Wednesday 15 November 2017

Diwali - Unity in Diversity!

Anren, the ancient town that displays the richness of Chinese culture and the generosity of Chinese people is a place which attracts numerous tourists very year. One of the most beautiful aspect of Anren is its people who have abundant love for everyone. They say here, locally, that Anren is like a last resort, people love to retire at this place because it has everything that can improve the qulaity of one's life. There's so much calm here but there's also a lot of exciting things to do, individuality is respected here and differences are celebrated. No one feels looked down upon by the people here. This place has never ceased to amaze me and Ranveer.

Diwali is a festival of lights, a festival to leave behind your grudges and complains, to start afresh, to celebrate differences, share and care. With Diwali comes a feeling of missing home, missing sweets, missing the fear of fire crackers and the beautiful rangolis. I was apprehensive to spend Diwali here but there wouldn't have been a better place than Anren to celebrate Diwali 2017 and there wouldn't have been better people either.

China, like India, is a culturally rich country that believes in hospitality and hence, there was abundance of everything. To mark the begining of Diwali, my students and we had a dinner together at school in our own classrom! Then, it was a few Chinese friends who invited us to a big meal with traditional Sichuan style Huǒguō customized to suit us vegetarians. It was followed by Mom Maria & Dad Phil having us all over for a barbecue night. And the celebrations ended with a traditional Shāokǎo followed by bursting fire-crackers in the middle of the night, right in the middle of a street and laughing our night out in a wonderful company of people from all over the world.




No comments:

Post a Comment