Preparing for the Dragon, day of gathering

It is finally the last day of the year of the Rabbit and all preparations to welcome the year of the Dragon are now complete. According to Chinese New Year tradition, today is the day the entire family come together and have a nice dinner. Dishes on the menu must include cured sausage, cured meat, a whole fish and a whole Chicken. These food are usually accompanied by other expensive food the family can afford to enjoy. Some families would have these cooked at home but head out for a fancy dinner at restaurants too.

On this day, there are several traditions that must be practiced for the sake of good fortune. The most important portion is the gathering of all family members. It is an awfully sad thing to not have the family together even for one meal during this period. The Chinese is a very family oriented culture and everything surrounds the family. There are similar cultures in the west, some classic examples are the Greeks and the Italians. Since China is a big country, some people would leave their homes behind for a job. These children would head home each year and normally arrive before this day to visit their elders and to spend time with them.
Of all the food, the cured meat products, the fish and the chicken cannot fully consumed. To be precise, only half of it is put on the table of this night while the other half is allocated for Jak Nin, 砸年. Jak Nin basically means to keep the food for next year, this has multiple symbolic meanings especially when all three of the food have at least one symbolic meaning to each on top of just being food on a table. Take fish for example, one possible homophone of fish in Chinese is the character for excess. It is lucky to have excess of food and money in the Chinese culture, therefore fish is used to link the two years together in representations of excess. This is an extra layer of symbolic meaning on top of the fact that the family can afford a fish, remember that China was primarily an inland farm based economy.
For the young ones who are in their prime, this is the night they must stay awake to ensure the year passes peacefully. According to Chinese mythology, the year is represented by a creature called Nin. This creature comes out at the end of each year to look for food and would usually target humans. However it is possible scare the Nin away by keeping the house lit or the burning of fire crackers. These two tradition are reserved for the younger ones of each household to practice. Some sons or daughters of the modern Chinese household would stay away pass midnight to symbolize this practice, in the past all younger family members would stay awake the whole night. The goal of staying awake is to ensure the Nin would not come near or take their elders away. It is a very respectful practice and I believe it should be maintained.

Another practice is the Art Sui Chin, 壓歲錢, a specialized version of the red pocket money given from the elders to the young ones to protect them. It is originally a blessing from the owners of businesses in China, where their workers have somehow lost their personal fortune during the year and cannot afford to head home. On this day the business owners would sneak a red pocket of extra money under the worker’s pillow, allowing them some money to start the new year. This has since expanded to a custom practiced in families as well.
These customs are some but not all of the practiced customs on this day, Chinese New Year is no doubt a gigantic occasion for the Chinese. Within a culture’s tradition you can easily see how that society have grown and developed.

Tags: Chinese, Chinese New Year tradition, excess, family, family members, fish, food, home, Jak Nin

Preparing for the Dragon, day of cleaning

That was a lot of cleaning! Today is the twenty-eighth day of the last month in the Chinese calendar, it is commonly known as the day of cleaning! In Hong Kong and the province of Canton, this date is marked as a day of cleaning in preparation for the new year.

In Cantonese there is a saying, 年廿八，洗邋遢 (Nin yar bai, sai lek tek). It is a common phase to all Cantonese speaking people and is roughly translated to state that on the twenty eighth day of the last month, remember to clean all your dirty things!

Therefore most Chinese would take this day to clean their belongings. For me it meant an eight hour marathon of house chores. I am so exhausted right now!

Tags: Cantonese, date, Hong Kong, preparation, Preparing, saying, the Chinese calendar

Kitty goes to the vet

Approximately two weeks ago, as I was playing with my Cat, Alex Tiger Junior, and I noticed that one of his claw seems to have grown so long that it wrapped around and was sticking into his front leg! I immediately researched the issue on the internet and have learn some terms about a cat anatomy that I never knew before. The claw that I noticed is called a dew claw, it is different from the other claws as the dew claw is not used for walking. The term for the claw growing so long that it starts to stick into the cat’s flesh is called an ingrown claw and must be removed by snipping the claw. Once the claw is removed, the animal technicians would normally pour hydrogen peroxide on the wound to kill any bacteria around the cut. In a case where the claw is in too deep, a vet would prescribe antibiotics to the animal. After finding out all of that information, I went to my local vet to schedule an appointment.
I took Tiger in a pet taxi, a mobile cage for pets, to the vet. On the examination table both the vet and myself attempted to get Tiger out of the pet taxi for examination. He put up a glorious battle with our hands and resulted in the vet taking him along with his pet taxi to the back for detail claw examination.

Since they were in the back, I started to look around the examination room and at the equipment the vet uses. There were bottles of chemicals and devices that resembles their counterparts in clinics for humans. Of all the equipment, two glass jars of pet treats with the term Medi-treats caught my attention. From the symbol, it looks like one jar is designed for dogs and the other for cats. It must be treats the vet used to lure the animal’s attention away during an examination.

