Happy Lunar New Year!
February 19, 2018
Photo by Anastasiia Tarasova on Unsplash
Welcome to the year of the dog!
This is my year!
(Literally. I’m a lunar calendar dog. I was born in the right year for my personality.)
The actual first day was Friday but I’ve never paid attention to that because we observed it in my family loosely – anytime in the two weekends immediately after counted as the New Year holiday period. That makes it a lot easier to manage all the expected family visits.
During my childhood, we were obligated to make the rounds of nearby family, and there was a rote formula to it all. Kids and unmarried adults were entitled to receive a red envelope from married (or widowed) adults in exchange for an acceptable new year greeting. It was usually something along the lines of (loosely translated): Happy New Year, I wish you a prosperous year with good health and happiness.
At some point I should have realized that you could memorize two lines and repeat them ad infinitum but stage fright always took over and I’d go into a bit of a fugue state. No clue what I actually said.
In hindsight, aside from the money part which I loved, obviously, it was one of the less endearing parts of my culture – the forcing of each child to perform in front of a crowd whether or not they were confident in doing so. It was never mean-spirited but to someone who was virulently antisocial, shy, and introverted, it felt horrible. I made myself do it because not doing it wasn’t a choice but at least there was a monetary payoff at the end. Totally into the spirit of things, that was me. Most Asian immigrant families in our circles that aren’t Christian and observe the lunar calendar (some do and some don’t, if I recall correctly) expect the kids to travel home for this weekend, or to travel back to their home country if they’re well off. It’d be kind of fun to try going back to Asia for LNY, but I’m not sure if I’d want to try and find family there or just be a total complete tourist.
We didn’t travel back this year. To be honest, with the state of things in my own family, I find the idea repellent. I’d rather start building our community here, it’s well past time we developed a better in person network. We sent out midweek invitations to a handful of friends we’d like to spend more time with and were thrilled when most of them were able to accept the invitation.
Normally I go low key with dinner invitations but I decided to get in the spirit of things and do a fancier menu. That was also in part because PiC felt like we should have an Asian cuisine, and not just fall back on pasta or something like that, being that it’s Lunar New Year. Despite having grown up on authentic Asian cuisine my entire childhood and most of my young adult life, it turns out I’m not a treasure trove of family recipes, I’m an empty Rolodex. Thank everything for the internet! I dug up some recipes I used to love and picked a couple. Nothing beef bourguignon fancy, but fancy for me.
The starter: Crackers and nutty bread, Brie, honeycrisp apple slices, green grapes
The main: Bo luc lac (shaking beef) served with sauteed asparagus on a bed of rice
and
Grilled jumbo shrimp on a bed of roasted broccoli
and
Fried tofu with dipping sauce
The finish: Mango ice cream
I feel almost like a grown up! We got the bread and shrimp on sale a few weeks ago ($3 and $16), we already had the tofu from a jumbo box we bought at Costco ($2 per box) and the mango ice cream was a gift. I bought the asparagus on sale on Friday ($5), and the broccoli and beef steak was very NOT on sale ($4 and $30). I also grabbed a Brie, the apples, grapes, a few garnishes and sesame oil ($20) since I’d used that up for our last hosted dinner. This was not at all a frugal meal at about $80 for 7 adults, it’s possible we’d have paid the same if we’d ordered Thai take out. I’ll have to do that math later.
We shall reclaim our hearty but frugal dinners next time with pulled pork sliders and … coleslaw.
That sounds like a lovely meal!
We never did that much in my family. Some years we might go out for fish, noodles, and egg custards but that’s about it. I’m excited to drag Fiancé to the local Chinatown this weekend though since he’s never seen a dragon dance in person.
I wish I’d done better with the cooking but it turned out well enough that I didn’t regret pulling it together 🙂 We used to do it up bigger (but still frugally, generally) when I was a young kid but that stopped so long ago.
I’m really hungry after reading your post. Happy Lunar New Year! I hope you got a lot of red envelopes with cash in them 🙂
Alas, as married people we don’t get red envelopes anymore! Talk about the marriage penalty!
Happy Lunar New Year! It’s a non event for us. We are just too busy to deal with it. Our kid’s birthday is around this time too.
Maybe we’ll try to have a bigger celebration in a few years. Our families aren’t nearby so that’s tough.
Ah yes, it’s much more fun to celebrate a holiday when you’re not already obligated to do other celebrations.
Happy New Year! I’m also a fellow dog.🐶 Definitely suits me – loyal but stubborn! We celebrated with friends, which was lots of fun except I forgot red envelopes. Doh. I’m not used to having all the kiddos around!
I’d love to get back into blogging but with 2 kids under 2… Lol someday!
Hah, as we get older, we’ll do better with remembering the details. I didn’t realize you had a second already! No wonder you haven’t come back yet 🙂 But I’m really happy to hear from you here, at least.
I don’t celebrate lunar NY really but I don’t celebrate holidays much anymore.
I’m an ox…and it’s pretty close 🙂
I think my ox friends tend to be pretty close to the expected characteristics 🙂
I’m Filipino but my wife is Chinese and we have dinner together with her immediate family for the Lunar New Year. Fortunately we all live close to each other so the logistics isn’t an issue. Everyone passes around red envelopes and just happy to feast together.
That’s awfully nice!
Yum. That sounds like one tasty meal. I never got to experience LNY growing up but I remember being SO jealous of all my classmates and their little red envelopes. I’m a total extrovert though, so having to perform to get them would have been alright by me.
Hah, I should have known you back then and sent you in as a sub and split the proceeds 🙂
I’m so glad you celebrated the Lunar New Year with your choice of “family”. Sounds like it went over very well. I’m a rabbit, and I think I do largely fit the bill (as explained to me by a quick Google search). The rabbit has “creativity, compassion, and sensitivity. Rabbits are friendly, outgoing and prefer the company of others. They also prefer to avoid conflict.” Not sure how “outgoing” I am, but I’ll take that description:)
You may be my first rabbit friend! Online, we all seem outgoing, don’t we? 😉
Yay! My little bro is a dog as well. I’m a dragon (don’t think it particularly suits me) but dog would totally be my other choice if I could.
Wait if you’re a dragon, I think I always forget this but you’re a little younger than me, aren’t you?
OK can I join in even if I had to go to wikipedia to check the characteristics? I feel like restaurant menus always call me boar, wikipedia says pig, specifically water pig. Yes: “compassionately aware, yet detached and resigned to their condition.” No: “tactful, and prudent.” Maybe??? “naive, pedantic, insecure, cunning, indecisive, and pessimistic.”
Absolutely – all comers welcome 😀
I like that it covers the range of positive and negative characteristics.
Happy lunar new year! I’m the year of the monkey and my wife is the year of the dog. Luckily, our families aren’t that strict about celebrating on the specific day. We celebrate around that time. And we’re taking the kiddos to see some dragon dance and other free lunar new year activities at the library and mall.
A happy lunar new year to you! Fistbump to your wife 😉 I like that we have the freedom to celebrate all month around the new year! I wonder how the kids (yours and mine) will feel about the dragon dance. We used to participate in those when I was younger.