Cultural exchanges pay off

In her book Spring Festival, Su Jin describes the significance of the Chinese Lunar New Year as a home reunion - ancestor worship.

- Brian Sokutu

"While the living gather for happy reunion, they never forget to invite their ancestors to come home for a look of their happy life.

"Their offspring cook a new year dinner for their deceased ancestors as a token of gratitude and wish they would help protect them from the other world," writes Su.

For the Chinese, the festival is not only a millennium celebration, but a unique family party. Like black Africans, who slaughter goats, sheep and cows - all to pray to their ancestors - the unique concept of family and kinship of the Chinese, passed down from generation to generation, has become a cultural gene.

"The Spring Festival is therefore the annual flowering and fruiting time of the family tree of numerous Chinese families," says Su.

It was against this background that colleague Eric and I last week attended festivities at the Chinese embassy in Pretoria, with ambassador Wu Peng, and, later, in Sandton with consul-general Pan Qingjiang, in celebration of the Year of the Snake.