Kung Hey Fat Choi

It is the year of the Red Fire Boar or Pig. It is a very prosperous year they say for most people.

We just had a new consultant in the office and she's Chinese Australian. Over wine and cheese last Friday she told us about the rituals that are involved in the celebration of the Chinese New Year including a total clean-up of the residence to remove all trace of the past year especially if it had not been a good one. And then there is the purging of all the un-necessary to pave the way for a fresh start.


Stay up late on Chinese New Year! She also said that the later one stayed up late means longer life for your parents. I might just not sleep at all then.... :).

Decorate the house with flowers and have citrus fruits preferably oranges with leaves intact. They bring good luck.

Then she said that tradition included filling the pantry with enough supplies good for 2 weeks. It wasn't advisable to spend any cash for the first 3 days of the New Year's.

We noted that although a lot of the traditions had been carried on through much of the New year traditions back home in the Philippines (fruits, flowers, total clean up), much of the prescribed 'good luck' pre-requisites cannot be applicable to modern life. For one, the idea of not throwing out any trash (bad luck!) for 3 days is almost unimaginable. And neither is keeping all windows and doors open to allow the free flow of luck into our homes - not when it is 20 degrees below freezing outside!

But still I believe in the idea of prodding luck a bit. No harm done, right? So we do have flowers at home, and FreshDirect.com made some deliveries tonight. Tomorrow my boyfriend and I will trek to Chinatown to elbow our way for some dumplings (asado siopao!!!!) which is suppose to bring abundance.

And also because I had been consistently been denied an asado siopao the whole time I was home! ARGH! The new King Bee which had just opened along the EPZA Road in Rosario was constantly out of stock regardless what time I came in. Unbelievable that to have some of my favorite steamed pork dumplings I have to wait 'til I got back home to New York! IRONIC!




And notice how King Bee looks like Jollibee in a cheongsam?


Hihihihi....