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Happy Chinese New Year!
Wednesday, 14 February 2024 19:20Ugh, it's starting! Recently the reels showing up on my IG are those of people wondering "what is politically correct" when wishing Happy New Year now... is it Happy Chinese New Year? Happy Lunar New Year? So on and so forth. You know what. Who cares? The REAL greeting (for the Chinese) is, Kung Hei Fat Choi in Cantonese (or Gong Xi Fa Cai in Mandarin) means, Hope You Get Rich. It has nothing to do with the new year, maybe except sometimes they tag in "may you have a prosperous year to come" or something like that.
I'll continue to say CNY as I'm living in China territory and that's what I've been saying all through my life.
Maybe it's nothing new to people (and I have posted similar videos before), but I went to an Eye-dotting and Lion Dance ceremony today and I thought I'd share. It's really cute when they dot the eyes of the "lions" and then they start blinking their eyes and flicking their ears and then come alive and "dance". There's also something about feeding it lettuce and stuff which I can't explain too much, but I suppose it's some kind of play on word meaning (Lettuce 生菜 literally "Live Vegetable") and the Lion thanks you for the veggie and brings you good business for the year.
It was all very atmospheric, classical "Chinese drums and cymbals thing". My only small complaint is when they had to change the dancers (it's very tiring and they have to take turns to rest), they had the other "dancers" that didn't have the right pants on. At one point in time I saw the guy with the pink pants play the role of the green lion. So it was a green lion with pink legs haha. Well at least for the photos they didn't have that mix up.
And I'm exploring out of my comfort zone! I went on a lunch with a group of strangers! We have a chat group going on, it's mostly foreigners, with some locals, and we decided to come out for some dim sum. After dim sum, part of the group decided to get some coffee, but we made a very bad decision and decided to go to downtown, and...
We were amongst that horde of people. It was terrifying. Finally found a coffee place and I had a weird grey coffee. I thought it was a black sesame drink, but it's actually some kind of black caramel.
As the saying goes, the third day of CNY is 赤口 and it's a day of arguments so usually people do not go visit friends on this day. But my group of besties decide to go out on this day every time. It's like we are tempting fate to see if we'd ever get in any fights. Along the way I decided to get a... pinwheel charm thingy? The "turning" of the pinwheel (I really want to call it a windmill) is supposed to help "turn your luck around"
Oh yeah I also got these long time haven't seen "Dragon Beard Candy" 龍鬚糖. I'd describe it as... it's like cotton candy pressed together and wrapping ground peanuts in it.
It was nice to laze around the place with the dogs.
And since a friend convinced me to sign up for the 10k run in March, I'm now diligently training. I have some night runs, I have some morning runs.
I'll continue to say CNY as I'm living in China territory and that's what I've been saying all through my life.
Maybe it's nothing new to people (and I have posted similar videos before), but I went to an Eye-dotting and Lion Dance ceremony today and I thought I'd share. It's really cute when they dot the eyes of the "lions" and then they start blinking their eyes and flicking their ears and then come alive and "dance". There's also something about feeding it lettuce and stuff which I can't explain too much, but I suppose it's some kind of play on word meaning (Lettuce 生菜 literally "Live Vegetable") and the Lion thanks you for the veggie and brings you good business for the year.
It was all very atmospheric, classical "Chinese drums and cymbals thing". My only small complaint is when they had to change the dancers (it's very tiring and they have to take turns to rest), they had the other "dancers" that didn't have the right pants on. At one point in time I saw the guy with the pink pants play the role of the green lion. So it was a green lion with pink legs haha. Well at least for the photos they didn't have that mix up.
And I'm exploring out of my comfort zone! I went on a lunch with a group of strangers! We have a chat group going on, it's mostly foreigners, with some locals, and we decided to come out for some dim sum. After dim sum, part of the group decided to get some coffee, but we made a very bad decision and decided to go to downtown, and...
We were amongst that horde of people. It was terrifying. Finally found a coffee place and I had a weird grey coffee. I thought it was a black sesame drink, but it's actually some kind of black caramel.
As the saying goes, the third day of CNY is 赤口 and it's a day of arguments so usually people do not go visit friends on this day. But my group of besties decide to go out on this day every time. It's like we are tempting fate to see if we'd ever get in any fights. Along the way I decided to get a... pinwheel charm thingy? The "turning" of the pinwheel (I really want to call it a windmill) is supposed to help "turn your luck around"
Oh yeah I also got these long time haven't seen "Dragon Beard Candy" 龍鬚糖. I'd describe it as... it's like cotton candy pressed together and wrapping ground peanuts in it.
It was nice to laze around the place with the dogs.
And since a friend convinced me to sign up for the 10k run in March, I'm now diligently training. I have some night runs, I have some morning runs.
