Valentine's Day. What's That?

Chinese New Year completely overshadows Valentine's Day which falls on the same week. Valentine's Day is definitely not the same commercial holiday as it is back in North America, but that didn't stop our family from throwing a party for some of the other homeschooling families that had stayed in town for the holiday.

Thankfully, the weather cooperated for our party and we were able to have it out on the back patio. Our 400 square foot home is too small to have a party inside, but the patio area provides the perfect entertaining spot to host gatherings. The kids crafted on the picnic table and then played Uno inside. The moms chatted while my lovely assistant entertained the kids. The kids left the party on a sugar high after eating donuts and drinking cotton candy!

Well Wishing Festival.

We came in search of the Wishing Tree and immediately saw it from the road. It's an artificial tree that you pay to trow artificial oranges onto. The saying is that the higher the orange and your wish lands in the branches of the tree, the more likely your wish is to come true. If you throw your orange and it falls out of the tree, but you repeatedly try to make it into the tree, you are being greedy with your wish. Although our family does not believe that wishes actually come true, it was a fun tradition to participate in.

We also wrote down a couple wishes on the floating lotus flowers that we then set free to bob around in on the water. The kids wished for Lego sets and I wished for a particular bracelet. We made sure to make silly wishes since we were doing it all in fun. 

We walked around the festival and ate our new favorite tang-hular treats, a bowl of noodles, and some bean curd. There was a shuttle bus from Tai Po going directly to and from the festival, making transportation accessible. Although it's not a religious festival for our family, it is a religious festival for other people who attended and there was plenty of incense burning and alters set up for prayer. 

Victoria Park For CNY.

During the Chinese New Year holiday, we met up with some friends at Victoria Park and experienced the festival that the park had put on. The crowd was thick, and although there were bright bold signs directly traffic flow, people were walking in any direction that they chose, adding to the chaos and confusion of the large crowd. Our kids were excited when they saw a tang-hular and got to sample one. They had read about them in the book "Little Pear". 

Although we live next to the Flower Market in Prince Edward, we walked through the pop up flower shops that were in Victoria Park specifically for the CNY holiday. There were plenty of lucky orange trees, lucky bamboo, orchids, and other brightly colored flowers for sale. 

Closed For Half A Week.

I had forgotten from the previous year, that Hong Kong shuts down during lunar Chinese New Year. This is the equivalent to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and our New Years. For four to five days all our shops were closed. The restaurants around us that remained open were Thai or Korean. As an event designer trying to plan a party at the end of the week, I was a little stressed with not knowing where to purchase the craft supplies I needed. On each closed shop door, the establishment was very kind to inform their customers when they would reopen, but as an expat who does not read Chinese characters, I was unable to read their signs. 

Chinese New Year 2016.

This year was a different Chinese New Year experience for us from last year. Last year, being our first year in Hong Kong, we tried to experience everything that the city had to offer, and this year we found ourselves in the bed with a stomach bug. We opted for a steak dinner at Tango in Soho with friends, instead of joining the crowds in Tsim Sha Tsui to watch the parade. We thought about bringing a picnic to the park with our friends the following night to watch the fireworks, but woke up with the stomach bug. We saw several dragon and lion dances from the window of our apartment that were happening down on the street below us, but we didn't make any extra effort to check them out and watch them. I love the decorations that get put up around Chinese New Year, the bright colors and the lanterns have a festive beauty to them.

Cultural Faux Pas.

We have enjoyed eating at Michelin star restaurants here in Hong Kong, and we recently found the list for Michelin star street food. After compiling a list, we set off to try some local cuisine. At a shop in Sham Shui Po, we ordered the recommended food item, and then my husband spotted an item covered in sesame seeds. Being a fan of sesame seeds, he ordered it and I noticed that the shop owner hesitated for a very brief second before she put it in the bag. We stood on the street by the shop to eat our recently purchased food items and saved the sesame seed treat for last. As my husband and daughter tried to take a bite out of it, the noticed that it was extremely hard and lacked any flavor. A woman standing next to us passing out pamphlets let us know that the sesame treat was really an treat you set on a shrine and offer to Buddha and was not intended for human consumption! We made sure to discreetly dispose of it soon after. 

Riding The Hong Kong Observation Wheel.

The weekend before we left for Singapore, we rode the Hong Kong Observation Wheel. It's a relatively new tourist attraction here in Hong Kong, opening up after we moved here in July.

Lantern decorations were still up for Chinese New Year, and they were just coming on while we rode the wheel.

We went around on the wheel four times, which took us around half an hour. The line wasn't long and we were able to get on almost immediately.

We timed our ride to take place during sunset so that we could have a view of the lights slowly lighting up the skyscrapers along Victoria Habour. 

A Subtle Reminder.

We were standing on Haiphong Road getting ready to watch the Chinese New Year parade, when I looked behind me and saw this small yellow umbrella sticker on the brick wall. A little reminder of Occupy Central and the Umbrella Revolution that is still going on today. If we hadn't been stopped and standing directly in front of the brick wall, I probably would not have seen it.

So We Did It - We Experienced Our First CNY In Hong Kong.

Reflecting back on our first Chinese New Year here in Hong Kong, we were thankful to experience it. Most of our colleagues left the country for the holiday, but our family wanted to have the full experience.

Thursday and Friday of the new year, we found the shops, local bakeries, restaurants, and local grocery stores closed. If we're in Hong Kong next year, I'll definitely remember to stock up on bottled water as well as groceries beforehand. The main malls and the shops inside the malls were still open on both days. Fortunately there is usually a grocery store in each mall, so our unprepared family was able to purchase food.

The week leading up to the holiday we also saw flower shops with an overabundance of floral displays. When I went to the Flower Market in Mong Kok to pick up my centerpiece for our holiday dinner party, it was an exciting madhouse of activity with additional plastic buckets of flowers and branches spilling out into the street. In Kowloon City there were more flower shops than the usual, with some also selling on the front steps of the market's entrance.

Thursday morning we started hearing the popping of firecrackers around lunch time. Friday morning the firecrackers were set off a little earlier, around mid morning. It's fun to have a story to go along with the popping of firecrackers. We knew that the people setting them off were trying to scare off the dragon Nian.

We found public transportation to be a little more difficult during the holiday. Minibus' did not run as frequently causing them to be more crowded and a little harder to find a seat. The trains were busier as well. It is tradition for families to travel in order to visit their eldest relative during this time, so there were plenty of people carrying gift bags and dressed in their best.

We handed out our red packets with both hands to the doormen of our apartment building as well as to some friends who have young children. We did not hand them out to our single female friends though {sorry friends}, which is a tradition here. We knew not to give out coins in the packets, but I'm not sure how crisp our bank notes were. We did not want to stand in line at the bank to withdraw new bills.

CNY Fireworks.

Just like the Thursday night before, when we watched the parade, we met friends on Friday at 4:00 p.m. to walk to Tamar Park for a picnic so that we could stake out a spot to watch the fireworks in celebration of Chinese New Year. 

This was our first time visiting Tamar Park, and it was an ideal spot to watch the fireworks over the harbor. With plenty of space to picnic, our kids enjoyed running around in the four hours we were there before the show started at 8:00.

Our picnic was casual. We had plenty of munchies and three different dips to sample. We picked up a couple buckets of fried chicken from KFC in Admiralty to share with our friends. Using coupons that we picked up before the parade in TST, we purchased a Hello Kitty cake from Maxim's Bakery.

Occupying two children for four hours required several games of tag, several games with the Uno cards, playing catch with a volleyball and a tennis ball, and a lot of attention from their adopted Aunties.

The fireworks show started right on time and lasted almost 30 minutes! It was a fantastic show, with Chinese characters, goats/rams/sheep, and Valentine's hearts in the display! The crowd with us in Tamar Park was not bad at all. There was no one pushing into your back which meant there was plenty of space to enjoy the show. 

