February 15, 2012

Hi there...it's been a while since I've been posted.  A few Friday's ago, I ate something that must have spoiled and got such bad food poisoning that I was out of commission for nearly a week.  Just horrible, could not eat for a few days nor think straight for a few days more.  Then...the Chinese New Year hullabaloo kicked in.  Betty's mom came at the end of January and just left yesterday.  Her sister and one of her kids arrived a week ago and they also just left, so the last couple of weeks have been all about taking the family places, eating, and taking the family places to eat.  It was very nice to have them around, but after two weeks of them living in our apartment, which is decent sized but still an apartment, was just as glad to see them go.

Chinese New Year is big.  In advance of it, the city is all about getting just the right foods and treats for big family dinners, and the normal markets are packed with shoppers and pop up stalls selling the needed goods.  We went to a couple of them...first stop was the sausage shop that sells "special" new years sausage.

 

And no visit to the CNY market would be complete without a stop at the pig liver and meat stuffed pig leg shop.

You have to get all the sweet stuff too.  They are not into the chocolate as much as I would prefer unfortunately.

And you have to get the right noodles and decorative accouterments to ensure a prosperous New Year.

The streets and shops are jammed with people and red and gold decorations

A lot of markets around town are touted as being good as they are "Traditional Markets"  I have come to realize that the word traditional in Chinese is translated as "poorly ventilated, lack of potable water and a fire trap."

To satisfy the belly as your shopping, there are all kinds of stands to fill you up along the way.

This stand was selling hard boiled goose eggs.  Betty even said she had never seen one before.  They tasted like an egg, only way gamier and left an aftertaste that lasted all afternoon. 

And no one was quite sure what these were, but I bet your guess isn't as disgusting as reality.

We went to one of these markets on a tour with the local English language community center, and the tour guide stopped us to admire this building.

It was described as a whore house built by the Japanese nearly 100 years ago, making it one of the oldest buildings in town.  Kinda dumpy, and was hard to get too worked up about it just having been to a country where entire cities look as they did 500 years ago.  This snap was taken in front of the oldest steak house in town that was right across the street.  I asked our guide if the steak was good or bad, and she replied that "it is Taiwanese."  My immediate reaction was, "so it's bad", which did not seem to amuse her or the rest of the group.  I need to work on stifling that initial reaction I suppose, but what kind of answer is that anyway. 

I did learn more about Chinese New Year traditions.  The literal translation of Happy New Year in Mandarin is Xin nian Kui le, but in the States, I had always heard it said Gong Xi Fa Choi.  You are supposed to say this after New Years Eve, and Gong Xi means "Congratulations" and Fa Choi is "Prosperity". 

The reason you say congratulations after NYE is that you have survived the night.  The traditional story goes something like this...According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nian (Chinese: 年; pinyin: Nián). Nian would come on the first day of New Year to eat livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that the Nian was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian. From then on, Nian never came to the village again. The Nian was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk. The Nian became Hongjun Laozu's mount.^[10] 

So you say congratulations on New Years Day to acknowledge you making it through the night without being eaten.  Am told that the "prosperity" line was added out of Hong Kong in the recent past when that became important.  While the story is not as cute as reindeers with red noses and jolly old men breaking into your house at night, it is no less ridiculous.  I will say that one area that CNY blows away X-mas is the gift shopping.  You don't need to go find a toy or clothes for anybody...all you have to do is get a bunch of red envelopes and a stack of crisp new bills from the bank.  The bank will even give you red envelopes making it a one stop shopping experience.  You put whatever amount of cash you feel appropriate in the envelopes and give them to only the unmarried children and your service providers (cleaning lady, doormen, etc.).  So easy and everyone is happy.  On New Year's Eve, we went over to Betty's uncle's house (her mom's brother) for a big family dinner.  After the meal, all the adults passed out the envelopes to the kiddies and ours ended up taking home NT$9000 (US$300) each (Paul and Carolyn with Betty's Mom and cousin Aron).

The family feast is similar in spirit to those from around the world, but there is an order that they occur...you go to the Patriarchs house on night one and then it is a series of where you go for the next couple of weeks.  I haven't been able to locate the order written down, and with any tradition that I learn from the family, there is a lot of misinformation given as they like to make pronouncements that sound definitive but are later discovered to be totally made up.  Will get back once I can confirm the order, but in the meantime, here is what our feast looked like that first night.

Talk soon