xin Nian Kuai Le in the Diaspora. That and 2010 saw Google and China tangle, with a reduction of Google’s presence.

When all these numbers began to develop, my first reaction was awe over the chance popularity of an almost-throw-away post from three years ago. It struck me as random and surreal. Then, as I studied the source locations, I was transported back forty years, to a time in my life before marriage into a Spanish-speaking family, nine years living in Colombia, and 20 years teaching recent immigrants from Mexico. My focus on Latin America and its immigrants had interrupted an earlier interest.

I mentioned in my recent post on Fred Korematsu Day that I took at class at Pasadena City College called Sociology of the Asian in America. I took it because, even in high school, I had an interest in immigration and the mixing of cultures. Over the course of completing a history major, whatever class I might be taking, I wrote about Asian immigration into the Western world. I wrote about Japanese in Mexico, Cuba, Peru, and Brazil, and especially, I wrote about the Chinese in Europe. During three quarters of independent study at UCLA, I wrote what I believe was the longest treatment of the Chinese in France that then existed in English (it has since been surpassed).

As blog hits came in from Holland, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, and Sweden, I was once again looking at the Chinese in Europe, and a Diasphora that now includes places like Dubai and Nairobi (I showed up 4th at Google Kenya).

I’m not sure yet what conclusions to draw, but I find myself thinking again on this subject after many years away from it. I am also beginning to read When a Billion Chinese Jump, by Jonathan Watts. Stay tuned. My thoughts in this Year of the Rabbit may turn increasingly to China, and its Diasphora. Watts’ premise is that any race to stave off global warming and worldwide ecological disaster will be won or lost in mainland China. The same may be true in a wide variety of human activities. I am fortunate to have friends both inside and outside of China, and about two months of Chinese travel experience. That doesn’t rank me yet as an expert, but it gives me a place to start.

Happy Year of the Rabbit

Notes:
On Chūnyùn. On the Chinese Diasphora, and the Chinese in Europe.


Disclosure of Material Connection: The link above is an “affiliate link.” This means if someone clicks on the link and purchases the item, I will receive a commission. This has never happened yet, and would only be a pittance if it did. For this reason, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

When is Chinese New Year? The calendar tells us the Year of the Rabbit doesn't begin until February 3, 2011, but my scientific study shows that the anticipation of it started about a week ago.

It has become a peculiar annual pattern here at Capers with Carroll that in mid December, Sitemeter reports that my February 1, 2008 New Year's greeting becomes more popular than anything I have written before or since. Throughout the year, a smattering of visitors arrive by Googling either "新年快乐" or "Xin Nian Kuai Le," but suddenly, a week ago, it became a torrent. The Capers archives store 148 entries on a wide variety of topics, but over the last nine days, a full third of the traffic has come for this single, two-year-old post. How can that be? The last ten hits have come from Poland, France, Germany, Thailand, Italy, Canada, and two each from Singapore and Vietnam. Perhaps these place-names define the Chinese diaspora. I do not understand this phenomenon, but like other mysteries in life, I can enjoy it without knowing how it works.

And so, I send my New Year's greetings in advance, to all the Chinese (and other Asians) spread around the world: Xin Nian Kuai Le!

(P.S., This post received such heavy traffic, especially from Singapore, UK, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, UAE, and the European continent, that I wrote about it here.)

This week, as chūnyùn (春运), the largest annual migration on earth (likely 210 million passengers in 40 days), gets underway, it’s time for the Capers with Carroll Annual Chinese New Years Post. Chinese custom says that the third visit makes one a friend, so this third installment of Spring Festival greetings raises our blog-tradition to a new level.

I hope all of my friends in China (and some in Korea and parts of Southeast Asia) enjoy wonderful holidays with their families, and prosperous and healthy new years.

Everything points to an auspicious year for love. For the first time since 1934 (Year of the Dog) and 1953 (Year of the Snake), the lunar calendar teams up with the Gregorian calendar to usher in the Year of the Tiger on the same day as the Western world’s Valentine’s Day. (China celebrates its own version of Valentines Day, qīxījié [七夕节], on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month: August 16th for 2010.) Let’s face it, as Valentine images, dogs and snakes can’t compete with tigers. Go get ‘em tigers!

A lot has changed in a year. Last year, the chūnyùn migration bogged down in the kind of freak snow storm that had the Chinese government working hard to avoid any thoughts that it might have lost what the ancient Chinese referred to as the “Mandate of Heaven.” As I write this, it’s the Atlantic coast of the United States that is bogged down in a storm that mandate-damaged President Obama himself referred to as “Snowmageddon.” We are different cultures, to say the least.

Again this year, my Xīn Nián Kuài Lè posts for 2008 and 2009 begin drawing heavy traffic about six weeks ago. I suspect people are googling the Romanized pinyin spelling and hoping to find the Chinese characters. If so, in the spirit of the season, we here at Capers are pleased to provide this service. To each and every one: a full measure of New Year’s happiness.

It's still Sunday evening in California, but it's just past noon on New Years (Monday) in China, so this goes out with warm wishes for a healthful and prosperous Year of the Ox. In looking back at the Year of the Rat just finishing, one surprise here at Capers was that the page that most often captured visiters coming over from a Google search was . . . (the envelope, please) . . . 新年快乐 (Xin Nian Kuai Le!) from a year ago. We've had a steady stream throughout the year, often from Europe. This week, 新年快乐 got ten hits from the United Arab Emirates alone. So while I'm wishing all my Chinese friends a wonderful new year, I'm also scratching my head and wondering to what I owe this popularity. So a request: If you arrived at this blog after a Google search for "新年快乐", please leave a comment and explain what you hoped to find here. And then, may you enjoy health, peace, prosperity, and joy in this Year of the Ox.

I want to wish a very Happy New Year (and a warm place to sit by a window and look out at the beautiful snow) to all of my shivering friends in China. I have been reading the emails and news reports. Yuting tells me it has been over ten years since they last had snow in Chongqing. I’ve also been watching video reports on the hundreds of thousands (400,000 to 600,000?) people camped out at the Guangzhou Railway Station in Guangdong province, waiting for the trains to start running so they can get back to their families for New Years. (Oooops, when I first wrote this, I was confusing Guangzhou [where I have not been] with Guiyang [where I did go], so I'm removing some of my original post. Now, however, I am particularly concerned about my school-teacher friend Suyun, who would have needed to pass through Guangzhou to get home for the holiday.) It is hard to imagine half a million people waiting in line for trains, camped out in weather that turned suddenly cold. Today’s reports say the trains have finally begun to move. I hope everyone gets home quickly, and that the holidays with family make it all worth while.

Ever since I began this blog in 2004, I have hoped to find a way it could be viewed from inside China. With many thanks to Middle Son, I believe my Chinese friends can now visit here as often as they like. This certainly makes visiting easier than having to ride 20 hours on a hard seat train, or waiting several days in the cold outside a train station! So I welcome my Chinese friends, and wish you all 新年快乐. Please leave a message, so I know who stopped by to visit.

(P.S., This post receives more traffic than any other post I have written. It draws some all year long, but heavy traffic during December, January, and February. It comes especially from Singapore, UK, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, UAE, and the European continent. After this 2011 firestorm, I wrote about it here.)