Friday, February 16, 2007
Happy Chinese New Year!
I've been saving this link for a while, check out this pork-flavored postage stamp.
In attempt to be more Chinese, I've been reading this:
I bought this book because I'm really not as Chinese as I ought to be. In fact, here's a story that proves it. In my last job, there was a group of Chinese people (10 or so) that worked there. One woman organized a Chinese New Year potluck celebration where she didn't invite me. Her boss, a friend of mine, asked why she didn't invite me and she replied, "Angela is not really Chinese". Now, she knew that I was genetically 100% Chinese, but apparently I didn't pass the "really Chinese" test. Now I'm forever labeled "not really Chinese" by my friends. Another person once told me that I had the best part of being Chinese, the looks, but not all the other baggage that comes with it (yes, they are a bunch of crazy superstitious people, but I mean that in a good way).
The book is somewhat amusing, and sometimes a bit too factual. I did learn that the number 4 is considered unlucky, and it is my favorite number!! My mom failed to tell me this. I used to explain that I like the number 4 because when I was in kindergarten, it was the smallest number of objects which I could identify without having to count them individually (of course as an adult I can easily see 5 or 6, but after that 7 breaks down into 3+4 and 8 into 4+4, etc). In reality, 4 is probably my favorite number because my birthday is January 4th. I haven't gotten through much of the book to give a fair review, but I thought I would at least mention it since it was Chinese New Year. And yes, I will attempt to cook on the table with long noodles and red candles!
3 comments :
Hey, wait a second. We've got 14 hours to go and the US East Coast is 13 hours behind us. Still time left for a little more cleaning and another end of year family dinner.
As for the number 4, it's just one of the homophone luck/unluck pairs. "four" sounds the same as "to die", so it's bad luck. A lot of buildings have no 4th floor in the same way that a lot of US buildings have no 13th floor.
And QR, you are an American. Don't worry about Chinese enough. You might represent the future that every grandma here fears when their granddaughter marries a Westerner, but every Chinese grandma here would forget their fears and be ecstatic to have your two children as their grandchildren.
Happy Chinese New Year.....
Happy Year of the Pig.....Metal or Golden pig I think. My friend Sean in Taiwan helped me find a nice place to get Chinese brightly decorated ceramic astrological figures for my family.
It turns out he could not understand why I was a bit hesitant about picking one up for my wife Cheryl....you see, while Kimberly was born in the year of the Ox, and Kristen the Dragon (and I in Dog), Cheryl was born in the year of the Pig....and I just didn't feel comfortable bringing her home a Pig. (though I did, and she thanked me for it....and put the Girl's figures in their room and hers safely away in the hope chest!)
I was going to post a Journal item about that very story....I ran across that Pig tucked safely in it's box last weekend.
BTW: Americans feel that 13 is an unlucky number.....but my mother used to tell me it was her favorite. (I'm not sure I have a favorite number.....but I guess 7 comes to mind for some reason)
Year of the Fire Pig.
and if your child started saying "I really like 'to die'" or "'dieing' is my favorite", you'd start to worry or wonder if they were trying out for a part in a remake of Harold and Maude.
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