Being a real Chinese for one day

February 14, 2010 fell on a Sunday this year. For many Americans, they celebrated along with the President's Day long weekend. Here in Japan, women (and only women...men buy things for women on White Day. Another blog topic later) were busy buying chocolates to give to their lovers, boyfriends, husbands, friends etc. In China and for Chinese people all around the world, including myself, we celebrated the first day of Chinese New Year!

Luckily for me, I was able to celebrate Chinese New Year so I can pretty much ignore the whole Valentine's Day thing. I didn't plan on this and it just happened by fate, I believe. A few weeks ago, I was asked by our honbucho (Japanese word for the director) to do an interview with a prospective student. This student, Barbara, was originally from Hong Kong but has been living in Japan for 12 years. Barbara's English level was excellent so it was an easy interview and we hit it off right away. Long story short, we emailed back and forth to meet outside school and we ended planning a trip to see the Chinese Lantern Festival in Nagasaki on Chinese New Year.

I have not celebrated Chinese New Year for a whole day since I was 10! For the past couple of years, I did make an effort to celebrate like going out to eat Chinese food or making Chinese food at home. I have seen some of the New Year's festivities in San Francisco too but it was usually a few hours of wandering around Chinatown before doing some shopping in Union Square. This year, I actually spoke Chinese almost the entire day with Barbara and even got a red envelope! When I was home with my family, I usually speak half English and Chinese so I actually felt that I haven't been this Chinese for a very long time!

So the day started early for me as I met Barbara and her boyfriend, Andrew in the morning for a 2-hour+ bus ride to Nagasaki. When we arrived, Mengya, the girl I trained with, who is also Chinese, greeted us along with one of her students. Our group was like a little United Nations meeting. There was me, American-Chinese, who could speak English with Mengya. Mengya, Canadian-Chinese, who could speak Mandarin Chinese to Barbara's boyfriend, Andrew. Barbara, who could speak Japanese to the student. Nevertheless, it was English which we communicated most of the day.

Once we were outside the bus station, we could see the lanterns hanging all around the city so it was really festive and the city was just packed with people. Here's Barbara and I in Chinatown.

This year is the Year of the Tiger 虎. Apparently, tiger is a sign of courage, fearlessness, and a fiery fighter , revered by the ancient Chinese as the sign that wards off the three main disasters of a household: fire, thieves and ghosts. On New Year's day itself, it is beneficial to celebrate, to be happy, to have smiling faces, and to refrain from scowling, quarreling, or criticizing anyone. Here's a tiger centerpiece at the center of the lantern's festivities:

Food is also an extremely important part of Chinese New Year's celebration. Originally, Barbara and I have planned on eating Chinese food but we ended up eating Japanese for lunch and Korean for dinner. Ha ha! We have absolutely no regrets because everything was delicious. Especially for lunch, we went to a restaurant that is famous for their chawan-mushi (Japanese steamed egg custard), which has ginko nuts, shrimp, crab, mushroom any many more ingredients in it. Look at the colorful, delicious-looking food as we all sat around a traditional Japanese dining room with tatame floors.


Last but not least, it wouldn't be complete to celebrate Chinese New Year's without seeing some dragons. On the way to the Confucius temple to pay our homage, we encountered a dragons parade. Yes, it was me who squealed at the beginning of the video. He he! Anyway...

Gung Hay Fat Choi! Shen Nien Kwai Le! 恭禧發財! 新年快乐!