Happy Chinese New Year!

Festival!

Happy Chinese New Year to everybody! (Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, whatever you prefer). Wishing that the year of the Dragon, 2012, brings forth many blessings and happiness to everybody in this world. May all the dreams from your heart come true!

Chinese traditions are fascinating, one of my all-time favourite subjects of study. The Chinese festive days are very colourful with plenty of food, music, dances, and lucky money! I've lost faith in our generic New Year Day and have devoted myself into celebrating the Chinese New Year instead because it brings so much more meaning to the special date.

A gift from my kind neighbour. It wishes me
a happy and healthy life.

A little bit of background on the Chinese New Year history. Originally, China had a calendar of its own, consisting of twelve months with thirty days each month. Every year was assigned an animal, twelve animals in total that repeat themselves in cycle. Just like our zodiac, only the animals are assigned yearly instead of monthly. 2012 is the year of the Dragon. Anyway, Asians are very adhered to their culture, a great majority celebrates Chinese New Year and other festivities following the old calendar. For example, my neighbours are Chinese and they follow the Chinese calendar for their birthdays and celebrations like "Moon Festival", "Fall Harvest festival", "Chinese New Year", among others. I think it's a beautiful tradition.

On Sunday the 22nd, my neighbours invited my family over to their house to celebrate Chinese New Year with them. We were ten people in total, all dressed in red, gathered happily around the table with ten dishes and a pot of soup spread before us for our enjoyment. The food was delicious; it was original, traditional Chinese food, not the one you but at the restaurants. After delighting our appetites with the flavourful food we took pictures with the red paper with golden letters (forgot their name! I only know it in Chinese) they hang and tape to their doors for good luck, and red paper lanterns.

Afterwards, every kid received lucky money, consisting of an amount of money in a red envelope. Married couples give these to unmarried children and people younger than themselves. I think it's an interesting tradition and I will do that too in due time!

We gathered round the tv to watch the fireworks from China welcoming the year of the dragon. They weren't as impressive as last year, but extravagant nonetheless.

I had fun, and looking forward for the next year! Just kidding, I will enjoy this year as much as I can.
:)

-CS