BRRRRR...it's cold!

Flower Market at Victoria Park (held every year; called the New Year's Fair, and you buy flowers (among other things like food, balloons, stuffed animals, etc) to bring to relatives' houses

Fireworks show! Only one every year...they did alot of "8"s in the sky...8 is a lucky number. notice why the Olympics in Beijing are in 08/08/2008 :-p

Break is over :-( and it's still cold. Nothing much has happened since the last time...although there have been new developments on the sex scandal amongst HK's stars (if you don't know what I'm talking about...just Google Edison Chen, Cecilia Cheung....among others). Quite silly. but it has exploded in China and Hong Kong - even sparked a protest in HK!

Anyway, I got 1 week off to spend Chinese New Years. While (practically) everyone I know went traveling, I did the Hong Kong thing for New Years! So how did I spend my Chinese New Year's break? Let me count the ways...

nihn sāah máhn (New Year's Eve) - hotpot with family, spent the entire night up to 3:30am playing the Wii with my relatives' daughter...lots and lots of games :-)

nihn chō yāt (1st lunar day) - parade (fā che - literally, "flower car" in Cantonese)
nihn chō yìh (2nd lunar day) - fireworks! (yin fā - literally, "smoke flower"); out and about
nihn chō sāam (3rd lunar day) - lounged around; I was supposed to go to the horseraces, but I woke up too late. THAT, and you're technically not supposed to do anything but watch tv and be lazy (seriously!)

you're supposed to "he" (pronounced héh - with a rising tone), which means to kill time. You can do that a variety of ways...but I spent it watching drama series (Bou yaht kehk - bou as in to stew (like when making congee or soup) and yaht kehk = TV/DVD drama series. it's to describe an activity in which you constantly watched episode after episode :-)

Chinese New Year's superstitions:
you're not supposed to cut your hair or take a shower until after the 3rd lunar day because you'll either cut your luck away for the new year, or you'll wash away your luck and good fortune. Same idea towards not cleaning your house too.

Other superstitions include food! Eat lots of chicken and shrimp. When said with a different tone, 'chicken' in cantonese sounds like the word for 'family' in cantonese (gah). Also, shrimp will make you laugh more for the new year, because shrimp is like 'ha' (as in laughter too). Eating Pistachios will give you more luck in having a son (so, ladies, eat up!). the idea behind that is the canto for pistachios (gwa ji) is similar to the canto for son (jai).

Traditions and Mythology:

The idea behind the dragon dance (Móuh lùhng móuh sī ) - every new year there is a monster that eats all the children in China, so to scare off the monster, people created the dragon costume. That's why these celebrations are always loud and colorful. Also, not only is the color red a symbol of luck and prosperity, it is also because red is the color that the child-eating monster is afraid of. You learn something new everyday :-)

of course, there's always laihsi (money that you get in red envelopes).... Asians (especially the Chinese) are very practical. so rather than getting a present you don't want, they give you money so you can buy something you do need. On traditional red envelopes, the character for "fook" (roughly speaking, everything good) is upside down because it's like luck is coming to you so from your perspective, you see it upside down.

There are two gods especially important on New Years that Chinese people "pray" to (baih-san)

Jou gwān – kitchen god (watches over you so you don't set a fire)

Tóu déi – house god (protects the home) - literally means ground

Things to say when you receive lucky money! (besides the usual Gung heih faat choy)

Hohk yihp jeun bouh – do well in school

Lùhng máh jīng sàhn – be energetic

Maahn sih yùh yi – all the best

Chèuhng mehng baak seui – one life of 100 years

Bouh bouh gōu sīng – every year a promotion

saang yi hingluhng - keep your beauty (something like that...) say it to the ladies!

mk...i actually have to study now. Oh, I forgot to mention, on the 7th day of lunar year (which happens to be yesterday - yahn yat - literally means "person day"), it's everyone's birthday! The story goes: a chinese god turned human that day. So...happy belated birthday!

oh and happy valentines' day too :-)