Happy Chinese New Year

I'll start off with traditions:
Gongxi Fa Cai! Happy New Year! 新春快乐！生体健康！事业成功！万事如意！
Please keep my red-packets for me and don't spend it! They're mine!

Seven years have come and gone and I have not celebrated this joyous festive season with my family members, including this year's. It is suppose to be a time with families and relatives, and friends alike. It is like Thanksgiving Day in the western culture where everybody makes it a point to go back to their hometown for a reunion dinner. It is why millions of people are stranded at train stations in Guangzhou and Shanghai (one of the many places). They were all going home for this ocassion. China has never snowed like it did recently for over 50 years. I read that one stranded man could not make it home to get married with his fiancé, and even if he got on the train later, he would have missed his wedding anyway. The festive season runs for 15 days.

Seven years I have been away from my country. I have been away from my hometown. I wish I could go back every year during this time. I wish we will do this more often in the near future. I wish all our dreams and wishes will come true as we begin to build our lives away from home, away from hometown.

I remember lion dances, the deftening explosions of red crackers (type of fireworks), wishes from everybody saying "Happy Chinese New Year", counting all the monies I received from red-packets, etc. I remember all.

Pray for me for a good year this year. It's the year of the Rat. Everything about the rat is round, which symbolises good returns. Enjoy your holidays!

For more information about Chinese New Year, log on to Wikipedia. I have contributed to many articles related to the festivity.

Photos shot on Feb 6, 2008 -- New Year's eve dinner.

Our Chinese New Year's Eve dinner. Roast duck was the main hightlight of the night. It was to go with pancake/wrap with duck sauce.

It took three days to prepare for the roasting of the duck. First 24 hours for thawing, and left to dry. After that, it was bathed with rice wine (Shaoshing) and salted. Left to dry for the next 24 hours. Then it was sent for a honey bath and left to dry before sending it to the oven. Leave a comment if you want to know the remaining steps.

Fish is a compulsory dish on Chinese New Year's eve dinner. It draws from the belief that there is a good start to everything as well as a good ending to all, which is homophonous from the Chinese idiom "有头有尾" (literal: there's head, there's tail).

The fish's head and tail must not be eaten and be left until the festive season is over (I'm not sure if that's okay) to reflect on the above belief.

We also had home-made Sweet BBQ Pork (叉烧肉), home-made pork's belly, and a secret good stuff. Everything homemade.

Sparkling wine and the auspicious bamboo. The sparkling wine pops as loud as a champagne. The drink was good!

The look of a devourer

A picture before messing ourselves up

The look of a food deprived man

Wish everybody who views this post a Happy Chinese New Year.

I can't wait, sorry. *Ducks leg in mouth*

Seven years have come and gone in a blink of an eye. I wonder what will life be seven more years from today.