Tiger Year 2010
On Saturdaty was Chinese New Year Eve! New Year's in China one of the best holidays and occasions of the year, because it's the day the entire family, not just mummy, daddy, kids, but also granny, grandad, uncles, aunts, cousins + lots of relatives you never knew you had, gather together to welcome the arrival of a new year and the arrival of spring. I haven't celebrated new year in China since my family moved to Sweden, but the importance of new year celebration is pretty much equivalent (if not, even more important) as Christmas is to the Westerners.
In Sweden, my family usually spends the morning making dumplings, which takes the entire morning, because they are so complicated, and watch a new year's show that the entire China watches to count down the hours till actual New Year's Day. Since China is 7ish hours in front of us, the show usually runs during our dumpling-creating and as well as dumpling consumption. In the afternoon we usually go to another Chinese family's house to keep on eating and celebrating. Because our extended families are not in Sweden, these friends replace them.
I'm wasn't home in Sweden for the celebration this year with my mum, dad and sister, so I celebrated it here in London with my boyfriend and in the evening with a bunch of his physics department friends. We consumed so much good food that it felt like I would never have to eat again! We had store-bought dumplings for lunch, although we didn't make them ourselves, because we were too lazy (they honestly take hooours to make!) and hotpot in the evening, and in between that about 10000 pieces of chocolate and stuff.
Yummy dumplings!
There are lots and lots of traditions and customs surrounding the New Year. For instance red decorations are always used, as red is the color of joy, luck and celebration. Traditional Chinese fireworks are more for the audio effect than for the visual, and are very loud and noisy. They are set off to scare away the bad spirits and bad luck. There are words that you should never say during the celebration, such as break/broken, die, kill etc., but also words like four, because it is homophonic, or has the same sound as the Chinese word for die. There are also certain culinary traditions, e.g. eating fish, which homophonially means you are not going to be lacking food the coming year.
I hope everyone will have a good 2010 Tiger year! Happy New Year!
In Sweden, my family usually spends the morning making dumplings, which takes the entire morning, because they are so complicated, and watch a new year's show that the entire China watches to count down the hours till actual New Year's Day. Since China is 7ish hours in front of us, the show usually runs during our dumpling-creating and as well as dumpling consumption. In the afternoon we usually go to another Chinese family's house to keep on eating and celebrating. Because our extended families are not in Sweden, these friends replace them.
I'm wasn't home in Sweden for the celebration this year with my mum, dad and sister, so I celebrated it here in London with my boyfriend and in the evening with a bunch of his physics department friends. We consumed so much good food that it felt like I would never have to eat again! We had store-bought dumplings for lunch, although we didn't make them ourselves, because we were too lazy (they honestly take hooours to make!) and hotpot in the evening, and in between that about 10000 pieces of chocolate and stuff.
Yummy dumplings!
There are lots and lots of traditions and customs surrounding the New Year. For instance red decorations are always used, as red is the color of joy, luck and celebration. Traditional Chinese fireworks are more for the audio effect than for the visual, and are very loud and noisy. They are set off to scare away the bad spirits and bad luck. There are words that you should never say during the celebration, such as break/broken, die, kill etc., but also words like four, because it is homophonic, or has the same sound as the Chinese word for die. There are also certain culinary traditions, e.g. eating fish, which homophonially means you are not going to be lacking food the coming year.
I hope everyone will have a good 2010 Tiger year! Happy New Year!
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