Today the university where I work had a Chinese New Year
celebration, although the actual day is Saturday. They had a Hmong New Year
celebration a couple of months ago, and that was pretty successful. I went to
it, and the room was full. However, this one was such a success that it was
almost a disaster – three times as many people showed up as they were
expecting, at least, and they had to take down a movable wall to allow people
to sit down. The line for food went on forever. I wore red, having had a vague
impression that this was good luck on Chinese New Year – and I was right! The
speaker commended all of us who wore red. The food was cheese and fruit and
pretzels, nothing particularly Chinese, but the presentation was very
interesting. The speaker talked about how all the traditional New Year food is
symbolic because it looks like something else lucky, like dumplings that
resemble the full moon or money purses, and how they eat fish because the word
for fish is the same (except for the tones) as the word for abundance. Then
another woman sang a song in Mandarin. I walked there and back, since the
temperature was pretty reasonable for this time of year. There was a tiny
sprinkling of snow, and one of the organizers told me she thought that would
scare people away, but that was definitely not a problem! I wish all my readers
good health and great luck during this year of the Fire Rooster.
Famous Hat
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