I’m not
sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way the Chinese New Year
supplanted the regular New Year in terms of significance for Maia. Obviously
we’re not an Asian family, but life in Vancouver
exposed our daughter to bubble tea, Buddhist Temples and lion dances with the same
frequency she experienced the Easter Bunny and Valentines.
By the time she was in school she had learned many
different Lunar New Year traditions, and it never occurred to her not to adopt
them as her own. When her
friends were getting new brocade Cheongsam dresses for New Years Maia
wanted one too. When the red envelopes were handed out she accepted them with
joy.
And because I live with her, I was the recipient of many detailed
directions on how to properly celebrate. I learned to clean my house before New
Years (to sweep away bad luck), and to plan a big dinner (although we have been
known to throw in a bit of Robbie Burns poetry with our egg rolls…), and to
give out Lai See--red envelopes with chocolate to
the children of friends.
The Year of the Dragon starts on Monday. And while the Year
of the Rabbit went quite nicely for us—it’s intriguing to contemplate heading
into a powerful year that is marked by excitement, exhilaration and intensity,
while being unpredictable and having a strong water focus.
To celebrate the start of the two week festival of Spring (well at least it'll be Spring somewhere) we headed to Brisbane’s Chinatown Mall--which really did
turn out to be just an outdoor mall with a few Asian restaurants and a couple
of discount shops. We did find a tasty Dim Sum/ Yum Cha and a lion dance though,
and stocked up on a few necessities for our upcoming Gung Haggis Fat Choy
dinner.
So bring on the Dragon.
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