Gung Hay Fat Choy! ("Wishing you Prosperity!" in Cantonese)
Gong Xi Fa Cai! ("Wishing you Prosperity!" in Mandarin)
We have had a great weekend and a Happy [Lunar] New Year! We spent the Eve of the new year at a CNY party given by our friends, Virginia and Sam. They are both from Hong Kong. It was a traditional celebration including all new year traditions. Their house was decorated with traditional chinese new year couplets, lanterns, dragons and, of course, FIRECRACKERS! They had made dumplings as well as fish, pork and lots of rice. The food was delicious and we had a great time visiting with the rest of their friends and family.
Chinese New Year is celebrated on a different day each year, unlike the standard Gregorian calendar that most of us are used to, traditional China follows a "Lunar calendar" that was developed during the 3rd Millenium BC and is considered by Scholars to be the oldest surviving calendar system in the world. You will notice at the right hand side of our blog, we posted the "Current Phase of the Moon". The chinese calendar is based on the phases of the moon, and Chinese New Year is the celebration of the first day of the first new moon of the year.
February 18th marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year, ringing in the Year of the Pig. However, 2007 is a special year in that it is the "Year of the Golden Pig", which falls once every 60 years and is considered to be a very auspicious year in which to have a child (hint hint).
According to Chinese folk customs, 2007 is the "Year of Gold" one of the five elements, and also is the "Year of the Pig", a sign on the Chinese zodiac. The pig is regarded as good luck for a good life. A Golden Pig baby has the benefit of being born under two lucky signs. If you don't know your sign, type in your birthdate on this site to find out!
Today, I went to get a manicure. The shop that I go to is run by some wonderful Vietnamese women. The Vietnamese "Tet" celebration for the New Year is celebrated in conjunction with Chinese Lunar New Year. I decided to take my friends at the shop some tangerines (with the leaves on) as a sign of abundance, happiness and friendship in the new year. They were very excited that I understood their celebration and traditions. I was honored to receive some tangerines as well as a "hong bao" or red envelope from them in return.
We will have to see if the "Year of the Golden Pig" will be an auspicious and abundant year for us. But, for now, I am grateful for the opportunities we have had to learn, respect and celebrate the lovely and heartfelt traditions of the asian, and specifically chinese, culture.
3 comments:
Happy New Year! Great gesture to your Vietnamese friends.
How cool that you were invited to attend a traditional New Years gathering. How wonderful. And, what a very nice gesture to bring the tangerines to your nail shop friends - what a lovely exchange.
Happy, happy!
very cool, and thanks for the clarification! I admit to being a bit confused reading bits and pieces of CNY traditions, yours makes more sense than a lot of info I've come across.
very thoughful to give tangerines.
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