Advice for surviving Chinese New Year, and stories about experiencing Chinese New Year, with your Chinese family. All from one Western woman with a Chinese husband.
While the other men in the background have to drink up their baijiu, my husband (front and left) is off the hook — because of me.
During Chinese New Year, the alcohol flows as freely as the conversation — and sometimes a little too much so. On the second day of the new year, a lunch packed with mostly male relatives and well-lubricated with baijiu — the vodka-like hard liquor of choice — actually landed two of the men in the hospital for alcohol poisoning.
It works like this. The elder male relatives at the table insist their younger male relatives drink in a gesture of respect. Of course, nobody in Chinese history ever said filial piety involved imbibing the alcohol for your elders — but such reasoning is pointless at the table, where peer pressure and the expectation that “real men” can handle their alcohol rules.
Yet my husband John survived the entire holiday without a single drunken incident and ultimately only enjoying a few sips of red wine by choice. And when I asked him why, he cited me, his foreign wife, as the reason.
“I have a yangxifu,” he said. “You’re a good excuse not to drink.” In other words, because I’m a foreigner here, John’s relatives assume he needs to care for me more than if I was just Chinese (despite my fluent Chinese and years of living in this country). So if he was stupid drunk, he couldn’t fulfill his so-called “responsibility” to me.
We both laughed at this comical idea — that my being John’s wife actually shielded him from the pressure to drink in China.
Still, given John’s low alcohol tolerance, drinking among relatives will always be a dangerous pursuit. So as bizarre as it is, if my presence might save him from a drunken stupor — or worse, a trip to the hospital — I’ll take it. 😉
So long snake and hello horse! We’ve all been busy welcoming the new year these past few days. Much like the firecrackers and fireworks that boom across the village in the evenings, the holiday has been both exciting and overwhelming.
I’ve already attended four huge dinners with family, where the dining tables often become a cacophony of laughing and shouting (often because of those drinking games involving baijiu). I’ve learned to steel myself for the inevitable topic of children — which used to be a question (“When will you have kids?”) and has now become a command (“This year, you must have a kid!”). And strangest of all, I actually witnessed a grown man slumped unconscious in a bamboo chair before our doorway because he drank too much baijiu (sorry guys, no photo of that!).
Still, amidst all of the drama of these past days, I can’t help but feel incredibly loved and appreciated by our family here. Just this evening, the mother of one of John’s cousins stroked my arm lovingly, saying how much she liked us and how she hoped we would return for another dinner soon.
While I relax and recover during those few and precious quiet moments in the day, I’m offering you a peek into the start of our year of the horse through photographs. Again, wishing you a successful horse year! 马到成功！
My father-in-law opens the gates to the family home just before midnight when the new year comes.The family sets off firecrackers and fireworks just outside the gate to welcome the new year.According to the tradition, we always start the new year off with new clothes! Here, John and I have laid out our never-before-worn outfits for the first day of the year.John and I show off our new outfits for the new year outside the front door of the family home.During Chinese New Year, you can always be sure to have lots of visitors at your home! Some of our first visitors in the new year include a cousin and grandparents.The number one activity during Chinese New Year? Eating! These past few days have felt like a dining marathon with one huge meal after another. We ate… (lunch at the grandparents’ home prepared by John’s oldest brother — it’s tradition for the men to do the cooking on the first day of the new year).…and ate… (dinner at little uncle’s home just next door)…and ate…(a huge and raucous lunch at our home which led to at least two people becoming so drunk they had to go to the hospital)…and ate! (dinner at an aunt’s home)But most of all, we felt so loved and appreciated! Here, John poses with an aunt and cousin — this was the aunt who couldn’t stop doting on both of us. It’s so nice to be back home.
This is the first Chinese New Year we’ve spent with the family in China since returning home and it has been one explosive holiday (pun intended)! So in lieu of the usual Friday content, I thought I’d share the day’s excitement with you through photos.
Wish you all success in the year of the horse! 马到成功！
Red couplets — just written by my father-in-law — frame the doorway to the family home and welcome the new year (and the Spring)
My husband John gives our bedroom door a thumbs-up, now that we have a freshly written “success in the horse year” (马到成功) pasted on for good luck!
Visiting the ancestors’ graves, offering them dinner, incense and money for the afterlife.
Family bustling in the kitchen to prepare the big new year’s eve dinner, known as nianye fan (年夜饭)
Before we even sit down to dine, ancestors eat first. Here my family sets the table for them in the entrance way, right down to lighting the candles.
John sets the firecrackers out by the gate to the family home.
Burning money for the ancestors while setting off firecrackers in the background.
