At Kate's house, Armand, the mayor, told the curious Lu Wenbin the history of Dietfurt.
The origin of the Dietfurt townspeople calling themselves Chinese is unknown, and historians have no clue. All we know is that this small town has been celebrating the Chinese New Year since 1928.
In the past, we didn’t know much about the Chinese lunar calendar, so we would discuss and choose a date to celebrate the New Year in February.
Now that we are integrated with the international community and information is flowing freely, we know the specific dates of Chinese New Year's Eve and Spring Festival, so the townspeople of Dietfurt celebrate the Chinese New Year on the same dates as China.
On New Year's Eve, it is also popular for the residents of Dietfurt to have a reunion dinner, set off fireworks after midnight, give red envelopes to children as New Year's money, eat dumplings during the Spring Festival, etc.
A five-day town-wide parade and carnival will be held starting from the first day of the Spring Festival. Town residents will wear Chinese-style clothes to participate in the carnival, which is called the "Chinese Carnival in Bavaria."
By then, there will be many European tourists and overseas Chinese coming to visit, and the local folk activities have been transformed into a tourism festival.
Before the parade begins, the townspeople will elect a local respected person to be the emperor, and Mayor Armand will be demoted to the emperor's minister and must obey the emperor's orders.
You also have to choose the queen, concubines, prince, princess, etc.
Then everyone carried the emperor in a sedan chair carried by eight people and began a town-wide parade and prayer. They also sang the Bavarian Chinese national anthem. The team also included dragon and lion dances, stilt walking, Peking opera performances and other programs.
After being cultivated, spread and inherited from generation to generation, the townspeople's favorable impression towards China is innate.
This is a small European town where everyone is proficient in China, worships China, yearns for China, and has designated Chinese as the official language.
If Chinese people are good at exquisiteness, Japan or Europe, Lu Wenbin will feel disgusted, contemptuous and look down on them, but when it comes to the exquisiteness of Europeans, Lu Wenbin only feels deep joy.
Of course, from what Lu Wenbin saw and heard, the residents of this small town simply like Chinese culture and are not involved in political issues, so they are not as disgusting as the pro-foreign elements in the country.
This is probably why the German government did not restrict Dietfurt from making Chinese the official language of the town, because it is just a local folk interest and does not involve political interests.
Lu Wenbin also understood why Kate's dream since childhood was to find a Chinese boyfriend, or even marry a Chinese man, and her parents were quite accepting of their daughter Lu Wenbin's Chinese boyfriend.
Of course, the biggest possibility is because of Lu Wenbin’s current fame, income, height, appearance, etc.
If Kate had found a boyfriend for a Chinese man in his 40s or 50s with a beer belly and low income, Armand and Mary would have beaten him out.
At lunch, Kate's family all used chopsticks, including Milo, and they used them very smoothly, just like the Chinese.
After lunch and a short nap, Kate and Milo took Lu Wenbin to visit the town in the afternoon.
Naturally, Lu Wenbin's identity was also recognized by the fans in the town.
Originally this is a small town near Munich in Bavaria. Most of the fans in the town like Bayern Munich. Hoffenheim should be considered a competitor of Bayern this season.
But because of Lu Wenbin's Chinese identity, he not only did not encounter any hostility from these Bayern fans, but everyone came over to take photos with him, ask for his autograph, etc.
When Milo proudly announced that Lu Wenbin was his sister's boyfriend and Dietford's son-in-law, several people even changed their camp on the spot and expressed their support for Lu Wenbin and Hoffenheim.
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After coming back from shopping, Lu Wenbin estimated that it was already early morning in China, so he called his parents to wish them a happy new year and told them what he had seen and heard in Dietfurt.
When they heard that their son's girlfriend Kate was celebrating the Chinese New Year at home, Mr. and Mrs. Lu Chongxin were also very surprised. They asked a lot of questions and chatted with Kate for a while before hanging up the phone.
In the evening, Kate's family had a reunion dinner, and Lu Wenbin also helped in the kitchen, preparing two simple Chinese dishes such as scrambled eggs with tomatoes and stir-fried shredded potatoes.
