Showing posts with label Chinese New Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinese New Year. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Kunghei Fatchoy

'Happiness and prosperity!'  
Kunghei fatchoy /gong-hey faa-chwhy (Cantonese)

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is marked by the lunisolar Chinese calendar, so the date changes from year to year.

The festivities usually start the day before the New Year and continue until the Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the new year.

I did my celebrating today as I was invited to join a group of seniors to celebrate Chinese New Year 2016. I had a very nice time and wanted to share the photos.

First I was greeted at the door with a name tag and someone offered to check my coat.  One inside, I was given a choice of two gifts. I chose a small calendar because I liked the red packaging.

Some of the Decorations
 
I have always loved red paper lanterns. Actually I like all paper lanterns but red stands out.


Our smiling servers


Food

Upper right and clockwise: fried rice, rice noodles, spareribs, sweet & sour spareribs, tofu and veggie

 Dessert

Warm sesame seed balls with red bean paste...so delicious. We also had an orange and some candy.

Appreciative diners


Entertainment Program

The entertainment program was very full. I was quite tired and had to leave at the last performance when the seniors did their sword dance (you'll see them below in the double ring dance).

Violinist playing a modern, electric violin & our MC who teaches drama to many of the performers.

A beautiful couple who sang a romantic song.

A group of limber seniors doing a double ring dance. They also did a sword dance but I didn't get photos.
A young champion on the left and her younger sister.

This young woman is champion Guzheng musician in both Canada and China. She also has impressive showmanship.
 
A Spoken Word group. The woman in black is reciting in English after the Chinese version done by the group.

These two ladies did a very nice Indian dance.

I think this is called a handkerchief dance.  The woman also performed the Indian dance above in purple costume.
This group of women performed several times in beautiful costumes (different costume for each dance).

Here is the same group of women in another costume.

 There are special events for Chinese New Year going on all month in my city.
 There are performances and exhibits at the  Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Pavilion  in Chinatown.
The Lion Dance is performed in different locations around Vancouver though I haven't seen one for a few years.
The Lion Dance will be the culmination of many of the activities and be held in Chinatown on Sunday.



 There are so many activities to choose from.

I hope you enjoyed the photos.

Are you planning to celebrate Chinese New Year where you live?

Kunghei Fatchoy!

Monday, February 8, 2016

My World Today

Another week is here.

Today was a provincial holiday called "Family Day". The day is intended to enable families to spend time together and bond. The holiday was first enacted in Alberta and slowly over time other provinces have followed suit. I think it is only a matter of time before the holiday becomes a national one. It has already grown from a provincial holiday for one province to a provincial holiday for 6 provinces.

It was a beautiful day today but I stayed in and made some nice soup and bannock bread. I didn't think to get photos but the food was good.

Today I did a bit of Spring cleaning though it isn't Spring yet. I've got so many small and large chores that need doing so am getting a bit of a head start. I washed one of the furniture covers for the outside patio and tidied a few things outside that were an eyesore for long. I also emptied and trashed a lot of dried goods that seem to have provided sustenance for bugs and washed out two of my (lower)  kitchen cabinets.

I've never, ever had bugs in my dried goods before.  Now that they have started it seems I can't get rid of them. There are two types.  The first are tiny little black bugs that seem to like red lentils best (and brown rice).  The second type lay a lot of eggs and once hatched they look like small moths.  I first noticed the problem in some gluten free flour I'd purchased and thrown out long ago but I guess the eggs had spread.  Whenever I think I've gotten rid of the bugs, I find more.

It has been a real nuisance and a waste of money. The little black critters even get into airtight containers. They are so tiny that they just crawl under the lids. I'm hopeful I got rid of them all now but somehow I think I might find a few more. Mostly everything they might be interested in has been trashed so I hope that  means I've gotten rid of everything they like to eat.

I've been reading a few good books.

I'm still working on Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This book by a Nigerian author now living in USA is about a young Nigerian woman who moves to the USA. It begins with the woman getting her hair braided in a salon and flashes back to her family life and love life in Nigeria to set the backdrop of how she get to America. I'm just at the part where she is about to return to Nigeria and reunite with her first love. I'm enjoying the book very much and is the second novel I've read by this author. The first one I read was, Half a Yellow Sun.



Snow in May is a delightful little book of short stories set in the bleak landscape of Siberia, Russia.  Personally, I don't really enjoy short stories. I prefer the fully developed story line that a longer book can provide. But the cover of this book appealed to me. It was only when I got it home that I discovered it wasn't a novel.

The setting for all the short stories is Magadan, an isolated fishing and mining town in northern Russia.  It once was a transit center for prisoners sent to Stalin's labor camps. The young author, Kseniya Melnik, is also from Magadan and immigrated to Alaska at age fifteen. She earned an MFA from New York University and now lives in Texas.

The third book I'm reading is Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee.  I'm still in early stages of the book.  The protagonist, Jean Louise Finch, "Scout" has returned to Maycomb, Alabama from New York City to visit her aging father Atticus.  Atticus is a long-time lawyer in Maycomb and some of you may remember him from the American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, also written by Harper Lee. This is only her second novel and it is rumoured that she actually wrote it first but it was never published until summer of 2015.  I am enjoying it so far despite some of the negative reviews it received. I was on the library's wait list for 7 months to get this book and I'll have to finish it and return it on time as there is still a significant waiting list of hopeful readers.



Tomorrow I'll be joining some elderly folks for a celebration of Chinese New Year.  There will be singing, dancing and some foods that are eaten especially at Chinese New Year. It should be interesting and I'm looking forward to it.