The best meal of the year, nianye fan (年夜饭). Since 10 of us sat down for dinner, my mother-in-law said we needed at least 20 different dishes on the table. My favorites? Taro root, winter bamboo, vegetarian meatballs, and water chestnuts.
The whole family gathers around the table for dinner.
Giving the kids in the family hongbao (red envelopes filled with money) for the new year.
Raise the red lanterns! It’s nightfall and the year of the horse is galloping our way.
It’s never too late to follow your heart to Asia. Just ask American writer Janet Brown, who went to Bangkok at age 45 to teach English and ended up falling in love with her newfound home (and, for a brief time, a Thai local). She captured this experience in her memoir Tone Deaf in Bangkok, which reads like a valentine to the city and Thailand itself, the country where she feels most at home.
Then Janet returns to Bangkok at 60 and wonders: could she still remain closely connected to her two sons in Seattle and live happily in Thailand at the same time? That’s the question at the heart of her second memoir titled Almost Home, a book where she also explores the possibility of putting down roots in three other Asian locales — Beijing, Hong Kong and Penang.
Not surprisingly, while Janet currently calls Seattle, Washington home, she has just returned to Asia this year for some traveling and hopes to continue her love affair with the continent.
You’re currently in Hong Kong and have plans to return to Thailand. It must be exciting to return to two places that feel like second homes to you and reunite with close friends there. What does it feel like to be back?
Coming back to this part of Asia is always like leaving one life to step into another. It’s exhilarating and joyful and a tiny bit exhausting at first, because to enter one life you have to be prepared to completely leave the other, if only for a little while. I think we call this jetlag, but it’s really the effects of time travel.
As you chronicled in Tone Deaf in Bangkok, you fell in love with your Thai language tutor, who was much younger than you. Did your attraction to him surprise you and if so, how?
When I first met the man I fell in love with in Bangkok, I didn’t even think we’d be friends. He was so conservative and quiet, but that turned out to be a professional mask that covered the face of a rebel. I fought the attraction as it grew, telling myself it was one-sided and absurd, concentrating on the work of learning Thai and getting to know the person who was teaching me to speak it. Because of the age difference between us, I was hesitant right up until the moment that he first kissed me.
What did you learn from this brief romance? And what did it feel like to see him years later, as you recalled in your book Almost Home?
I learned that love takes many forms and can be expressed in ways that don’t depend upon a sexual relationship. After our physical intimacy ended, we continued a close and loving friendship up until his death. We met each time I came to Thailand on vacation and stayed in touch through email and photographs. I urged him to marry the woman who became his wife and celebrated the birth of their daughter. Even so, when he first brought his family to see me after I moved back to Bangkok and they came on vacation from Italy, it was much more difficult than I had expected. Although we had become friends, the underpinning of that relationship was still the memory of bodies in a dark room, laughing.
Perhaps the greatest gift he gave me was coming to see me without his family the very last time I saw him, ten months before he died. The bond between us was very strong and very tangible; I feel a deep and inerasable loneliness now that he is no longer in the world.
Where will you spend Chinese New Year? What are your plans?
I’ll be in Bangkok this Chinese New Year, as I was three years ago, on Yaowarat Road in Chinatown as the Lunar New Year celebrations began. It was wildly crowded and I left after an hour of walking and staring. I’d left my phone at home and when I entered my apartment, it rang. “I saw you in Chinatown a couple of hours ago. Why didn’t you answer your phone?” The voice at the other end of the line didn’t surprise me. We always found each other in unlikely circumstances, from the moment we first met. Now I find him in unexpected places, with memories that are so strong that they blot out the world for a minute and once again I’m in another life.
As someone who found a new life, love and adventure in Asia over the age of 45, you’re truly an inspiration. What advice do you have for women over 45 who want to follow in your footsteps, including dating men in Asia?
Janet Brown
I think women in their forties now are much more open to adventure than their counterparts were twenty years ago. But to those who think they have to settle into a lackluster middle age, I urge them to take a risk and explore different ways of living—and loving. Skydive, damn it.
For some young Chinese, the very possibility of seeing family means the potential for annoying personal questions — ones they’d sometimes rather not answer (photo by Chew – Lin YIP via Flickr.com)
The other night, while talking to our close Chinese friend Caroline during Chinese New Year, my husband asked a common question. “Did you go out to bàinián?” Bàinián (拜年), of course, is the tradition of paying new year’s calls to your relatives and friends, usually by going over to their homes.
Caroline laughed with embarrassment. “I didn’t want to go out, I’ve stayed at home. People ask too many questions!”
