Happy New Year! Gung Hay Fat Choy!
I'm sad that I'm away from the people with whom I have celebrated the Lunar
New Year most often, my own immediate family. Why am I sadder this year than
any of the many other years that I've been away from my family? Perhaps it's
because I'm all the more aware of how little I understand of these great (but
mysterious) rituals that informed my childhood and how much I wish I could connect
now to the past. I know that it's not just about the past; I can learn as much
as I can now about the past so that I can enter the future with new life and
energy. Now that I have a nephew, I have a great excuse to learn with him what
I hadn't learned 37 years ago.
Because of this unmet longing, I read a series of articles in the San Francisco
Chronicle about the New Year. If you too want to learn more about the meaning
of the New Year, go read the following:
- HOME
FOR THE HOLIDAYS Gung hay fat choy! Bay Area families prepare for the Year
of the Monkey - Lunar
New Year a multicultural celebration - Toast
to a New Year: Ten-course banquet demonstrates that wine does go with Chinese
food - Chinese
New Year Event Guide
Before going in this morning, I was trying to write out in Chinese the various
new year's greeting but was having a hard time. When I have time, I will come
back to this task by looking at the following links:
