This is my second time not spending Chinese New Year in Hong Kong or China. The first time (2005) I was at a conference in Auckland, New Zealand. Both my former supervisors, Dr Alderson and Professor Kerr, were there and the latter gave me my first red packet that year. I think the NZ dollar note is still somewhere in my ‘memory box’ in Tin Shui Wai.
This year, I did not receive any red packets (my mother is keeping all packets for me to pick up when I return to HK) and was working on the second day of the New Year (Tuesday 20 January 2009). I also did not play cards with my parents and sisters on CNY’s eve (playing cards is our CNY family tradition). No fireworks. No Spring Markets.
How I miss the usual family gathering! Here’s one of the pictures of my family celebrating the festival:
It is the year of the Ox and many of them tried to transform themselves into that animal, for just one photo.
To console me the partner took me to a dim sum restaurant in China Town on Saturday 18 January 2009. China Town – many red lanterns swayed in the gentle London breeze (the Buddha would say it’s really my heart that’s moved) and there were hundreds of tourists and locales taking pictures.
Then, we went to the Darwin Big Idea Exhibition and were reminded how we all share one origin and that we are all the same in the end. From embryos to skeletons.
Updated on Sunday 1 February 2009: I used the example of the owl butterfly to illustrate some of Darwin’s ideas to my parents and my youngest sister, Holy. Holy is very intersted in owls.
I know you said people in the west use the year of ‘ox’. But according to my dictionary, Collins Cobuild: an ox is a bull that has been castrated.
I am unsure about this. In ancient China, we use cows to help farmers on the field and also for sacrifice, which means that they are highly valuable and we won’t castrate them.
Seems like ox is not a very good translation.
恭喜發財!!
去了外地嗎?!應該難得聽到中文的祝賀語吧
那讓我來拜個年
祝你牛年
事事順順，身心健康 :-)
恭喜恭喜
CNY in London is definitely more “Chinese” and traditional than the one in Edinburgh, though I did manage to go to some CNY dinner parties organised by my Chinese/HK friends and it was great fun too! No “lai see” from mum and dad – even when my sis came over to the UK to see me…they said they haven’t got pounds at home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
大家姐, 新年快樂!!! 媽咪幫你keep住d利是, 番o黎陪你拆, 初四我都幫媽咪拆利是, 好開心, 佢係公司豆得仲多利是過我, 哈哈, 無計la, 今年少左你個封, 第2時你讀完書番o黎一定要去大封d補數架. I Love you~~~有無野要我再寄比你, 有就講!!!
真係好似貓頭鷹對眼呀!!!!
interesting~~~
It looks like you are evolving for your new environment and making the most of living in London.
For an interesting look on human evolution, I recommend a book called “Third Chimpanzee” by Jared Diamond. Religious nutters aside, Darwin’s ideas weren’t just big because they bumped humans off their pedestal, but also because the consequences of the idea are intriguing in and of themselves.
Oscar: my translator friend has written a post on translating 牛年 into English. Here: http://translators-notes.blogspot.com/2009/02/year-of-bull-without-balls.html.
Thank you Kevin for taking the time to write the entry!
[...] timed to co-ordinate with the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, the production manages to accomplish its goal: to remind us that even though it has been more than [...]