Chinese New Year: third and final part

Ah, hello. Welcome back to our highly educational delve into all things Chinese New Year-y. So the basic schedule is laid out thus: general excitement, including decoration of just about anywhere you can hang a lantern (apartment buildings, shopping centres, tube stations, etc.) and open-air markets selling all manner of new year products, like flowers, toys, clothing, red envelopes, paper lanterns - essentially your one-stop shop for anything you could possibly need to welcome in luck/ward off spirits; mass influx of migrant/overseas Chinese to China in the days preceding New Year's Eve; massive dinner on said Eve; much visiting and merriment in the following days (in some parts of mainland China, this can be for as many as fourteen days after New Year's Day! Phew!)

So first, to the reunion dinner. Imagine, if you will, the most extravagant and food-heavy Christmas dinner you've ever indulged in, and then put a distinctly Eastern slant on it. You've got a ton of people travelling back from goodness knows where, expecting you to provide a mountain of tasty treats to keep them going right through to the dawn of the new year. It should always involve chicken and fish - though often only some of the fish is eaten, the remainder being kept overnight, because the Chinese phrase 'may there be surpluses every year' sounds the same as 'may there be fish every year'. (You'd think with the millions of Chinese characters out there, this confusion could be avoided - tsk, tsk!)

As always, there's a bit of tradition thrown in for good measure: apparently in northern China, it's generally dumplings that are made to have at midnight, because they signify wealth, being shaped like a 'tael'.

(picture of the dumpling on the right in case you were picturing one of those suet-based things you put in warming winter casseroles!); whereas southern Chinese say 'whatever' to that idea and buy their dumplings from the supermarket, instead putting their efforts into making a new year cake after dinner, and sending pieces to relatives and friends as the name of the cake, Niangao, means 'increasingly prosperous, year in year out'. Make it yourself!

A couple of other examples of the significant dishes served at this lavish feast include:

*Buddha's delight - a vegetarian dish made up in part of black, hair-like algae (mmmm-hmmm!) due to its Cantonese pronunciation ('fat choy') which sounds like prosperity (you'd think they'd actually call it what it is - weird pond stuff that looks like hair - but maybe people wouldn't be so keen then)

*Mandarin oranges - these babies are all the rage at this time (to the point where what was at first a novelty, the forty-fifth time you see the little orange trees at the door to your building, it's bordering on tedium). As if you haven't guessed already, it's because the Chinese name for them - jin ji - is a homophone of 'golden luck' or 'gold and fortune'

*Bakkwa - pretty much China's version of jerky, where they take some meat, trim off the fat, and then slice, marinate and smoke it to eat later or present to someone as a gift. This is my favourite purely because it's eaten just for the hell of it - it's a portable snack and it's about as unhealthy as you can get!

If you can actually move after the reunion dinner, it's a choice between going to the temple to ask for prosperity and the like, or having a party and a countdown to midnight with your mates. Guess which one's increasingly more popular these days?

The major difference between the new year of the Gregorian calendar and the Lunisolar one, is that the Chinese are not a nation of big drinkers, so the idea, even if you have a party, isn't to get as trolleyed as possible and pass out in front of the fireworks on TV at midnight (as a quick aside, was it my imagination or did the blasted things in London go on for ages the new year just gone??) For this reason, they're not nursing a crippling hangover on the first day of Chinese new year and so partake in a little welcoming of the deities of the heavens and the earth. It's also the day for visiting the big cheese(s) of your family (i.e. the reet old people) and handing out your red envelopes to all the money-grabbing, greedy little..., I mean, to the lovely, deserving children.

On the second day of new year, the married daughters visit their own parents (traditionally, this might not have been possible since marrying) and you have to be extra kind to dogs (yes, you did read that right) as it's believed to be the birthday of all dogs. Er...right, ok.

No visiting's allowed on the third and fourth day because there's a good chance you'll get into an argument - partly because of all the being nice you've already been doing in the last couple of days, but also apparently, as a result of the fried food you've eaten.

Celebrations continue on the fifth day (birthday of the Chinese god of wealth); the seventh day (common man's birthday, meaning everyone gets one year older, and in Malaysia and Singapore everyone meets up to toss the raw fish salad); the ninth day (offering prayers to the Jade Emperor as it's his birthday) and the fifteenth day (rice dumplings are eaten, candles are lit outside houses, lighted lanterns are carried in the street and traditionally, young unmarried women gather to toss tangerines into the sea, in the hope that their future spouse will pick it up). Clearly they all have a thing for sailors in this part of the world.

Believe it or not, there are even more customs and significant happenings around this time of year, but quite frankly, I think I've prattled on enough. Next time there's a special Chinese-New-Year-themed round in your local quiz, you should clean up. No need to thank me. Really.

I do have to offer a slight apology if this has been slightly dull and fact-heavy, as not really knowing a thing about it, I've tried to digest the Wikipedia entry on Chinese New Year and regurgitate it for you good people - which was hard! It took four and a half scrolls of the mouse ball to get to the bottom of the page - that's a lot of information! I plan to be back to my interesting and witty best asap! Especially as I have been reading some more of that alrighttit.com, and dammit - if she can be entertaining, engaging and waggish (thanks, Oxford Thesaurus!) while going through breast cancer treatment, I think I can up my game a notch.