Birthdays

It’s quite incredible how many people there are in my acquaintance whose birthdays all take place within the span of one week.

My partner’s father and sister celebrated their birthdays on the 18^th and 19^th respectively, no fewer than 4 previous classmates of mine were born between September 20^th and 24^th (one on each day, except for the 22^nd, funnily enough), and a German student here had a birthday party on Sunday, the eve of her birthday.

And, for all those who didn’t know, I turned 22 on the 22^nd.

Let me use this opportunity to thank everyone for the kind, lovely messages and texts I received. They meant and mean a lot to me and are part of the reason why this entry is titled “Birthdays” and not “Birthday Blues” (as I had vaguely envisioned prior to my birthday).

I actually had quite a lot of people asking me how I was spending/had spent my birthday, so I’ll try to answer this to the best of my ability.

~~~

There are two things about birthdays in China that are probably not general knowledge. Neither of them is common everywhere in the country, but they are common enough to definitely warrant mentioning.

The first is a rather weird, sweet little detail. When I first came here, I was informed that it is customary to thank your Mum on your birthday for having endured the pain of giving birth to you.

I have done this every year since. Now that I’m writing this, though, it occurs to me that I totally forgot about it this year. So, Mum, a bit belatedly, thanks for going through tremendous pain in order to give birth to me 22 years ago!

The second is much more common, but also took a lot more getting used to for me.

In some regions of China, age is calculated differently than it is in the western world. You start as a one-year-old and then add another year at every Chinese New Year’s Festival.

In 2019, the New Year’s Festival is on February the 5^th, so if a child is born at the end of January, it already turns two a couple of days later by this calculation.

I have also heard that in some parts of Tibet, apparently you start at nine months, so your first birthday is three months after you’re born.

This practice is still predominant in some provinces, but especially the younger generation turns to the western system of age calculation more and more, and I’ve had people tell me that they think in a few decades, nobody will use the traditional system anymore.

Now, as anyone who knows me well will surely confirm, I can be a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to certain things, so this development actually makes me quite sad. This is one of those distinct little cultural quirks that make immersing yourself in a different culture worthwhile and fascinating, and it’s a pity that some of that distinctness seems to die out.

~~~

Saturday started on a very good note. I woke up to two emails in my inbox, the first one (sent mere minutes after midnight in China) from Flo, the other one from my Mum. When you have to get up at 7 o’clock in the morning (and hate getting up before 9 as much as I do), it kind of doesn’t get better than that.

Still, the better part of my birthday was actually not at all exciting. I had a class from 8AM to 3PM (there was a lunch break, though), and after that, I spent all in all three hours getting from university to Skye’s place. The commute was significantly sweetened by the fact that I spent most of it videochatting with Flo, but still, I felt somewhat exhausted by the time I arrived at Skye’s family’s home.

In no news to anyone, they were absolutely wonderful to me. They had cooked several of my favourite dishes, including, of course, the obligatory birthday noodle soup, had bought a cake, and even opened a bottle of red wine (even though, judging by the time it took them to locate the corkscrew, that’s a rather rare occurrence for them), and we had a lovely dinner.

~~~

Noodle soup with long noodles is as much a necessity at a Chinese birthday party as a cake is in the west. The noodles are extremely long, which symbolises a long life. They are also extremely slippery (since it’s a noodle soup), so being able to eat them without any discernible problems definitely gives me some sense of achievement.

Everyone who ever had the misfortune to be present for one of my hour-long “I miss Chinese food so much” rants has probably also heard me say that the only thing I actively dislike when it comes to Chinese food are the desserts, and that birthday cakes here all taste artificial and terrible. That’s mostly due to the fact that there is no “birthday cake tradition” in China. Having a birthday cake for your birthday is only slowly becoming more popular now because of the influence of western films and television series.

A picture of Xinxin, the birthday, me, and the birthday cake

I won’t get into it too much here, since I’m sure I’ll do another post dedicated solely to Chinese cuisine, but somehow, Skye managed to find a cake that, while artificial, was actually edible, and I enjoyed eating it.

Speaking of the cake: Of course we ate it directly before the rest of the dinner. I still don’t understand why people in China do it in that way, they don’t even have any sort of cake (birthday or otherwise) tradition, but that’s their preferred order, and I’m already used to it…

~~~

After dinner, Skye told me that she had a present for me:

She took me to get a facial mask. At 9PM in the evening, just like that.

In case anyone is surprised, so was I. But although I’m not sure that I want to repeat the experience, I actually enjoyed it a lot.

After the facial mask... I look like a frog.

Now, since this was my first facial mask I have no idea how it compares to facial masks in Austria or anywhere else in Europe. Here’s what stood out for me though:

• The place she took me to is in a shopping mall. And it doesn’t have walls or a door. Everyone who passes that place in the shopping mall can stop and watch as you’re getting your treatment. I had my eyes closed (and my glasses off), so I have no idea if anyone did that. It didn’t bother me, either. The lack of privacy just seems notable.
• The woman giving me the facial was lovely. She also was impossibly excited about the entire thing. She kept talking about the fact that I’m just the second foreigner she has “worked on” in her entire life, and how exciting that was, and what a good practice for her since the faces are different, and how lovely I am. Literally, in the almost forty minutes I was lying there she was talking almost non-stop, and about nothing else, to Skye, to me, and to whoever else wanted to hear about it.
• She still was very nice and gave me a free facial massage because apparently I’m a “lovely and beautiful foreigner”.

~~~

The day ended on a high note when I skyped with my family in Austria around midnight.

My birthday didn’t end there, though. This weekend, I am going to have a belated birthday dinner with a couple of students I have met here, which I’m already quite excited about.

A wonderful rest of the week to everyone! And, whenever it is, happy birthday!