Personal Essay
When I was a child, I didn't pay much attention to our New Year traditions. All I cared about was playing with firecrackers, eating festive cookies, and receiving red envelopes (equivalent to Christmas gifts). But it now occurs to me that there are some aspects of the Chinese New Year related to gender discrimination.
Some traditional practices, at best, are biased, and at worst, are extremely distorted. This is not a topic often discussed because most of the time, the focus is on the fifteen days of celebration.
It all starts with one of the most important traditions of the Chinese New Year, the reunion dinner, which is a gathering of the husband's extended family to share a meal on Chinese New Year's Eve.
Younger generations often live away from their parents or grandparents in different cities. Therefore, the Chinese New Year reunion dinner often serves as the first meal they enjoy together after a year apart.
The responsibility for cleaning and cooking for the family reunion dinner often falls on the daughters-in-law of the family. While the women work around the house and in the kitchen, the men often contribute next to nothing.
Children, especially boys, are also not expected to help with any household chores. This leaves women to handle all the tasks themselves. Preparing for such a joyful celebration, in fact, would be shared by anyone capable. Women often end up with the tasks, not because they want to or can, but simply because they are women. These assigned gender roles can add stress even before the celebration begins.
The patriarchal structure not only affects the reunion dinner but also the overall atmosphere of the New Year. When a woman gets married, she is often seen as an extension of her husband and his family, and her role is that of a daughter sitting behind.
If a family only has married daughters, they will have to spend New Year's Eve and the first day of the New Year without their daughters. A married woman is expected to have the reunion dinner with her...