One week before Chinese New Year’s Day, people posted reviews of the last year and blessings and wishes for the new year on their social media. They broadcasted the Spring Festival atmosphere. But I received complaints from my cousins and friends in China that the festival wasn’t fun: people just stayed at home gambling, like on any regular weekend.

“It’s not like when we were kids,” one cousin said. “Do you remember ‘Cai Shan’?”

I remember “Cai Shan.” Named “Tiao Hua Po” in Mandarin, it means “stamping on the hill” and is a traditional activity for the Miao people to welcome and celebrate the spring festival. It usually lasted for fifteen days at the beginning of each year.

My hometown in Guizhou, a mountainous province in China, has Han people, Miao people, and Yi people; Miao people occupy 1/6 of the population. Except for Han, the other races belong to minority people.

“Tiao Hua Po” stayed famous when I was in elementary school. The Miao people in my village always hold it on the flat hilltop covered by bushes, cypresses, a chestnut tree, and flat rocks.

After lunch, people gathered on the hill. The Miao girls, wearing their traditional pleats dress, headscarf, gaiter, and handmade shoes, sat around the fire embroidering dresses, insoles, and belts, while the older women roasted sweet rice cakes, potatoes, yams, and corns on the fire. The Miao boys sat or stood behind them.

Han people kept a distance from the Miao people. Han people looked down upon Miao people in my hometown. They thought the Miao people were uneducated, alcoholic, harsh, and unreasonable in communicating. But everyone agreed that the Miao girls were pretty.

The married women talked loudly with others; the unmarried girls buried their heads into their works, shy to see people around. A boy started singing songs in the Miao language; each song held four short lyrics. The girls whispered and giggled, elbowing each other. Then a girl answered the boy by singing. As soon as she started singing, the shyness disappeared. She looked at the boy, her eyes shining and teeth sparkling under the early spring sun; her soft and crisp sound echoed in the sweet air. The other girls focused on their work; the boys kept adding dry branches to the fire.

A Miao woman explained to the Han people the boy asked the girl to marry him because he sang, “Sleeping in winter alone is so cold, can you sleep with me and make my feet warm?” and the girl answered him, “the winter is gone, and now it is spring…” “They like each other.” The Miao woman said, “they’ll marry.”

Each Miao person could create hundreds of songs a day in “Tiao Hua Po.” Besides singing, Miao men can play Lusheng, an instrument made with bamboos and shaped like the letter “L.” They played and danced in the center with the surrounding audience. Like the flute, Lusheng music flied to a far distance; unlike the flute, it sounded happier and more cheerful.

In my hometown, Han people’s marriages required a matchmaker to arrange the ceremonies of giving gifts to the bride, proposing, and wedding. Some bride’s parents asked for a significant sum beyond the bridegroom’s capacity, causing the young couples to quarrel; some even broke up. Compared to the Han people, the Miao people’s marriages are simple. Only if the girl and boy like each other and sing at “Tiao Hua Po” can they get married. Letting singing songs decides a person’s marriage is unbelievable to Han people, who forbid their children to learn to sing those “low quality” songs. My father is one of those Han parents. He feared I would elope with someone and forbid me to learn any Miao songs.

No matter how hard the Han parents forbid their kids from the Miao culture, “Tiao Hua Po” influenced the Han people. Some Han men volunteered to make a fire in “Xiao Hua Po,” and for their sake, the Miao people sang songs in our language or taught the Han people to sing. Two Han couples fell in love by singing the Miao songs in my village; my uncle, the first one who got higher education and worked for the government, could sing more than 400 Miao songs. I learned several songs from my Miao classmates, too. It was easy as long as I mastered the tone and rhythm.

Since I graduated from middle school, there has been no “Tiao Hua Po” anymore. The grown-up Miao girls got married, and the young ones were too young to hold the activity. And as more Miao people got higher education, they looked down upon the tradition of “Tiao Hua Po.” Instead, gambling has become popular in the village, replacing the role of “Taio Hua Po” in spring festivals. Han people and Miao people got along very well at the gambling table. There was no prohibition for Han people to marry the Miao people. The wedding customs were adapted to Han’s style: a boy only singing songs can’t make a wife anymore.

A few years ago, my neighboring town started to hold an official “Tiao Hua Po,” a sightseeing performance. The girls wore traditional Miao clothes, makeup, and silver decorations, and the boys wore Miao clothes. Their songs and Lusheng performance became more fashionable. As I heard, most of them were official actors and actresses of the local government. I don’t think the boys and girls will meet their love there. Every unique tradition has been destroyed when it becomes a commercial tool.

“Tiao Hua Po” fades in the villagers’ memories, including the Miao people themselves. The young generation has no idea what “Tiao Hua Po” is. Compared with gambling from night to morning, “Tiao Hua Po” represents a healthy way to make friends, get sociality, practice creativity, and enrich the Spring Festivals.

 If this is the price paid for so-called development, I would rather return to twenty years ago.

To improve my English, I dedicate two hours every day to reading books out loud. Just before writing this article, I came across a sentence from a grammar book: “They collected dozens and dozens of shells on the beach.” Instantly, it transported me back to my days in Florida.

