CHINESE NEW YEAR

Gong hei fat choi! Congratulations and be prosperous! This is a traditional greeting in China during the celebration of the Chinese New Year! We decided that as a family we would celebrate the arrival of this wonderful occasion each year with our beautiful daughter in the hope of keeping alive memories of her life in China.

This Chinese New Year is especially meaningful as it is our first year together with Jessa Li home and this weekend also is our three year LID-anniversary of our adoption journey! Today certainly marks a new beginning for Jessa Li and our family as we look forward to all that this new year holds for us and pray with hope for God to continue to soften and melt our hearts together as one. We are so thankful she is finally home and look forward to all that God has planned for us in this new year!

We decided to celebrate at our local Chinese restaurant and the girls looked so beautiful in their new Chinese silk outfits!

"Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is a celebration of new beginnings in China and is greeted with great anticipation by all families. It is often called the Lunar New Year, especially by people in mainland China and Taiwan. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival. This year the Chinese New Year began on January 26, 2009 with the New Moon and will end on February 15, 2009 with the Full Moon and the celebration of the Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade. It is a time of family, fellowship, and food. It is also full of superstitious rituals which the Chinese believe will lead to a year of health, happiness, and prosperity. Many of the traditions of Chinese New Year center around food either being cooked or eaten.

To all people who trace their roots back to China, the most important date in the Lunar calendar is Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival, a traditional time for feasting with family and friends that dates back thousands of years. As at all traditional Chinese gatherings, food plays an important role in the Chinese New Year Festival. Dinners tend to be very elaborate involving tables laden with auspicious foods. On New Year's Eve, families have a reunion feast."

This year is known as The Year of the Ox based on the Chinese Zodiac chart. Chinese families celebrate differently depending on where they live, but for the most part many traditions and rituals remain the same all over the country. Here are some that our family attempted to follow in trying to better understand Jessa's birth country and the reasons behind rituals.

DECORATE DOOR FRAME WITH COUPLETS

• The doors and windows are decorated with paper cut outs and scrolls that call for longevity, wealth, happiness and good marriages with many children. In some houses, paintings are hung with the same themes. Food offerings are made at the altars of the ancestors. On walls and doors are poetic couplets composed of two poetic sentences which match and rhyme with each other to express hopes for the coming year. They contain happy wishes written on red paper. These messages sound better than the typical fortune cookie messages. For instance, "May you enjoy continuous good health" and "May the Star of Happiness, the Star of Wealth and the Star of Longevity shine on you" are especially positive couplets. The couplets are written on red paper and usually in Chinese calligraphy. Red couplets and red lanterns are displayed on the door frames and light up the atmosphere. The air is filled with strong Chinese emotions.
• Chun lian is a special type of Duilian, or couplet. It is used only during the Chinese New Year as part of its celebration. While duilian is permanent, chunlian is a temporary decoration to be placed on the entrance of the house, somewhat akin to Halloween and Christmas decorations. Duilian comprises of a couplet written on vertical strips of red paper in the best calligraphic style one can muster. In addition, a third horizontal piece may be posted across and on top the door. Chun lian is written on red paper with ink.

HANGING PAPER-CUTTINGS ON DOORS

We noticed many of these "daofu" signs displayed on doors in Beijing. Angela's neighbor's home proudly displayed the daofu "happiness has arrived" sign as well as the red couplets alongside their door frame. This was in August, so clearly the Chinese love to keep up their New Year decorations all throughout the year!

• Paper-cuts, usually with auspicious patterns, give a happy and prosperous atmosphere of the Festival and express the good wishes of Chinese people looking forward to a good life. In addition to pasting paper-cuts on windows, it is common for Chinese to paste the character “fu（福）”, big and small, on walls, doors and doorposts around the houses.
• “Fu（福）” shows people’s yearning toward a good life and means good fortune, blessing, and happiness. Some people even invert the character “fu（福）” to signify that blessing has arrived because “inverted” the character is a homonym for “arrive” in Chinese "fu dao le" or "daofu" and becomes a play on words symbolizing that "happiness has arrived" at the home.

