24 Nov / A New Year’s Reunion by Yu Li-Qiong, illustrated by Zhu Chen-Liang
The simple things in life always deserve our greatest gratitude: Today, this day of turkeys and thanks, those of us with our families close by are quite possibly the luckiest people on earth.
Take the small family of three in this gorgeous yet bittersweet story … mother and tiny child rejoice because “Papa is coming home”: “Papa builds big houses in faraway places, / He comes home only once each year, / during Chinese New Year.” He arrives with open arms that sweep up his young daughter, even as she protests about his prickly new beard. After sharing his gifts, he goes to the barber shop to get his hair and beard cleaned up – so that “everything will go smoothly in the new year.” The little girl peeks up: “The Papa in the mirror is getting more like / Papa the way he used to be.”
Papa’s short reunion is filled with precious family time: making sticky rice balls, one of which hides a special “fortune coin” that will bring good luck to the person who finds it; working on small house repairs; enjoying the dragon dance on Main Street; playing in the newly fallen snow.
But Papa’s three short days are over far too quickly … and as he prepares to leave once again, the little girl places the lucky fortune coin, “all warm from being held / in my hand for so long,” into her father’s open palm – sharing her good fortune for the upcoming year she will not be able to see him.
Zhu Cheng-liang’s remarkable illustrations are saturated not only with brilliant color, but with unmistakably deep emotional bonds. The father’s gentleness with his tiny daughter is something to behold – father and daughter’s hands next to one another, her cautious climb up to the roof into her father’s waiting embrace, her lofty view from his shoulders, her tears as he comforts her, and the final picture of father/daughter goodbye … Zhu makes palpable the most profound joy to the deepest sorrow.
“The family in this book is a fictional one,” the book’s final page explains, “but there are in reality over 100 million migrant workers in China, many of whom work hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles away from home, returning only once each year, for just a few days, at New Year’s.” That sort of endured separation seems almost impossible to fathom – let this serve as a gentle reminder for those of us who are blessed with togetherness to never take that basic happiness for granted.
Readers: Children
Published: 2011
“…But Papa’s three short days are over far too quickly … and as he prepares to leave once again, the little girl places the lucky fortune coin, “all warm from being held / in my hand for so long,” into her father’s open palm – sharing her good fortune for the upcoming year she will not be able to see him….”
What a contrast, between the decades of Chinese generations. My own father was sent from China to NYC as a paper son when he was 8. He never saw his own parents again. But he dutifully sent money back to the rest of the clan until they died.
Wow … in just a couple of sentences, that’s quite a story of your father. Maybe you have book in you about that? One without grammatical errors, hee hee ho ho?
And, yes, what a contrast between immigrant generations. I know plenty of people who they themselves or their children are doing the reverse immigration back to China, India, and Vietnam, especially. Opportunity shifts have been morphing in surprising ways, especially in the last decade or so!