February will be a very exciting month to spend in China. On the 14th of this month, the Chinese will welcome 虎寅, the year of the tiger. I observed red-colored decorations popping up everywhere and a great deal of people in the shopping areas recently. Very soon the country will witness massive internal movement as everybody will try to make it home for the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year.) Being in China for the first time in my life, I am thrilled to experience this most important traditional Chinese holiday.

 

I still have to make up my mind on how I want to spend it though. Through the work I’ve been doing for Wabash College admissions, I was invited by a prospective Wabash student to welcome the New Year with him and his family in the Hunan province located in southern China. As appealing as that sounds, I was initially planning to celebrate here and use the short break from my Chinese classes to sightsee some more in the Beijing area since I haven’t had a chance to see many tourist attractions here due to my busy schedule. Moreover, I will be heading south to start my study abroad program at Fudan University soon after the end of the Spring Festival. However, no matter what I’ll end up doing, I will make sure to share it with you on this blog:)