Chinese New Year

Our neighborhood was ready for Chinese New Year weeks and weeks ago. The grocery stores, the mall and especially the outdoor market were all decked out. Lights, lanterns, red and gold everywhere.

Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar and started on February 14th this year. The year of the Tiger. Everything is decorated in red, with a tiger, other Chinese symbols or things that are considered auspicious.

Auspicious, isn't that a great word? It means favorable to promote success, a good omen, or lucky. The Chinese fill their homes with auspicious things so that they will have fortune, success and luck in the coming year. And lots of things are considered auspicious - its very precise and detailed - certain colors (red), certain numbers (evens, couples, or 8), certain fruits (pineapple, oranges, pomelos), certain plants (pussy willows, money trees, twirly bamboo), certain meals. For some of them its because their name sounds like another word in Chinese - like the word orange "jin ju" sounds like the word for gold.

We have learned so many Chinese traditions for the New Year we can hardly keep track of them all. But here are a few of our favorites: celebrating with a big family reunion dinner where they retell stories of the past year, eating Yusheng together - a salad that everyone tosses with chopsticks at the same time to symbolize starting the year together and bringing in good fortune, giving out hung bao to children - red envelopes filled with money or chocolate coins, always eating a fish dish - because the common phrase "let there be abundance every year" sounds like "let there be fish every year," and of course the Lion Dances.

Noah's preschool had a great Chinese New Year party. The kids wore chinese clothes, sang chinese songs and ate chinese treats. Little brother Gage decided he was part of the class and joined them during the performances.

Over the weekend David and I went down to Marina Bay to see the HungBao festivities with some friends. We saw huge dragons made of porclian plates, or melted sugar. You could catch gold glitter from the God of Fortune himself or ring in your own fortune by hitting a bell with a coin. There were dance performancs and sumo pandas fighting each other - we didn't understand the chinese commentary, but we did enjoy the scenery. And ice kachang afterwards really hit the spot.

We celebrated Chinese New Year at a friend's BBQ - hung bao was passed out to the kids, and we did firecrackers. The next day we had our own little dinner. Put up some decorations, had shrimp stir fry, and fortune cookies.

And we made it out to Chinatown the next day. Started at the Buddhist temple, then shopping and dinner along Pagoda St.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!