This year is the year 4718… in the Lunar calendar. As Asians around the world are celebrating the Year of the Ox, here in Ireland, the Dublin Chinese New Year Festival has already kicked off with live streaming of the Spring Gala from China, activities from various museums, the Asia Market that you can participate it at home.
Here’s Dublin’s Lord Mayor and Irish born Chinese, Hazel Chu, welcoming folks to Dublin Lunar New Year 2021:
It's the 2nd day of Chinese New Year (開年) and according to good ole Wikipedia, it's "when married daughters visited their birth parents, relatives and close friends. (Traditionally, married daughters didn't have the opportunity to visit their birth families frequently)".
It's good to see my mom's village (well, it's like a suburb now), Lam Tsuen (Tai Po) in the Hong Kong news as The Wishing Tree is normally the news during Lunar New Year, but it's closed due to the pandemic. Check it out below (jump to 6:58):-
The pandemic has meant many people can’t visit home, whether travelling back to the Far East, or in my case, down the M50 from Dublin to Limerick (or even have my brother and his wife over for dinner as they are also based in Dublin).
And I’m not the only one missing family at this time of year:
I know that this year, my lucky colours are “black, red and yellow”, all colours I like. Yay!
And here’s my greetings to IBC and friends. 🧧🐮
This took so many takes as my Canto was all over the place.
I hope to produce more videos on my attempts to speak more Cantonese and Hakka (and chat with people, if they are not too shy).
If you are interested in joining me for a chat, your Chinese doesn't have to be perfect, we are all trying our best to speak and remember words. Might I remind you that the above video went through many takes, plus I can edit out stuff. 😆
Here’s some links if you are curious about Chinese Zodiac and other resources like phrases in Cantonese:
If folks haven’t watched the How to make egg fried rice video from BBC Good Foods, you should check it out. But I am also certain there are many ways of cooking rice in different cultures. 🤔
Spring Lantern Festival Spring Lantern Festival is a Chinese festival that is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month.
My POV if Dublin should have a Chinatown I attended the discussion if Dublin should have a Chinatown. I left with a feeling of disappointed and not very satisfied with the arguments for a Chinatown.
Gung Hei Fat Choi Chinese New Year is just a couple of days away. It's the year of the rooster this year.
I'm proud to be Hakka I made a Hakka dish the other night and it's not that complicated but I still looked up the internetz anyway... it may sound silly to you but I was pretty happy about it.
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, even though I'm a day late! Hope you had some mooncake (I'm not a big fan of them as much anymore.) Here's ...
Happy Chinese New Year! If you haven't dropped into Dublin city this weekend, there's still a host of events held to celebrate Chinese New Year. (function(d, s, id) { ...