If you’re buying for your Chinese sweetheart, consider giving them some new clothes for the new year — such as this red sweater from Metersbonwe (photo from http://metersbonwe.tmall.com/)
Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails with the same question:
What gifts should I give to my Chinese boyfriend/girlfriend/friend and their family during Chinese New Year?
So to answer that, I’ve compiled a simple guide for navigating the world of gift-giving during Chinese New Year.
New Clothing
If you’re family — or will be family — of your Chinese hosts for the New Year, consider adding clothes to your gift-shopping list. In my Chinese husband’s family, it’s traditional to start the new Lunar year dressed in a new outfit from head to toe.
Don’t worry, though — chances are, no one expects you to furnish everyone in the family with a new set of clothes. That said, you might at least consider buying your boyfriend/husband or girlfriend/wife a little something special that will keep them warm, such as a new sweater or knit shirt, a new coat, a new hat and gloves, or even a new pair of socks. Opt for anything in red or pink, those auspicious colors for the new year.
And remember — if your Chinese sweetheart is about to enter their Chinese zodiac year (also known as their ben ming nian — běnmìngnián, 本命年)), don’t forget to buy them some red underwear! (See my ben ming nian gift-giving guide for more on this, as well as other gift suggestions.)
Nourishing and Nutritious Foods/Supplements/Herbs
Gouqi, or wolfberries, are a favorite nourishing fruit during the winter months (photo by Wstefano at English Wikipedia)
As the Chinese saying goes, dongling jinbu (冬令进补) — roughly, winter is the time to nourish your body. And Chinese New Year is the time to give gifts of nourishing foods, supplements and herbs.
In supermarkets in Mainland China, Taiwan and beyond, you’ll find an entire aisle devoted to nutritious herbs and medicines, usually already boxed and ready to gift — royal jelly, ginseng root, spirulina, and more. Beware, though — many of these items are for more senior folks, which means a twenty-something Chinese relative might not necessarily appreciate your ginseng root. Ask the store’s associates — or, better yet, your Chinese sweetheart/friends — for suggestions on what to purchase. Still, if I am going to purchase ginseng, I love buying American ginseng roots, which are available on Amazon.
Some of the best — and safest — bets for this category include upscale versions of those nutritious foods that Chinese families commonly enjoy in the winter months. Think guiyuan, Chinese jujubes, gouqi (wolfberries), or even black sesame seeds. Opt for organic or “green” choices where available, and be sure to get it boxed and/or wrapped to make a good impression.
Chinese also love nourishing teas — such as those made from ginseng, or even the ginger/Chinese jujube one I discovered in the summer of 2011.
Don’t forget one of the most nourishing options — vitamins. You’re usually better off giving them to your senior family members. My preferred choice of vitamins in China comes from the brand By-Health (汤臣倍健) — you can purchase them online on Taobao and also find them in most major supermarkets.
Nowadays, foreign-made vitamin supplements are just as ubiquitous in China as McDonald’s — but that doesn’t mean you should always buy in China. After all, sometimes the relatives appreciate the cache of foreign-bought gifts.
Sometimes you can score better quality for less abroad. Whole Foods, for example, offers great value with fish oil supplements, multivitamins, vitamin E and more, under their 365 brand. The same could easily apply to many quality supermarkets across the Western world.
Or, in other cases, you find something impossible to get in China. Years ago in Hangzhou, my neighbors begged me to buy Amway’s garlic supplements (not sold in China) during my trip back to the US.
Spirits and Smokes
Spirits such as this double black Johnnie Walker make great Chinese New Year gifts for Chinese men (photo by rakyan ‘boyan’ tantular)
Not sure what to buy for the men in your Chinese family? Consider boxed/wrapped fine spirits or cigarettes, either of which will find a welcome home during the many dinners and social visits during the holidays. In China, the foreign brands still hold more cache, so consider my previous advice:
Alcohol. If he’s a drinker, consider picking up a foreign brand of scotch, whisky or brandy, such as Jack Daniels, Johnnie Walker or Glenlivet. Chinese men will also love French or Italian wines as gifts.
Cigarettes. Foreign smokes still light up many a Chinese man’s face — as a gift. Consider major brands such as Marlboro or John Player.
Fruits, Nuts and Candies
“Here, have an orange.” Whenever I visit someone’s home in Chinese New Year, invariably someone thrusts a piece of fruit into my hands — and more often than not, they’ll also push trays bursting with mixed nuts/sunflower seeds and individually wrapped candies right in front of me.
When in doubt, give them a fruit basket (photo by Matthew Hoelscher)
So guess what also makes a nice gift during the Chinese New Year holiday? Gift baskets and fruit baskets.
When in doubt, go for a fruit basket, preferably with something more exotic than the local apples. Though keep in mind, auspicious choices include oranges and Mandarin oranges (they remind people of golden coins), but not pears (whose Chinese name sounds like the word for separation).
