Chinese New Year was on Valentine’s Day this year – 2/14/10.   In my humble opinion, I think that Valentine’s Day is overrated.  Who likes to be TOLD to appreciate your significant other.  I’d prefer to be shown on a random day, but that’s just me, and not what this post is about.

If possible, I like to go to my Auntie Nancy’s house for our Chinese New Year feast.  Because literally, this lady can cook, and she always makes a feast. If you like Chinese food, you should try to go somewhere to celebrate Chinese New Year and savor the food.  Thank you, Auntie Nancy!

As a child, my father didn’t teach me much in terms of Chinese Culture.  We exchanged red envelopes for Chinese New Year, and learned how to say “Gong hay fat choi” – (It doesn’t sound how it’s typed exactly, but that’s probably as close as I can type it.) which means Happy New Year!  I come from a bi-racial family, and always wanted learn more about the practices and culture than what was typically taught in our home.  (I still, to this day, badger my dad about teaching me the language.)

I wish I’d taken pictures of the meal, but I’ll try and find some of the delicious foods that I ate.

It was fun to hear about the culture and the idea about left overs – my uncle told me that the family would usually fry a fish the night before, leave it out on the table under a screen to prevent bugs from getting on it. Typically, a Chinese family didn’t have a lot of money in the past.  Here’s a quotation from the Boston Globe: “The tradition comes from Cantonese phrases associated with whole fish, that is, fish with heads and tails intact. They mean “happy endings and beginnings,” “everything is perfect , ” and there will be leftovers every year — a sign of prosperity.”    If you’d like to read the whole article: http://www.boston.com/ae/food/articles/2007/02/14/chinese_welcome_new_year_in_a_whole_fish_way/

I didn’t know the fish tradition. In fact, I don’t know many traditions at all. But I love to learn them!
How about you? What kind of family traditions do you have?

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 9:06 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.