Tag Archives: Chinese New Year

Good Luck Parachutes

Posted on February 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

Wordless Wednesday: Chinatown, NYC on January 29, 2012.

Tagged Chinatown, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, Year of the Dragon

Chinatown, NYC: Spring Festival 2011

Posted on January 24, 2012 | 1 Comment

Chinese New Year. Lunar New Year. Spring Festival. A grand holiday of many names and still my favorite, aside from Christmas.

I did not get a chance to visit Chinatown this year, but long to relive memories from the 2011 parade.

Thousands walked joyfully, a swaying mass spilling over the curbs to witness the lion dancers, wave banners, and steady cameras and smartphones. People leaned on each other for a better view, ignoring usual social proprietary for personal space; their single purpose held more power than any need for elbow room.

People spoke their minds and respected one another’s differences.

The healthy supported the unsteady elderly and young children dressed in fine brocade, little girls gaily shaking their braided pigtails in glee rested on top their parents’ shoulders.

Lavish restaurants served to capacity, long lines extending outside their doors and frantic staff waiting on the hungry with weary, but welcoming smiles.

Tourist shops and novelty stands promised good fortune through usual goods- bamboo plants, fans, red envelopes, puppets, noisemakers, and confetti poppers, which tourists purchased in abundance. Multicolored and metallic paper covered every conceivable concrete and asphalt surface, burying any regular debris. Street vendors waved spiced meat and steamed dumplings while the fresh produce markets displayed ripe fruit, Asian vegetables, and seafood packed on ice.

Heavy drum beats, excited voices, and general cheer echoed along every alley, one-way, and dead-end. Eventually, police cleared the area and city sanitation picked up bling as they cleaned the littered roads.

I will always celebrate Chinese New Year with hope, optimism, and happiness. Most of all, this holiday represents love and familial perseverance; I look forward to sharing how I celebrated it this year in the next few days.

Gung Hay Fat Choy to you and yours!

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Culture

Tagged Chinatown, Chinatown 2011, Chinese New Year, Lunar Festival, Spring Festival

fourteen days to plan

Posted on February 1, 2010 | 1 Comment

Spring Festival / Chinese New Year’s falls on Valentine’s Day this year. This fact is insignificant to me on its own, as I have never actually celebrated February 14th in the American tradition of Hallmark cards, gourmet chocolates, or red roses.

However, it is the Year of the Tiger – my birth year – and it will not come around again for another twelve years. In the past, my family (more like the entire surname clan) would gather at my great-grandmother’s house. Since her passing two years ago, we have not seen our distant relatives. There are no tes, shrimp chips, or steamed dumplings to look forward to. No red envelopes to pass out to giggling children or lion dances to watch. The gap was filled with mediocre attempts to capture the atmosphere of my childhood. I want this time to be special, memorable, and enough to last another decade and two.

What do you think we should do on this auspicious occasion? If you observe this holiday, what are your plans? What does Chinese New Year represent to you?

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Culture

Tagged Chinese New Year, February, holidays

Gung Hei Fat Choy

Posted on January 26, 2009 | 3 Comments

It’s the year of the (Earth) Ox. Ignore the fact that this post is a couple days late…

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Culture

Tagged Chinese New Year, gung hei fat choy

Chinese New Year

Posted on February 7, 2008 | 1 Comment

and other happy things.

It’s the Year of the Rat. This is the first year we’re not really celebrating. My great-grandmother, the one who carried on this massive tradition of gathering everyone into her apartment, passed away earlier this year. My grandfather, while the patriarch now, does not have the same authority or appeal as my Abach did. He is trying his hardest, but when you have family spanning all the way around the world, it’s difficult to encourage people to make plane arrangements and have a huge annual reunion. Most of us have become strangers to one another.

But I guess that’s the way life is sometimes. We lose connections. We make others. We try so hard sometimes to hold onto the things we cherish most, like family, and even that has the potential of slipping away with the daily mire of habitual survival.

Which leads me onto another topic of love and the difficulties it has been posing to me lately. It’s not that I do not love my boyfriend, but I have been having serious doubts and trust issues that are not being remedied. I finished reading Eat, Pray, Love last night (see: 3 am), and although I do not agree with a lot that the author says (I would also like some citations of all of this historical and random trivia knowledge she inserts everywhere), this particular line stuck out to me:

“Of course you were,” Felipe said. “You were young and stupid then. Only the young and stupid are confident about sex and romance. Do you think any of us know what we’re doing? Do you think there’s any way humans can love each other without complication?…But whenever I see it happen, I always want to say the same thing. Good luck. Because you still have a woman in front of you, my friend. And you are still a man. It’s still two human beings trying to get along, so it’s going to become complicated. And love is always complicated. But still humans must try to love each other, darling. We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”

There were other gems throughout the read, but chew on that for awhile. Let me know what you think and of course, Gung Hay Fat Choy.