kung hei fat choi!

Chinese Lunar New Year has come and gone--over a couple of months ago in fact and it has been months since I have written anything in here. I've been a bit slack really but I thought I'd get the ball rolling with some updates of our activities.

Chinese New Year was fun. Everyone is in a great mood and you will get greeted with, kung hei fat choi, which means 'wishing you good fortune'. It's a time for families to get together and have another excuse to eat copious amounts of food. We were lucky enough to get invited to two gatherings from my work colleagues and we were amply rewarded with lots of delicious food and the kids received another New Year's delight, the lai see packets.

Lai see is called lucky money and and its given by adults to kids. Strictly speaking, it goes from the elders (parents) to younger relatives, which could include unmarried adult relatives. In a looser sense it's given from someone in a higher social position to a lower--employers to employees, for example. I was told to give to the doormen in our building and in that way we would get good service. It's tradtionally given in little red packets but today you will see gold and other colours and cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty. Usually the minimum is about 20 Hong Kong dollars and if you are giving there should be an packet from you and one from your spouse. We didn't realise this and only gave one packet (one of my many faux pas since being here), but we were probably forgiven due to being 'foreigners'. Kids don't usually get Christmas presents and don't have part-time jobs so they rely on their lai see for most of their pocket money for the year. Our kids did quite well hauling in over 1200 dollars but you can easily spend that much giving as well. One of my work mates gave the kids 100 bucks each.

Going back to the doormen, if they got 40 bucks from each household in the building, 8 flats per floor, 36 floors, that's 11,520 dollars! They probably only make 7,000 a month. We did notice that they always opened the door for us the closer we got to new years.

There are some tradtional foods eaten during new year. Pun choi is one we tried at one of the parties--it's a huge basin layered with all types of food: shrimps, pork, yams, pigs' skin (more like a gelanious mixture mad from pig skin) and a lovely brown gravy. Another thing to have for special occasions is suckling pig. Nice but not much meat on them. We also ate duck tongue! The one I  liked was roast goose--very nice.

They say that the New Year is also a celebration of the coming of spring so they will put up brances of blossom or, to impress people, erect a whole tree in the shopping centres, decorated with lai see packets.

There are superstitions that go with the festival. On the day itself you are not supposed to sweep the floor, wash your hair or get a haircut; buy books ( the word for book sounds like to bet or lose money) or even light a fire. You'll also see (and hear) lots of lion dances.

It was great fun and I'm looking forward to next year's festivities, this time we will remember to have two packets for each person.