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Thursday, 17th July 2025

Irish Born Chinese

Happy Lunar New Year

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:

Holy moly! This cooking rice kerfuffle

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. 🤔

Title: Happy 4717th Chinese New Year

Happy New Year to all IBC and friends! A quick annual write-up.

Chinese New Year of the Pig

It's early this year and there will be festivals in both Dublin in Cork. What will you be doing?

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