This weekend, we had some fun celebrating Chinese, or The Lunar, New Year. We also looked forward to Valentine’s Day.
It was a weekend with a lot of red (no, not for communism). Obviously, Valentine’s Day always means red decor, flowers, etc. But I heard an interesting story about why red is also the good luck color of the Chinese New Year celebration:
In ancient China, there was a great beast named Nian that would come to the village at the start of each New Year to devour everything he could find. He was especially fond of children. To protect themselves, the people would put food outside, hoping that it would satisfy Nian and save their children. One year, Nian saw a child wearing red, and became visibly afraid. From that time on, the people wore red clothing and painted their doors red to scare off Nian.
Red has always been a favorite color of mine, but this weekend, I could wear it with some interesting significance. Of course, we did a lot more than wear red.
On Saturday, we spent the evening with my husband’s brother and his family. The plan was to celebrate Chinese New Year, mainly because it was a great excuse to hang out, eat Chinese food and put back a few cocktails. After large quantities of soup, rice, spring rolls and shrimp curry were eaten, the kids went to bed and us grown ups enjoyed “grown up drinks.”
Sunday gave us the opportunity to see some fabulous local lion dancers, learn about the philosophies and traditions of East Asian culture and munch on yet more spring rolls. Iris donned a red dress with red and white leggings, and I happily wore my aging red sweater, which is one of the warmest pieces of clothing I own.
Oh, and did you know that they make Valentine’s fortune cookies? They do.
Happy Chinese New Year!
Katie and red will always go together in my mind.
🙂