Happy New Year

Xin Nian Kuai Le

No, I didn't read the calendar wrong and miss a month. It is time to celebrate Chinese New Year.

I think I first celebrated Chinese New Year in the late 80's when I was working in international purchasing. The offices and factories in Taiwan shut down for two weeks so it was two weeks to catch up on things at work. Then in 1992 I left Taiwan just before Chinese New Year. When I was single and living in Asia most of Chinese New Year was an opportunity to travel. The office would close for a week or so and it was a great time to travel except that everyone else did so the planes were full and the resorts crowded.

When we were married, we spent Chinese New Year enjoying a bit of quiet. I can remember Taipei being very quiet during the day as so many people left the city either to travel abroad or to return to their home town. Then at night it would get loud with fireworks.

Hong Kong had a bit of a different feel at Chinese New Year. The shopping malls would be decorated. Usually to reflect the zodiac animal.  Here it is from the year of the pig.

In Hong Kong we lived in a rural area. Yes, there is such an area. Not far from our flat they would sell oranges at this time of the year. It is hard to believe that little girl is now 11.

This was one of my favourite photos of her. We walked up to look at the oranges and she was pointing to them.

The market would have all kinds of decorations for sale.

The area around the Star Ferry was usually decorated and so from there you could look towards the island. I miss Hong Kong.

Well, I decided to celebrate Chinese New Year a bit this year. We invited some friends over and made dumplings. I made my own wrappers which was the first and last time to do that. I am guessing that I made 4 recipes of wrapper dough and that was a lot of rolling. J was the master roller and cutter and he did a great job of getting thin wrappers which is what you want. We probably made about 100 dumplings.

We ate them boiled and fried. Fried are my favourite. I also made some fried rice to go with the dinner. We had oranges for dessert.

We had a fun evening making dumplings and then eating dumplings. The kitchen was a mess when we were done but it was worth it.

Happy New Year!

Beth