I leave you now with a few shots I took today. We were fortunate to have a wonderful, sunny day and I believe tomorrow will be much the same. After that we expect heavy rains for the rest of the week.


Much of the new snow that had fallen on the mountains last Friday has melted.




This is my world this Tuesday. 
I'm joining Lady Fi and others for Our World Tuesday.
Enjoy the rest of your week.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Gung Hay Fat Choy

It's been a busy few days since I posted last.

I've been trying out some different knitting patterns. Hopefully soon I will unveil a few of the finished projects.

Here is a sneak peek at one of my "works in progress".

  It is a little baby cap.


I've also been busy making and cancelling appointments. Don't you hate it when you wait for an event and the hosts/organizers cancel?  This has happened twice this past weekend for two events I was looking forward to later in the month.  On the other hand, that is probably just what I needed right now so I can catch up on things around the house and all the budgetary matters (bill payments and tax issues).

On Thursday night, I did get together with 3 people I know and 23 more that I didn't.  My friend who is an acupuncture doctor organized a dinner for the Chinese New Year; which this year, is called, the Year of the Dragon.  Chinese New Year actually started on Monday but we had our dinner on Thursday night to avoid the crowds.
Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. In China, it is known as "Spring Festival," the literal translation of the Chinese name 春節 (Pinyin: Chūnjié), since the spring season in Chinese calendar starts with lichun, the first solar term in a Chinese calendar year. It marks the end of the winter season, analogous to the Western Carnival. The festival begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: Zhēngyuè) in the traditional Chinese calendar and ends with Lantern Festival which is on the 15th day. Chinese New Year's Eve, a day where Chinese families gather for their annual reunion dinner, is known as Chúxī (除夕) or "Eve of the Passing Year." Because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar, the Chinese New Year is often referred to as the "Lunar New Year"....
According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nian (Chinese: ; pinyin: Nián). Nian would come on the first day of New Year to eat livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that the Nian was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian. From then on, Nian never came to the village again. The Nian was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk. The Nian became Hongjun Laozu's mount. (Source: Wikipedia)

With such a large group of diners, we ended up sitting at 4 different tables. There were 9 at my table. On my left were Madeline and her husband Alfred, an elderly couple. Alfred is blind so I helped him by explaining the various dishes that we were being served and by making sure he had enough to eat. On the right of me were two women, Freida and Suzette, who are now Canadian citizens but  originate from Texas.  Freida hosts a radio program on international women's issues and Suzette is a gardener.  Across from me sat a man whose name escapes me though I've met him before and his wife, Victoria. The  man is originally from Tehran, Iran and his wife is Canadian. They recently closed down their restaurant business which is too bad since their food was very good.  It is very difficult to make a go of a restaurant in this city and so many of them close every year. Fortunately the couple each has other work.  Rounding out the table were two women, Bernadette, who works at one of the larger local grocery stores and Trudy,who I think lives in my acupuncture doctor's building.  The entire group was friendly.  There was not a quiet moment or lull in the conversation.

It was my first time at this particular restaurant and besides very tasty food, it was also very good value for money.  Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the food until we were almost finished.

This photo was taken near the end of our meal. The green beans to the left and the chicken cashew to the right, were two of my favourite dishes.

The restaurant, Szechuan Chili Restaurant, is a humble restaurant tucked away in a corner of a small strip mall on a busy street. It is not a place, I would normally pass on my way to anywhere so I was happy to try it. I'm always open to new places to eat especially when I'm with such a large group of people.

Our menu consisted of:  spring rolls, deep fried wonton, Szechuan Chili Dry Ginger Beef, Breaded Lemon Chicken, Mixed Four Kind of Vegetables, Deluxe Orange Peel Chicken, Fried Green Been Szechuan Style, Sweet and Sour Pork, Chicken Chow Mein and BBQ Pork & Shrimp Fried Rice. To top it off it was suggested that we order two more dishes to make sure we had enough to eat. So a few of the ladies ordered for the rest of us and decided upon Diced Chicken with Cashew Nut and a prawn dish which was loaded with vegetables.  I would say that every dish was great but I especially loved the vegetable dishes and the green bean dish. Lemon Chicken seems to be extremely popular because by the time it got to Freida and I there was not much left. Nonetheless, I did not go hungry. In fact, I could not partake of the Dry Ginger Beef or the Orange Peel Chicken which are the two dishes that arrived last.

It turns out that Alfred's favourite dish is Chili Dry Ginger Beef.  So we gladly had it wrapped up along with the remaining rice and vegetables for he and Madeline to eat later.

I would like to end with another quote from a well known, Canadian financial expert

... Chinese Dragons, unlike western dragons, are benevolent creatures. They offer you the chance to reach for the brass ring, to dream, and to make your dreams come true. Spring is particularly important to the Dragon, so what you put in motion in this spring will carry you through the year.
Lest you think Lucky is all in the mind, let me point you to a stody done by a Professor Richard Wiseman at Britain’s University of Hertfordshire who studied lucky people for ten years. He found that folks who feel lucky do differ from those who do not, but not because of some outside force. It turns out that “lucky” people pay more attention to their surroundings, are more extroverted and open-minded and are optimist. Since the soul of “luck” is opportunity, the more opportunity you encounter, and the more willing you are to see that opportunity, the luckier you will be. (Source Gail Vaz-Oxlade)

Gung Hay Fat Choy!
(Best Wishes and Congratulations. Have a prosperous and good year!)

P.S. If you missed my post on the appeal for Jeremiah, please read here.

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