Happy Lunar New Year!
No, we're not Chinese, but one of our daughters is, and this leads us down a tricky path. It is important for us to recognize and honour her heritage. To deny it would be denying who she is and where she came from. At the same time we don't foster any delusions that we are a Chinese family celebrating in the way a "normal" Chinese family would. That would be impossible. So in the mean time we cobble together a modest celebration to acknowledge the event without, hopefully, bastardizing the whole thing and throwing at our daughter some funky white westernized version of the real thing. Fortunately I've had some tips from our daughter's former foster mother. We are also lucky that our girl is still young enough that as long as the festivities involve authentic Chinese noodles it's good enough for her.
5 comments:
How fun! And, such a great thing to do for your daughter. You'll have to share some of the festivities, because I can honestly say I haven't a clue how one would celebrate Lunar New Year! (I'm assuming it involves way cooler things than our New Year customs of noise makers and watching Dick Clark.)
Let me see ... you're supposed to clean the house from top to bottom (symbollic of sweeping out the crud from the past year and making way for the good of the new year), though that didn't really get done at our house (maybe just a partial). The kids are supposed to get a new outfit and a haircut (since mine recently had cuts they just got a token trimming of the bangs). "Lucky money" is given to the kids in fancy red & gold envelopes to invoke good fortune and wealth. There is feasting with lots of nummy food. If we were actually in China (where the neighbours wouldn't call the police with a noise complaint) we would light off firecrackers in the street to discourage bad spirits from hanging around and there would be hours of fantastic fireworks. We're hopeful that sometime when the girls are older we will get to experience an authentic Chinese New Year.
I know the dance. I'm doing it now. Embrace the Canadian? Go out of our way for the heritage? Do we do this with every member? Ya.
Hey Happy Ox Year!
When is Canadian New Year and how do you celebrate it? Maybe I'll swing on up from Michigan to check it out.
Your daughter is very fortunate. I think it's great that you honor her heritage.
Happy New Year!
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