Happy Chinese New Year 2025❣️

🎊Gong Xi Fatt Choy🎊

Yee Sang at Chinese New Year 2024. This year’s is still to come.

Last Wednesday marked the start of the new lunar year. On the eve, I began the day cleaning and sweeping bad luck out of the house and for dinner my mum cooked a family feast and then mahjong until midnight where we party popped poppers and wished everyone happy new year with warm hugs. There a variety of traditions differing amongst the regions of China and around the world. Our family follows not washing or cutting hair on the first day of the new year. It’s to symbolise the luck and good fortune is not ‘washed or cut’ away.

Flower bowl from my garden ready for a facewash

One of the main dishes is a Prosperity toss salad called Yee Sang. All the separate ingredients with a sesame lemon plum sauce are on the dish waiting of everyone to gather around and toss it together with chopsticks. The higher the salad gets thrown the more good fortune for a long life comes to the person. So you can imagine it gets messy and some worry about it getting on the floor.

This year is the wood green snake. One of the 12 animal signs. The characteristic of the animal symbolises the overall feel of the year to come…. The unity in tradition is interesting to me. The snake sheds it’s skin in renewal. There is intelligence and creativity symbolised by the snake. There is intrigue with what the year means for each of our animal years. When it comes to talking about each other’s animals, there’s cheerful banter and jokes all around. My mother and sister are piggies. Suffice to say Miss Piggy from the muppets had her characteristics;) My father is a cheeky monkey and my brother’s a smart ssslithering snake. As for me, I’m a tiger. What more can I say, I’ve done a blog about that already! There has been a newborn into our extended family, little James and he just made it into the tail of the dragon. Lucky boy. If you are a dragon, there’s a very smug smile that creeps in when letting people know. Little James, his father and grandfather are all dragons!

I really enjoy the tradition of Chinese New Year. In Australia, it’s known a little … lion dances and good food in Chinatown. I haven’t been to China / Hong Kong for the New Year…. I imagine it to be so fun as the majority are celebrating with a whopping 15 day public holiday. That’s a solid length of collective holiday. Sounds fantastic. If only our christmas and new years combined into 2 weeks off. How much more relaxed and happy would we be!

The Chinese celebrate with firecrackers, red and gold and alot of noisy cheer and lion dances on the streets and restaurants. I remember the lion dance came to our house as a young kid and we had a lettuce dangled with money in a red packet on the second storey balcony for the lion to come eat. There would be drums, and lion mayhem playing around. Eventually attempting fancy acrobatic balance to get it’s reward…entertaining for us… hard work for the lion folks!

The fortune cookie is similar to the idea of the christmas cracker. Perhaps a bit more enigmatic than the jokes in the christmas cracker though. Who doesn’t mind a little affirmation in a cookie? If I like mine it goes on the fridge door for a few weeks.

I reflect on my ancestors and my family. They blessed me with my name Su Lin meaning a pure white lotus. In growth only when it’s roots pass through the muddy waters and blossom in the sun. In appreciation as i sit.

🌳

The tiger sits under a banyan tree and watches. Resting under the shade until it’s ready to move on. The tiger’s stripes move only in the breeze as a snake moves through. Quietly sitting with ears pointed, nose moist and senses complete. It takes a yawn and a cracked tooth shines in the corner of it’s mouth. A bird flies onto the tree and sits above the tiger. A few moments of birdsong and the tiger flicks it’s ears as the flies tickle and nudge. The tiger sits and sees it’s streak of tigers closeby. These tigers have travelled a distance and are content to shelter and strengthen in spirit under this banyan tree.

🏮May your Lunar Chinese New Year be healthy and happy in contentment and prosperity 🏮