On February 8, 2014, I flew from Guangzhou, China, to Florida. My husband was working for a company located in Largo, and twelve days later, we tied the knot on Clearwater Beach. The wedding ceremony was hosted by a lady, while her husband captured beautiful photos of us.

While awaiting my green card, I brainstormed business ideas, such as selling Chinese tea cups and traditional dresses and T-shirts online. To understand the process, I purchased a wind chime from a flea market and listed it on eBay. However, two weeks went by without a single bid. Fortunately, I had only bought one chime! That’s when I shifted my focus to collecting and selling seashells—a business that required no initial investment. After reading stories about people successfully selling seashells, we believed that if we could find large and unique shells, we might strike it rich overnight!

During the weekends, we drove to the beach. While my husband fished, I scoured the shoreline for shells. There were seashells of all colors—white, brown, yellow, milky—varying in size and completeness. I experienced the excitement and hope of gold prospectors. When the tide receded and a big shell was left behind in the wet sand, it felt like discovering gold—a true treasure!

I amassed two large plastic bottles filled with shells. After sorting them by size and shape, I listed the largest ones on eBay. Although there were visitors to the listings, no one placed any bids. Our hopes of making a fortune overnight dwindled, and we settled for the idea of earning some extra cash. Eventually, even that ambition faded away. As the scorching summer days arrived, I became pregnant with my son, and the “seashell” business gradually disappeared from our lives. We didn’t even have the time or inclination to visit the beach anymore, particularly during vacations and weekends when finding a parking spot became a challenge.

In March 2016, we moved back to Minnesota, my husband’s hometown, where all his family and friends reside. I vividly remember the day I boarded the plane with my four-month-old son. It was my first time flying with a baby, and I posted on my WeChat, “Goodbye Florida, goodbye sunshine!” In that moment, I wasn’t dwelling on farewells or sunshine; I was brimming with hope for a new life in a different place.

Now, amidst the long and frigid snowy winter, I yearn for Florida intensely. I miss collecting seashells on the beach, feeling the tides brush against my feet, witnessing sea birds plunge into the water to catch fish, observing people playing volleyball or joyfully running along the sands, and watching little children frolic with the water and sand. I miss the mesmerizing golden sunsets, the playful dolphins, the passing ships, the boundless sea, the azure sky, the lush green trees, and the blooming flowers. I long for the deck where we used to fish, surrounded by a cluster of imposing stones. I reminisce about the shows on the plaza—dancing, singing, and acrobatic performances. I yearn for the fireworks on Independence Day nights. I miss the beautiful and alluring sea-maid mailboxes in the neighborhoods. I even miss the ducks and turtles in the pond behind our former house.

I wish I hadn’t forgotten those two bottles of seashells and often wonder how the landlord dealt with them. Like a dream, Florida becomes more distant with the passage of time, just like China. Even if I were to return, those cherished moments from the past cannot be reclaimed.

What can I do except move forward and embrace each day as it comes? I hope that years later, when I reflect on today, I will perceive it as interesting, meaningful, and exciting, much like how I currently reminisce about my days in Florida.

This morning, I woke up later than usual on work days. Pulling open the living room curtains, I grabbed my laptop and sat on the couch as I always do. The TV shows I had watched last night no longer held my interest. However, the background music, “Burning” by Maria Arredondo, still lingered in my mind. I clicked on YouTube and listened to it.

Outside, the landscape is covered by a thick layer of snow. The name of my son that I had written with a drumstick on the snow piled up on the patio has been erased by gusts of wind. The ice cubes hanging from the eaves are melting and dripping. The sky is a light blue with a few scattered white clouds, and the sun casts its golden rays on the ground. In this moment, as I gaze at the pale blue sky and bask in the warm sunshine, I feel like it’s spring. My previous sense of depression has vanished, replaced by happiness that fills my heart. It takes me back to my youth in my hometown, a small town in southwest China, where I would sit in the yard, reading a book while the spring sunshine and gentle breeze enveloped me, and birds chirped in the tree overhead. The world around me was peaceful, warm, and vibrant.

There are always moments that evoke unique emotions and memories within me: a song from a movie transports me back to a long-forgotten dream; a smiling profile reminds me of someone I once loved; a falling leaf takes me back to a fall day many years ago when I picked up a four-leaf clover and pressed it between the pages of a book; a landscape painting transports me to a place I may have visited before; the sound of a flute sends me back to a moonlit night when I lay on the stone steps in front of my home, counting the stars and imagining my future life…

Now, I am far away from my hometown, with my family and friends still in China. I dream almost every night, and most of my dreams revolve around the people I know in China and my younger days. Every morning, when I awaken from those dreams, it takes me a few seconds to figure out where I am and what I am doing. A sense of loss and homesickness engulfs me. Day by day, these feelings accumulate in my heart. I find solace in writing down my emotions and stories about my hometown, and documenting my life on this platform. If someone could help correct any mistakes in my English articles, it would be a tremendous assistance to me!

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton