Saturday February 9th, 2013
Happy Chinese New Year everybody! It’s the last day in the
year of the Dragon! We now shall tread onto the year of the Snake! Are you
ready guys?! :D
An extremely important part of the new year is posting red
banners and squares containing Chinese characters throughout the house. Michael
and I began with the outside door to the house. Only the two of us did it
because Chinese believe the children of the family (us) should be the ones who
post them up for reasons that children have luck and happiness within them. For
the door there’s always two vertical banners on each side and one horizontal
banner above. Though usually all red in color (our is mostly gold) banners have
different Chinese sayings. So it’s not just the same saying on every single
door in Taipei. Nope, there are variations sometimes depending on your
occupation.
Also part of the door ensemble are these two guys, door
gods. They protect the household from bad unwanted spirits entering.
Above the doorway to the kitchen, the Chinese character of
“spring” is mounted. Wave hi to host grandmother cooking away!
Underneath the kitchen sink we have our bucket filled with
rice, yet another thing you put a red Chinese character square on. This one is
complicated and comprised of like four smaller characters. I think it has
something to do with bringing in wealth. According to my host father, you
always want to keep the rice bucket full for both food storage reasons and
symbolizing your wealth (the wealth to keep the bucket full, not meaning a
millionaire).
Other such red Chinese characters were posted in other
different places by my host father. The main event for the New Year took place
at night, same as in America. There also is a big dinner as well as staying up
late, way late in order to welcome in the New Year. With that being said, of
course there are differences starting with the religious aspect of this
holiday.
A table is set out with various things placed upon for the
god of the house. Note, the Chinese believe in many many different gods. Think of something, anything…there’s a Chinese
god for that. Thus there is a god for every single residence. So to please the
god we put food out for him to eat. Such things are rice, three types of meat
(chicken, fish and something else), fruit, bowl-cakes, New Year’s cake,
Taiwanese sweets and wine. Don’t forget the candles!
Then the family gets together with incense sticks and the
household elder leads them in prayer to the god. In Chinese the act of praying
is called “bai bai.” The prayer revolves around wishing luck and fortune in the
coming year for everyone and such other things.
Afterwards they placed the incense sticks in the cup of rice
and Michael poured wine in the three cups, a little bit in each one several
times.
We also had a smaller offering set-up in the kitchen for the
correlating god. Pretty much the same foods and drink.
Feasting time! This was by far the biggest meal I’ve ever
had at my second host family’s house. So many foods adorned our plates such as
chicken, pork, fish, radish cakes, quail eggs, hot pot and more! One rule that
needed to be followed is to not eat all of the fish but rather leave some on
the plate. It is believed that having leftovers will mean having a plentiful
coming year.
Known as “Asian caviar” this dish was a focus because it is
so expensive that you eat it only on special occasions, as is today. Combined
with a little garlic and you have yourself a fishy bite.
I am not afraid to say that I don’t drink alcohol. Don’t
like it nor do I want to. Even though it’s against Rotary exchange rules,
ironically enough, Taiwanese Rotarians will always offer you alcohol at parties
or times like this. My host family knows I don’t drink alcohol but they kept
insisting on giving me a margarita. At one point I just felt guilty from
turning down their offers so I caved in and asked for a teeny tiny bit. So
Michael concocted one for me with just a minuscule amount of alcohol and the
rest water/ice. Even with it being heavily watered down I still didn’t like it.
Alcohol and my taste-buds aren’t friends, all right? Nonetheless I drank it
all, out of respect to the family.
