My Spring Festival in China: A reminder that we are more alike than we think

For this year's Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, I had the privilege of spending it with my wife and her family in their hometown of Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. Nestled along the coast of the Yellow Sea, Qingdao is known for its sea breeze, its seafood, and of course, Tsingtao Beer. But during the Spring Festival, it becomes something even more powerful: it becomes my home.

This was my second Spring Festival in Qingdao and my fifth visit overall. There were few surprises left for me. I already knew which relative would host on which evening. I knew the rhythm of the meals, the choreography of toasts, the predictable laughter at familiar stories. And yet, that predictability is precisely the point.

Spring Festival is not about novelty. It is about return.

A Spring Festival feast in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. (People's Daily Online/Michael Kurtagh)

Traditions are repeated not because they lack imagination, but because they carry memory. The dishes on the table have appeared year after year. The seating arrangements are understood without discussion. Even Shang Fen, visiting ancestors' graves on the day of Chuxi, the final day of the lunar year, follows a rhythm older than anyone present. It is an act of remembrance, of continuity, of acknowledging that the present rests gently on the shoulders of the past.

At dinner, a feast that must have averaged three dishes per person stretched across the table. Shrimp, crab, and Qingdao's beloved dumplings stuffed with Spanish mackerel filled our plates while the annual Spring Festival Gala played softly in the background. The overlapping sounds of clinking glasses, chopsticks tapping porcelain, and the familiar television program created a kind of cultural symphony.

And suddenly, I was not just in Qingdao.

I was back in the U.S. at Thanksgiving, football humming on the television while relatives debated over cranberry sauce and stuffing. The languages were different. The flavors were different. But the essence was identical: family gathered around abundance, marking time together.

Later, we stepped outside to light fireworks. Children shrieked with delight. Adults stood back, half cautious, half nostalgic. Around us, other families were doing the same, each small group unknowingly contributing to one shared spectacle. It reminded me of New Year's Eve near the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, where I once lived. There too, clusters of friends and families set off their own fireworks, unintentionally creating a collective celebration far larger than any individual gathering.

Individually organized. Collectively unified.

As I wandered through one of Qingdao's cherished Spring Festival traditions, Tangqiu Fair, a lively celebration dedicated to tanghulu, those glossy skewers of fruit encased in glass-like sugar that catch the winter light like stained glass, the air thick with caramel and smoke from nearby grills, a deep sense of déjà vu washed over me. Rows of small vendors selling festive treats and handmade trinkets transported me to Christmas markets in Prague, the Czech Republic. Different holiday. Different history. The same warmth.

These moments accumulated quietly throughout the week. Each was distinctly Chinese. Each was unmistakably human.

What struck me most was not how different Spring Festival was from holidays I had known before, but how similar it felt. The impulse to return home. The instinct to gather. The desire to remember those who came before us. The comfort of ritual. The joy of shared meals. The simple power of being together.

Fireworks set off to celebrate the Spring Festival light up the sky in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. (Photo/Li Qian)

To celebrate.

To reunite.

To embrace.

These feelings are not unique to the Chinese, nor to Americans, nor to any particular people. They belong to all of humanity.

We choose different dates on the calendar. We cook different dishes. We tell different stories. But beneath those variations lies something universal: a longing to pause the rush of ordinary life and hold one another a little closer.

In Qingdao, surrounded by my wife's family, I did not feel like an outsider observing a foreign tradition. I felt something far more meaningful. I felt recognition.

Recognition that across languages and borders, we all build these sacred moments. Recognition that our holidays, however distinct in form, are united in purpose. Recognition that the world, for all its complexity and division, still moves to the same quiet rhythm of family and belonging.

If there is something truly extraordinary about the Spring Festival, it is not only its scale or history. It is its familiarity.

I hope more people have the opportunity to experience a Spring Festival in China, whether traveling independently or, if they are fortunate, welcomed into a family home. Not simply to witness something different, but to discover something shared.

Because the truest cultural exchange is not about difference at all, but about the quiet revelation that we are, in the ways that matter most, beautifully the same.