初chü 二èr：回húi 娘níang 家jïa
When a daughter gets married, she will be someone else's daughter. She will have someone else's last name, and she will bear someone else's heir and attend to someone else's ancestors. The Chinese say a married daughter is like the water that is thrown out of the bucket; and like the water that is out of the bucket, she will never be taken back*.
Luckily, we are in the 21st century!!
Even our ancestors were not at all that cruel. They actually reserved two days for the married daughters to come home for visit. In the ancient time, lunar January 11th was for the son-in-law to visit, and 12th was for the daughter to come home for a visit (as a guest). There was no actual recording why it became the 2nd of January, though it was believed that due to the change of social structure - which was from agriculture to industrial - the lunar holidays were shortened down to 5 days, and thus the home coming of the married daughters was moved forward to the 2nd of January. Lunar January 2nd also happens to be the birthday of the earth gods, which is itself a day for feast. Since the food is there, everybody is happy. This day we call it 回 húi 娘 níang 家 jïa: 回 húi means to return, 娘 níang is the older and formal term for mother but here refers to the daughter, and 家 jïa is house/home.
Basically, that is it.
As I am writing this, I realize that the lunar new year celebration actually is not that colorful and mysterious as we (Chinese) would like to think or describe. Now the stores practically open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year; and that traveling to another city or town may take about 10 minutes or so on a high speed transportation system, the festivity of lunar new year becomes less cheering or expected. I am sure it won't be long that the lunar new year becomes something like a winter break or summer break for the working class, and what is left is the commercial oriented festivity.
One day, the real spirit of the Chinese New Year would be like the water in the bucket - it is only a matter of time we throw it out of the window.
Before that, let us try to enjoy it as much as we can!
*The phrase is 嫁 jìa 出 chü 去 qù 的 dè 女 nú 儿 ér 泼 pö 出 chü 去 qù 的 dè 水 shŭi
出 chü 去 qù : 出 chü means out, 去 qù means go, 出 chü 去 qù means go out or get out
的 dè is a character for possessive case, such as my, 我 wŏ 的 dè ( I = 我 wŏ)
嫁 jìa: marry to, this is for 'to marry into'. Normally it refers to woman who marries into another family and becomes the daughter (daughter-in-law) of that family. However, when a man marries into another family and become the son of the family (assuming the family's last name), we also use 嫁 jìa - but of course not to the man's face….
女 nú 儿 ér: 女 nú means female, 儿 ér is son, 女 nú 儿 ér, a female son, a daughter.
水vshŭi: water
泼vpö: the left part of the character is 水 shŭi, water; and the right is 发 fä, to distribute. The character 泼 pö means to throw water or to splash the water.
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