As snacks while watching TV together, these are little
Taiwanese sweet treats. All are hard, solid candy. The long brown ones seemed
like churros shrunken down and heavily condensed. The white rectangle…I have no
idea but wasn’t too fond of it. Remaining are several popcorn looking candies
both white and pink coloring. A small peanut covered solely in hard sugar was
what they were made out of. So it was reeeeeeally sugary since ¾ of it is
basically just granulated sugar. Probably a dentist’s nightmare. XD
Red envelopes, a Chinese tradition, is a prominent part of
the Chinese New Year celebration. The children receive these red envelopes with
money inside from their close elders. I did notice how host father gave host
grandmother one as well, which I didn’t know if it was traditional to do so. In
Chinese culture the offspring are supposed to take care of their parents when
they are older so perhaps it is normal to give red envelopes to them. Anywho,
once you receive one you say “xin nian kuai le” (Happy New Year) as well as
“gong xi fa cai” (Congrats on getting more wealth). Michael told me that it was
traditional to not open the envelopes immediately but to store them close to
you such as in your clothes or under your pillow for the night. I believe the
reason why is back in the day you had to keep your money close to you as the
only safe place. Though I didn’t sleep with the envelopes, I kept the money
inside as is custom.
When the time came around I hopped onto Skype, linked with
my parents and exclaimed “Happy Birthday Mom!” That’s right, it’s my momma’s B-day!
Double celebration! No wait! Chinese New Years, Mom’s Birthday (Feb. 9th)
aaaaaand host father’s birthday (Feb. 10th)! Triple celebration! :D
Party it up! A talk between both my families, American and Taiwanese, commenced
creating a lovely conversation. During of which my American mother wished me to
learn Mahjong so I could come back to the States and teach her.
And that’s just what I did. This game is famously played at
New Years though not exclusive to it. Among my family we played for fun but the
game is notoriously known for playing with money. You need a lot of luck to win
big in the game so players will come all decked out in red clothing since it’s
the color of luck. Michael told me they will brag about how much red clothing
they’re wearing and even go as far as to say, “I will surely win because I have
red underwear on!” XD To go along with this tradition I grabbed the most red
clothing to wear at the time…red socks. I’m shocked at how much red is lacking
from my wardrobe. All I have is a red Hard Rock Hotel T-shirt, scarf and socks,
the last option being the only one to wear with the weather conditions. No I
don’t have red underwear so don’t ask. XD
Consequently my host family taught me how to play and the
game ran through the whole night playing many rounds. The red socks must have
worked becaaaaaause I actually won several games! WHOO-HOO! *throws fists up in
victory* Originally I thought I would be horrible at the game but it turns out
I wasn’t! Dun-dun-da-daaa! Personal victory! I don’t believe any one person
dominated in the game because all of us won a game or several at some point.
Numerous times Michael was helped from my moves claiming
“pong” or “chi.”(I’m not going to start explaining Mahjong so just pretend you
understand why those actions help the person out XD) He would say “thank you”
to which I replied “you’re welcome” (both in Chinese). When it got to the
eighth or so time of him benefiting from me and not the other way around, I
asked how to say a certain something in Chinese. With my answer, I changed my
reply from “you’re welcome” to “you’re welcome my dear older brother” (xie xie wo qing ai de ge ge). XD I learned the
phrase quite well because I used it quite frequently, in a loving playful way
of course. ;P
Pistachios! The snack to eat during mahjong! Not sure if
it’s the tradition but that’s what my family did. A lot of pistachios…and
seeds…and pistachios!
*staring at iPhone* Wait for it…waaaaaaait for
it…aaaaaaaand…*clock changes to 12:00* 新年快了！爸爸生日快了！(Happy New Year! Happy Birthday Dad!) A candle on a cake roll was lit
and we sang Happy Birthday in both Chinese and English with a bonus of me
singing it in Spanish. Then I got out my ocarina and tried to whistle out the
tune like I did for my Mom on Skype. Buuuut
something went terrible wrong and it ended being a fail. Oh well. They said
they heard it when I played it last so it became a mental copy and paste thing.
XD
More mahjong and
pistachios graced our time until very early in the morning. Thankfully during
tomorrow’s traveling to Taizhong we’ll drive by car and I can catch on sleep
then because it’ll sure be needed! Happy Chinese New Years to you guys! May
luck and prosperity come your way in the year of the snake! ^_^
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