He doesn't know how to do things that are too difficult.
Then, at mealtime, the table would be a hodgepodge of Chinese and Western food.
However, no one cares about the dishes; what everyone cares about is the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year.
After eating the reunion dinner and cleaning up, we started preparing dumplings for the next day.
Because they have to attend the parade the next day, they may not have time to make dumplings, so Kate's family usually makes the dumplings the day before and puts them in the refrigerator. When they are hungry after the parade the next day, they just go home and cook them.
However, when making the dumpling filling, Lu Wenbin almost laughed.
Perhaps because she didn't understand the Chinese dumpling recipe, Kate's mother Mary planned to wrap garlic and German sausage inside.
Although Lu Wenbin is not very good at cooking, he knows a thing or two from watching his mother make dumplings.
Therefore, Lu Wenbin chopped the fat and lean pork into minced meat, added appropriate amounts of ginger and garlic, sesame oil, salt, MSG, eggs, chopped green onions and other seasonings, made it into meat filling and gave it to Kate and her daughter to use for making dumplings.
After the dumplings were made, at around 11pm, everyone cooked a few for a midnight snack. Kate's family all exclaimed that they were delicious and said they finally tasted authentic Chinese dumplings.
After midnight, Milo brought out several boxes of fireworks that were probably purchased from a Chinese store, and the family ran to the open space in front of the villa to set them off.
At this time, the whole town was filled with fireworks and firecrackers shooting into the sky, lighting up the entire night sky. The crackling sound of firecrackers echoed throughout the town, and a festive atmosphere of the New Year filled the small town.
After setting off the fireworks and everyone wishing each other a happy new year, Lu Wenbin took out a big red envelope and gave it to Milo. Milo was indeed very excited and liked Lu Wenbin as his brother-in-law even more.
The family celebrated the New Year until after 1 a.m. before going to bed.
The next morning, Lu Wenbin was still in a daze when he was awakened by the sound of gongs and drums outside.
Lu Wenbin opened his eyes and found that Kate was already getting dressed.
"Get up quickly, Mom's dumplings are almost cooked. After we eat the dumplings, we'll go join the parade and carnival!" Kate shouted excitedly to Lu Wenbin.
Lu Wenbin perked up and immediately stopped feeling sleepy.
Lu Wenbin is still very interested in the New Year's carnival in this European town.
After getting dressed, washing up and going downstairs to eat dumplings for breakfast, Lu Wenbin received New Year's greetings calls from the club chairman, coach, and teammates, which surprised him.
His teammates also told Lu Wenbin that the club’s official website published a letter wishing him a happy new year, and many fans left messages to wish him a happy new year.
Lu Wenbin used Kate's computer to log into the club's official website and saw a congratulatory letter from the club wishing Lu Wenbin a happy Chinese New Year. In the comment section below, countless fans gave Lu Wenbin New Year's blessings, which made Lu Wenbin feel warm.
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The Bavarian Chinese Carnival in Dietfurt will last for five days. Lu Wenbin has to go back to the club to participate in the competition, so he and Kate naturally cannot stay that long.
On the day of the Spring Festival, Lu Wenbin and Kate saw the emperor, concubines, officials, soldiers, sedan bearers, etc. who were dressed in a mismatched manner, listened to the emperor's blessing, watched dragon and lion dances, Peking opera, stilt walking and other performances, and signed autographs and took photos with the fans and overseas Chinese among the foreign tourists who came to see the Bavaria Chinese Carnival. He was also interviewed by several reporters who came after hearing the news.
They played until the afternoon and after returning home to eat dumplings, Lu Wenbin and Kate drove back to Rhine-Neckar County with the blessings of Armand and his wife.
Although I was unable to spend this year’s New Year’s Eve and Spring Festival at home in China due to work reasons, I still had a very happy time.
What Lu Wenbin saw and heard in Dietfurt completely diluted his homesickness.
The next step is to gather your emotions and go all out to win the Bundesliga title or even the treble!
(The first update will be on April 18th, please give me your monthly votes and recommendation tickets!)