Here's to 2015 and the year of the goat/sheep/ram!!! 

Mall Displays.

I have to share the cutest mall display for Chinese New Year. As you've read on this blog, this is the year of the sheep/ewe/goat. Apparently it's the same word for all of those animals. Every mall has some type of prominent display up for CNY. We were meeting a friend to go ice-skating in Elements, when we saw the cutest animal interpretation for the new year.
 

A giant sheep knitting it's own ball of yarn coat. Smaller sheep made out of different wool designs. In some small way it reminded me of a yarn bombing. The knitter in me got really excited and fell in love with the theme for the whole mall. My personal favorite interpretation was the sheep with the different balls of yarn as the coat {pictured with my son}.

CNY Parade 2015.

By 4:30 p.m. we had staked out an area on the parade route and claimed our spot for a good view. The parade did not start until 8:00. Yes, we were there a ridiculous amount of time ahead of schedule, but we weren't sure what to expect and wanted to be prepared.

We definitely had a great view. With the crowds pushing on us from behind, vying to see the parade, we weren't budging from our spot. There's nothing like arms with cellphone camera's being shoved over your shoulders and having your head knocked a bit. 

The floats were fun to look at, as well as the various dragon dances that walked in the parade. The most unexpected act of the parade was watching the Denver Bronco cheerleader's dance in it.

Chinese New Year Dinner Party.

With our living room doubling as our formal dining room, I hosted a Chinese New Year dinner party for some girl friends. Our house may be tiny, but community is still very important to me, and being able to have friends over is essential to life. So we squeezed in five other ladies into our 400 square foot apartment, while my husband took the kids on a date to see a movie in the theater and eat dinner at their favorite restaurant.

There is a list of foods that one is supposed to eat at Chinese New Year. Truth be told, we ended up ordering Thai food for our dinner party as opposed to the more traditional foods, because some of my guests were a little apprehensive about trying new foods. Traditional foods however, include {but are not limited to} turnip cakes, dumplings, long noodles, and whole fish.

Chinese New Year According To My Son's Mandarin Homework.

Both of my kids are learning to speak and write in Mandarin at their school. This morning after I cleaned out my son's backpack, I pulled a sheet of Mandarin homework for vocabulary review pertaining to Chinese New Year, so I thought I'd share with you what was on the sheet!

We are really excited about spending the holiday here in Hong Kong and we're hoping to fully participate in as many festivities as possible.

Another name for Chinese New Year is "gun - hay - fat - choow". "Gong - sshee faa-tseye" {happiness and prosperity} is a common way to greet each other throughout the period of Chinese New Year.  There is a big focus on honoring family members during this time. A family will meet together at the eldest living parents' house even though the rest of the family may live all over Hong Kong. It is the custom to stay up late on the eve of Chinese New Year.

It's also common to give out red packets which are filled with money to bring luck and seal blessings. Children {and single ladies} receive these from adults on Chinese New Year. Older relatives will give the red packets of money to the younger relatives for good fortune. The envelopes are also known as "ang pow". 

Food is a large part of the Chinese New Year holiday. Foods including fish and dumplings {which are considered auspicious in the Chinese culture} are served either at home or at a restaurant. Dumplings is a food served as the last dish on Chinese New Year's Eve and represents "surplus". Chocolate gold coins is a food served on the eve as well, and represents "gold treasure". Oranges is a fruit that sounds like "good luck" in Mandarin.

There are special performances of the traditional lion or dragon dances during the Chinese New Year holiday that bring good luck and are associated with drums and firecrackers. Fireworks is a kind of small explosive that creates noise and smoke that claim to scare the evil spirits away.

Chinese New Year Stalls.

Right now the market stalls are full of decorations in preparation for Chinese New Year. The colors are beautiful to see. There is so much red and gold. The color red symbolizes good luck, money, a celebration, and joy.  Gold is a sign for wealth, completeness, and a metal. 2015 is the year of the goat, so you see a lot of decorations around Hong Kong depicting this animal.