RED LANTERNS

• "Fifteen days after New Year's Day or the day of the first full moon, the New Year's season comes to end with the Feast of Lanterns. The festival of the lanterns is an ancient tradition to usher in the increasing light and warmth of the sun after the winter's cold. Some of the lanterns may be works of art, painted with birds, animals, flowers, zodiac signs, and scenes from legend and history. People hang glowing lanterns in temples, and carry lanterns to an evening parade under the light of the full moon.
• In many areas the highlight of the lantern festival is the dragon dance. The dragon—which might stretch a hundred feet long—is typically made of silk, paper, and bamboo. Traditionally the dragon is held aloft by young men who dance as they guide the colorful beast through the streets."

CHINESE KNOTS

This fantastic Chinese Knot was a gift from our dear friend Angela whom we were lucky enough to stay with in Beijing. She gave it to our family while we were in China wishing all of us good health and wellness!

• "The characteristic of Chinese Knot is that every knot is made of a single rope and named by its specific form and meaning. Chinese knot is actually an ancient art of weaving and Chinese people have used knots as decorations since the Han Dynasty. Now people in China are still intrigued by the secrets and complicated beauty of traditional red knots.
• "Knot" In Chinese has the meanings of reunion, friendliness, warm, marriage etc, so the red Chinese knot has come to be the symbol of reunion, luck, harmony, and love. Chinese knots are often used to express good wishes, including happiness, prosperity, love and the absence of evil.
• Traditionally, a Chinese knot must be bent, tied and crafted from a single red rope, to express the endless circle of happy life. That is the most important characteristic of Chinese Knot. By combining different knots or other auspicious adornments skillfully, a unique auspicious ornament, especially the red-colored which represents beauty, happiness and wishes, is formed."

THE COLOR OF LUCK

• For Chinese New Year celebrations people wear red clothes, decorate with poems on red paper, and give children "lucky money" in red envelopes. Red is a very lucky color for the Chinese, it frightens off the Chinese New Year monster 'Nian' who arrives at this time of year and destroys crops and homes. "Nian" has three weaknesses: it was frightened by noise, sunshine, and the color red. So villagers built fires, set off firecrackers, and painted the doors to their houses red and placed red couplets beside the doors.
• Red to the Chinese also represents good fortune, fame and riches. Red symbolizes fire, which according to legend can drive away bad luck.

FIREWORKS

• They also enhance their celebration with fireworks.The fireworks that shower the festivities are rooted in a similar ancient custom. Long ago, people in China lit bamboo stalks, believing that the crackling flames would frighten evil spirits.
• Shooting off firecrackers on New Year's Eve is the Chinese way of sending out the old year and welcoming in the New Year. On the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, every door in the house, and even windows, have to be open to allow the old year to go out.

HOUSE CLEANING TRADITIONS

• This custom shows a good wish of putting away old things to welcome a new life. In a word, just before the Spring Festival comes, every household will give a thorough cleaning to bid farewell to the old year and usher in the new. Dust” is homophonic with “chen”（尘）in Chinese, which means old and past. In this way, “sweeping the dust” before the Spring Festival means a thorough cleaning of houses to sweep away bad luck in the past year.
• The entire house should be cleaned before New Year's Day.On New Year's Eve, all brooms, brushes, dusters, dust pans and other cleaning equipment are put away. Sweeping or dusting should not be done on New Year's Day for fear that good fortune will be swept away.

The girls and I spent theday before "Spring Cleaning" LOL! Sweeping, vacuuming, and dusting to be prepared for New Year's to arrive. They are both great helpers and just love to be entrusted with a task and then praised for accomplishing it! Their little eyes light up with sunshine when I say, "Thank you Girls! WOW! You helped Mommy so much!"

• After New Year's Day, the floors may be swept. Beginning at the door, the dust and rubbish are swept to the middle of the parlor, then placed in the corners and not taken or thrown out until the fifth day. At no time should the rubbish in the corners be trampled upon.
• In sweeping, there is a superstition that if you sweep the dirt out over the threshold, you will sweep one of the family away. Also, to sweep the dust and dirt out of your house by the front entrance is to sweep away the good fortune of the family; it must always be swept inwards and then carried out, then no harm will follow. All dirt and rubbish must be taken out the back door.

