Learning Chinese: culture — Unit 9

The dialogue of Unit 9 focuses on dates, travel plans and Bái Xuě's academic schedule in Beijing. It is an opportunity to discover how the calendar works in China, how long studies last, and why hundreds of millions of people travel at the same time every winter.

1. The Chinese calendar

In daily life, China uses the Gregorian calendar (called “solar”, 阳历 yánglì), the same one used in most countries of the world. It is this calendar that governs administrative, school and professional life.

But there also exists in parallel a traditional calendar called “lunar” (农历 nónglì, literally “agricultural calendar”). In reality, it is a lunisolar calendar: it follows the cycles of the moon to define the months (each month begins at the new moon), while incorporating solar adjustments to stay in phase with the seasons.

This traditional calendar is still very much alive today. It is used to determine the dates of the great Chinese festivals: Chinese New Year (春节 Chūnjié), the Lantern Festival (元宵节 Yuánxiāojié), the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节 Zhōngqiūjié), etc. Many Chinese people also know their birth date in the lunar calendar and sometimes celebrate it in addition to the “solar” date.

2. The length of university studies

In the dialogue, Bái Xuě says: 我在这儿读四年大学。 Wǒ zài zhèr dú sì nián dàxué. (“I study here for four years at the university.”)

In China, the bachelor's degree (本科 běnkē) indeed lasts four years, compared to three years in most European universities. It is the standard length to obtain an undergraduate degree.

Chinese higher education is structured as follows: four years of bachelor's, possibly followed by two to three years of master's (硕士 shuòshì) and three to four years of doctorate (博士 bóshì). Access to university is through the formidable national exam, the 高考 gāokǎo, which determines in which institution the student will be admitted. As we saw in Unit 8, the university is a major social marker in China.

3. The rhythm of the academic year

The academic year in China generally begins in September and is divided into two semesters. The first semester runs from September to January, and the second from February-March to June-July.

The two main vacation periods are the winter break (寒假 hánjià), which last about a month around January-February, and the summer break (暑假 shǔjià), which last about two months in July-August.

4. 春节 Chūnjié and the massive return migration

Chinese New Year, called 春节 Chūnjié (“Spring Festival”), is by far the most important festival of the year. Its date varies every year since it depends on the lunar calendar: it usually falls between late January and mid-February.

For Chinese families, 春节 Chūnjié is the time to reunite, to share a New Year's Eve meal (年夜饭 niányèfàn) and to celebrate together the passage into the new year. It is somewhat the equivalent of Christmas for European families: people go home, whatever the cost.

The result is a phenomenon without equal in the world: the 春运 Chūnyùn, the “spring migration”. Every year, hundreds of millions of people travel simultaneously across the whole country to join their families. Trains, planes, buses and roads are saturated for several weeks.

This phenomenon is linked to the country's economic structure: millions of migrant workers (农民工 nóngmíngōng) work in the large coastal cities but come from rural provinces that are sometimes very far away. 春节 Chūnjié is often the only time of the year when they can be reunited with their loved ones.

The university winter break period largely coincides with 春节 Chūnjié, which explains why students too go home to their families during this period.