If you opt for nuts or candies, make sure they’re something unusual or special. In other words, avoid the peanuts but go for the hickory nuts or Chinese nutmeg yew nuts (delish!). For candies, if you really want to make a splash, choose a foreign brand such as Godiva Chocolates.
Want to send a gift basket to China from overseas? Make it easy by purchasing from Gift Baskets Overseas, where you can find an excellent selection of fruit baskets and gift baskets filled with wines, spirits, chocolates, cookies and more. (Disclosure — I’m an affiliate for this company.)
(photo by Victoria Pickering, via her Flickr stream)
John smiled with admiration as he hung my new down jacket up for me. “You can wear it on chuyi,” he said, a Mandarin term for the first day of the Chinese New Year.
This down jacket would join the red underwear, red bras, red long-sleeved shirt, red sweater, red-striped socks, and the jeans tucked into a Calvin Klein bag in the corner of our closet.
My heart fluttered with excitement, even though it surely seemed out of place in the Northern US in early January, a time when the snow outside our window looks as white and melancholy as a funeral in China.
But my marriage to John has become my own personal solution to the January blues — with him in my life, I now have another holiday to look forward to. And according to the tradition in his family and hometown, that means a new set of clothing — it’s auspicious to start the lunar new year wearing something new from head to toe.
There’s also a Chinese New Year’s Eve banquet for us to prepare. I imagine stir-fried bok choy, pickled daikon radishes, homestyle tofu, and the roast duck and ribs that will make John salivate, along with an auspicious dessert of eight treasures glutinous rice.
And I can’t wait to take a trip out to the local Chinese supermarkets, where we’ll find a wealth of decorations for the new year — plastic red firecrackers, red couplets, and, hopefully, a lovely paper snake we can hang on the wall.
So, January, do your worst. I’m not afraid of your mournful, snowy days, a time when most people struggle to return to their lives, leaving behind all the holiday mirth and magic. I’ve still got more holidays yet to enjoy — not to mention one gorgeous down jacket that awaits me — and I’ve got a Chinese husband to thank for that.
Here in the Northern US, January can hit you like a bad after-Christmas hangover. Suddenly, everyone’s pulling the plug on their merry outdoor Christmas lighting. You see sad little evergreens — once Christmas trees — tossed on the side of the road for garbage collection. And as if that weren’t enough, you’ve still got to hustle through the two coldest months of the year.
Thank god I’m married to a Chinese.
The addition of Chinese New Year to my holiday calendar not only stretches my season out almost three months, but also gives me a sense of anticipation and excitement during a time of the year when most Americans wouldn’t expect it.
As I’m getting back into the swing of 2013 — and getting over a cold — I thought I’d share a few posts from the archives related to Chinese New Year. I’ll be back with regular posting starting on Monday, January 7.
Carolyn J. Phillips: On Charming A Chinese Family Through Food. We all know Chinese New Year is really about the food. Last year, I interviewed Carolyn Phillips, a yangxifu who has devoted her adult life to mastering the art of Chinese cooking, about her passion, and she offers a banquet of inspiration for your Chinese New Year’s feast.
Red “good fortune” earrings with a copper backing (from Jean Toh’s Etsy.com Store)
In the US, this Friday (aka Black Friday) kicks off the holiday season. For John and me, that means Christmas all the way through Chinese New Year.
Most years, I’m excited at the prospect of making spiced pumpkin bread or Chinese-style jiaozi, and decorating our home with Christmas tree lights and duilian. This year, though, the holidays — specifically, Chinese New Year — fill me with some trepidation.
Well, even though this is going to date me, here’s the deal — I’m a snake, and 2013 is the year of the snake. That means, in Chinese zodiac terms, 2013 is my benming nian (běnmìngnián, 本命年), the year of my birth zodiac sign.
The number one gift for anyone about to face their Chinese zodiac year? Red underwear. (photo from flickr.com by Priya Ranganath)
Unfortunately, your benming nian is traditionally considered unlucky, something I have firsthand experience with. During my last benming nian, I moved five times in that year, worked three soul-crushing jobs, and suffered two months under a sadistic roommate. My father came down with a life-threatening condition during his benming nian; my mother, sadly, died during hers.
Fortunately, though, the superstition about your benming nian comes with a so-called solution in the form of gifts. Supposedly, with the right gifts from family and friends, I could breeze through 2013 — and quite possibly have one fantastic year.
With that in mind, I decided to dedicate my usual holiday gifts post to those people on the eve of their own Chinese zodiac year. What should you get them this holiday season? Here are a few ideas:
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