THE GIVING OF GIFTS

• Tangerines and oranges are given as gifts, as their Chinese names sound like "gold" and "wealth". During the week long New Year celebrations, every household keeps their tables topped up with sweet and savoury specialties so they can welcome family and friends with a choice of festive treats.
• Another prerequisite of Lunar New Year is the "tray of togetherness", a tray or special box filled with an assortment of auspicious treats. Among the more popular treats are sweetened lotus roots (symbolising abundance), sweetened lotus seeds (suggesting fertility), dried melon seeds (symbolising profuse earnings), and all kinds of candies, which are a source of long-term sweetness.
• Hongbao is money placed in a red envelope and given to children during the New Year celebration. The older members of the family will give the youngsters a red (for luck) envelope with a gift of money. The elderly may also place the red envelopes under their pillows on the Chinese New Year's Eve to give them surprises. The money is wrapped in red envelops called hongbao in Chinese.

  

This photo cracks me up! Caught-Red handed! LOL! It appears that our Lil' Empress was searching her Daddy's pocket for her very own hongbao!

• The custom in China is much like the one in western countries that Father Christmas comes down the chimney and places gifts in children's stockings when they are sleeping. As in China color red is connected with good luck, the red envelopes are supposed to protect children from evil spirits. The custom is extremely popular with children. But what they really care about is the lucky money inside the red envelopes, which they can use to buy the things they like. It is no wonder Chinese kids love red so much!

Our kids LOVE the Fortune Cookies! They are like tiny little suprise packages wrapped up in a yummy cookie! What's not to like! LOL! So we each opened one up and had fun laughing together as we read our fortunes to each other.

A FEAST WITH PURPOSE

Almost every dish has a symbolic meaning or name that sounds like a Chinese characters for fortune, happiness, longevity and prosperity. Great care is taken to serve an even number of dishes to bestow "double happiness" on the family.

Jessa Li LOVES her un-cut noodles!

• To ensure completeness and to avoid misfortune, most New Year dishes are prepared with uncut or whole ingredients. You are probably familiar with a duck or chicken being served with the head and feet. When cooking, people generally avoid chopping up fish, leafy greens and other items such as noodles. Noodles should be uncut, as they represent long life."
• In south China, the favorite and most typical dishes were nian gao, sweet steamed glutinous rice pudding and zong zi (glutinous rice wrapped up in reed leaves), another popular delicacy.








• In the north, steamed-wheat bread (man tou) and small meat dumplings were the preferred food. The tremendous amount of food prepared at this time was meant to symbolize abundance and wealth for the household. On New Year’s Eve, the whole family will sit together to make Dumpling and celebrate the Spring Festival. The shape of Dumpling is like gold ingot from ancient China. So people eat them and wish for money and treasure. The tradition of having Dumpling is very important during the Spring Festival.

According to most Chinese traditionalist, we cannot have a complete Spring Festival without having Dumpling; therefore, we definitely had dumplings to eat! Jessa and Andrew really love them the most!

APPEARANCES AND COSTUMES

• On New Year's Day, the Chinese are not suppose to wash their hair because it would mean they would have washed away good luck for the New Year.
• They also make sure to have their hair cut prior to New Year's Day so that they do not cut away their luck or good fortune.
• Red clothing is preferred during this festive occasion. Red is considered a bright, happy color, sure to bring the wearer a sunny and bright future.
• It is believed that appearance and attitude during New Year's sets the tone for the rest of the year.

We pray this New Year will bring with it a deeper sense of wholeness to our little girl and that she would begin to bloom, and shine, and sing for joy at the goodness of our God to bring beautiful blessings out of the ashes of mourning! As we prayed tonight for her foster family and her birth family, we have a deep sense of belonginess to these precious people even though we have never met them. These dear women who gave our daughter so much! There are few days that I don't think of them and know that Jessa is here with us because of their efforts to love her safely into our home, into our loving embrace. We pray their year will be full of new beginnings and much happiness filled with lots of moments for rejoicing in new blessings too!

MAY THE YEAR OF THE OX BRING YOU SUCCESS, ABUNDANCE, AND HAPPINESS TOO AS YOU EMBARK ON NEW BEGINNINGS.