Tales of Expat Living, Teaching, and Tramping in Taiwan and Beyond.
The full moon has been known to make people do crazy things. Good thing the final day of the Chinese New year is always planned to fall on one. It’s my theory that the spell of the moon is one of the reasons the Taiwanese have the balls to jump into a sea of fireworks […]
Day 10 of Chinese New Year doesn’t really have any specific tradition one must follow such as lighting fires, offering sweet foods to bribe the gods, or eating your first born child. Okay. Just kidding about the last one. Today is simply a day to continue praying and to be with family (assuming you are […]
Jade Emperor, they say it’s your birthday. And by they, I mean the industrial sized fireworks that went off by my building this morning at 7 am. My boyfriend and I (in our half- asleep state) surely thought we were under attack. One would think we would be used to it by now, what […]
The seventh day of Chinese New Year is known as Renri (人日, the common man’s birthday), and many believe this is the day when human beings were created. So today my friends, we are all one year older. Another interesting fact I discovered, is that most Asians add a year to their birth date because they […]
Day five of Chinese New Year is the God of Wealth’s birthday. And what does one do on the God of Wealth’s birthday? Well obviously feast on dumplings, duh. And Karaoke. Yes, you gotta have karaoke. Dumplings (餃子, jiǎozi) symbolize wealth because their shape resembles a Chinese tael, an old school system of Chinese weight […]
I moved to Taiwan 3 weeks ago, and it just so happens that tomorrow will be Chinese New Year. As a guest in this country, I have decided to take the opportunity to experience the New Year like a local, and have made it a mission to take part in all of the traditional Chinese […]
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