According to Chinese Mythology, there is a special living organism celebrated within the first eight days of the new year. Starting with the roosters and hens day on the first and ending with grain-type on the eighth day. On the first six days, each animal is celebrated by not killing any of their kind. In order from first to eighth are roosters and hens, dogs, pigs, sheep, bull and cows, horses, humans and grain-type.

Yes, Dogs and horses are traditional Chinese food too, they are essentially just meat. Dogs and horses lovers must understand this, for a country that have many mouths to feed and the citizens have been through many wars. Meat off of anything is a luxury. I personally don’t want to eat dogs or horses at the current moment. I would reconsider if we are in World War III right now and we are all starving. At that time, I think most of us would most likely eat anything that moves.

Before little rabbit heads home and is replaced by something else, I took it around for a nice photo shoot. The background is UOIT’s attractive Library.

It is very difficult to believe this little stuffed animal have been at work starring at me for a year already. Surprisingly is that the toy itself is extremely clean, there are almost no dust on it at all.

Well, it is time for this stuffed rabbit to say goodbye to Durham College and UOIT.

Okay I lied, I did not take the stuffed animal around campus. If I did I would look like a moron, maybe girls can do it buy guys can’t. Instead I used a photography trick I was reading about, placing the object in front of a high resolution picture and adjust the lighting to simulate a live shooting environment. I used an extra light to give the toy more vibrant color while the background is a picture from the Faculty calendar. With minor adjustment to the positions, the picture looked pretty amazing considering it is from the ipodTouch’s 0.7 megapixel camera.

The day of Argument in Chinese is 赤口, pronounced as chek hao. The symbols literally translates to red mouth, the description is actually a picture, within this image the mouth of a person is used in a heated argument to the point that it turns red.

In reality people rarely argues during the period of Chinese New Year, most of time even on Chek Hao people would simply pretend to argue about something for fun. This is in a sense increasing the festive atmosphere of the celebrations during Chinese New Year.

One might wonder, why would the Chinese design such a weird practice in a time of celebration? The reason is linked deeply into the traditional practices during Chinese New Year. According to Tradition, there is a practice of visitations to friends and family’s homes during the period of Chinese New year. This is called 拜年, read Bai Nin. Bai Nin is where the minors are most excited since it is where they would receive 利是, Lei Si or Red Pockets. Brothers and sisters whose elders are no longer with them or not physically reachable would than visit the eldest brother or sister’s home for Bai Nin. Chinese Families would than visit friends’ homes for Bai Nin. Every time someone Bai Nin, the greetings would usually start with Kung Hay Fat Choi, and the elders would than hand out Lei Si to the young ones. A special note to Bai Nin, friends of the same level do not hand out Lei Si to one another, Lei Si is only given to those one after you.

A quick example to clarify the practice of Lei Si in English terms. Mike and Amy have a son name Steven, John and Stella have a daughter name Eliza. Mike and John are friends and therefore Mike visits John to Bai Nin. Mike would than hand out two Lei Si to Eliza and John would hand out two Lei Si to Steven. Two because Lei Si can only come from married couples, one from the husband and one from the wife. John and Steven would never exchange Lei Si. However, if John’s Parents or Stella’s parents live with them, when Mike’s family visits. Mike, Amy and Steven would all get Lei Si from John and Stella’s elders.

Now after two days of Bai Nin, most people would be exhausted. Therefore the ancestors of the Chinese have set the third day to be a day of rest. Simply saying it is a day to rest would not encourage the average person to stop their Bai Nin practices, there written into the calendar as a day if people meet they would enter into argument would encourage the practice of resting. This is truly an amazing foresight in my opinion.

This day is actually linked to another post I wrote in the year of the rabbit, . Mei Ah is the last day to celebrate Ah in a year, Hoi Nin is the first Ah of the Year. The same rules apply as Mei Ah, where there is a Mo Ching Kei still possible. Do not think that the Chinese would randomly terminate people’s jobs simply by following traditions, Mo Ching Kei is not commonly used in the old days as relationship between business owners and his or her staff are as close as family bonds. Once a person have started working for a business, they would become part of the owner’s family. Sometimes this type of relationship have grown so strong that they become a real family by 契, read Kai. Kai is a traditional bond building mechanism used by the Chinese. One can have Kai brothers, Kai Sisters, Kai Fathers and Kai Mothers. Once two person have Kai together, their family can join together. It is kind of like how the Italians use the god-father and god-mother relationship only stronger.

Kai family members would be part of the 拜年 (read Bai Nin) tradition, but would not normally be part of the Tuen Nin Fan or Hoi Nin diner group. I will most likely spend sometime in the future to explain what Kai families are in full details.

Kung hay is roughly translated to congratulations or congrats. Regardless of what the event is, congratulating someone implies the event must be positive to the affected person. Therefore Kung Hay can be used on multiple occasions including birthdays, wedding, child birth, etc… Fat Choi means getting rich, kung hay fat choi is congratulating someone on getting rich. it is usually used in a blessing mode, where the person kung haying someone is implying the person will get rich.

So Kung hay Fat Choi!