After a short while the vet came back with Tiger in his Pet taxi, sloped to the rear as Tiger mostly kept as far a distance as possible between himself and the gate of the Pet taxi. As the vet placed Tiger and his carrier on the examination table, she explained to me that two claws were ingrown instead of one. She said that as cats grow older, they lose their ability to shed their claws and would end up with ingrown claws. Her suggestion is for me to either get a claw clipper to help trim Tiger’s claws regularly or bring him back to the clinic for a trim. She wrapped his paw with bandages to help stop the bleeding but would not expect it to stay on for long as cats tends to lick it off within several hours.
After she have finished educating me on how to trim a cat’s claw, I took Tiger back to the waiting room to wait for the payment call from the reception desk. During this period I took a look a Tiger, he was absolutely pissed off at me. He was so angry that he refused to even look at me.
When I took him home, he started avoiding me. As soon as I enter a room, he would leave it. This behavior lasted for a few hours until he noticed that his paw is no longer hurting him. At which point he started asking for kitty treats.

Now that he knows visiting the vet does not equal to torturing him, several times he tried to climb into the Pet taxi right in front of me. This behavior is almost as if he is asking when will we go back to the vet, stupid cat!

As for the paw bandage that the vet said would stay on for several hours, it came off within thirty minutes after we got home.

Tags: Alex Tiger Junior, back, cat, dew, dew claw, examination, taxi, vet

Preparing for the Dragon, things to avoid.

In preparation for the Year of the Dragon, I went shopping for some new decorations at a local Chinese Store. When I looked very carefully at some of the merchandise, I simply started laughing aloud.

Traditionally, red lanterns are hung whenever there are any celebrations in a Chinese household. There may be symbols or characters of the family’s last name written on these red lanterns. White lanterns are never used for celebrations as white lanterns are used for funeral only, these lanterns are usually marked with the character for ‘death ceremony’ on it in blue. Simply put, the characters written on lanterns are very important in Chinese culture.

In one of the stores I visited, red lantern are hung as a display and are also available for sale. The only problem with this merchandise selection is that two of the available choices are completely not related to Chinese New Year. The first of the two lanterns have the words Siu Yuo, 燒肉, written on it while the other saids Chuen Siu, 串燒. Siu Yuk is the famous Roasted Pork, with the crispy outter shell available in many Chinese roasting shops. Chuen Siu are little pieces of meat on a small bamboo stick, barbecued and flavored. It is extremely famous in the countries of Malaysia as Satay and Japan as Yakitori. There is nothing really special about the design of these lanterns. To be precise, these lanterns cannot be considered as Chinese style lanterns at all. They are closer to Japanese style lanterns in terms of design and are commonly seen as signs for Japanese restaurants. Just imagine hanging that lantern out for New Year celebrations. *roll eyes*

The second funny thing I found is the hanging decorations available for Chinese New Year. A famous portion of the Chinese New Year celebration is the Lion Dance, 舞獅. In Cantonese, the pronunciation is Mo See. When you hang it up like the picture above, it is called Dil See, 吊獅. The problem arise now primarily with Chinese grammar. In Chinese, some animals such as fishes, dogs and lions must be referred to as a tail, 條 (read til), when talking about their number or performing any actions on them. So in Chinese we would say we hang the Lion up with 吊起條獅, Dil Hay Til See. That sound extremely normal until you take the homophone version of Lion, the symbol for corpse. It can read Dil Hay Til See with the symbols 吊起條屍, since corpse can also be described by the word tail in Chinese. Essentially to hang the lion for decoration is now related to hanging up a dead corpse for decoration. Who on earth would want to do that?? hahahaha!

Tags: Chinese culture, Chinese household, Chinese Store, Chuen Siu, Dil, merchandise, New, problem, red lanterns, til

Preparing for the Dragon, Je Jo

Today is the day of Je jo, 謝灶. It is the twenty third day or twenty forth day of the twelve month in the Chinese calendar year. There is a traditional rule passed down specially designed for this day, something sweet and sticky must be created in each family.

Je jo literally means Thank Stove. According to Chinese mythology, the god of Stove is call 灶君, Jo Kwan, a god that have been known to have multiple forms and gender. Jo Kwan is present in each household near the stove area, monitoring each family. On the day after Je jo, Jo Kwan would return back to the heavens and have a detailed report to the king of gods, 玉皇大帝. This report covers everything the family have been doing for the past year and the gods would reward or punish the family and its members according to their past act. The sweet and sticky food offered to Jo Kwan today is to glue his or her mouth together, disabling the reporting in relations to the family that offered the sweet. Since traditional Chinese have a very high sense of self respect and awareness, anything that is consider common living standards today are classified as bad. Some examples includes lying, earning too large a profit, starring at a pretty woman who is not your wife, etc…. Hence everyone would need Jo Kwan to keep his or her mouth shut when reporting.

A customary rule for Je jo is commonly referred to as 官三文四, Koon sam man sei. This translates to “government hires on the third and citizens on the forth”. It is a rule of thumb used to celebrate Je jo. Basically Je jo starts on the twenty third day of the twelve month but only government officials celebrate on this day. The next day is the twenty forth of this month and is celebrated by the common citizens.

Traditionally speaking, after this offering, Jo Kwan would return to the heavens and monitoring of the people would seize. Hence some people would let some minor bad habits into their lives during this period, until the return of Jo Kwan in the new year.

Tags: family, god, Jo Kwan, Jo Today is the day, mouth, Preparing, Stove, third day, traditional rule