Chinese New Year
Last night we celebrated Chinese New Year at Red Rock Asian restaurant. Despite it being considered bad luck to prepare food on this particular day, and fish being traditional, only Jo had a seafood dish. I think it may be the first time everyone found what they ordered to be absolutely delicious.
It's the Year of the Dexterous and Sociable Rodent (or similar). Apart from the great food, it was very kid friendly. We got martial arts demos - swords, and a dramatic style of Vietnamese unarmed combat. That, too, was kid friendly. Everyone left their kids in the play area, where everybody was kung-fu fighting. We were all a tad mystified by a lettuce of some kind hanging from a string way up by the ceiling in the kids' play area. Perhaps it was also the Day of the Suspended Vegetable. But consider, Grasshopper, all things in life have a purpose.
We suffered loud gongs and drums, very atmospheric and they should keep evil demons away for at least a year. Ultimately a lion-dance lion, accompanied by a Buddhic figure, entered, and a very good lion it was too.
The Buddhic figure insisted on rubbing my tummy in an effort to get me to rub his very false one for luck. I will consider it luck if my hearing remains intact after the drums and gongs.
We found out that the suspended lettuce was for the lion, which after a number of nice leaps, stretches and lunges, stood on its hind legs (or its component shoulders), took the lettuce in its mouth and ate it (yes, bits of lettuce dropped to the floor).
We had small red envelopes with Chinese characters left on our tables and eventually we realised they were for gifts to the performers, via the lion. Part of the custom is apparently for adult and married family members to give money in that manner to children at New Years. The numeric value of the gift is also significant - an odd amount or one ending in "4" being bad luck, even amounts being fortuitous, and "8" signifying prosperity.
The lion moved around the restaurant, posing dramatically, and the envelopes plus cash were put in its mouth. It grabbed my arm and seemed to want to keep it. Possibly it was only confused as my donation was divisible by either an odd or even base number and quadratics were asking way too much.
Anyway, the lion got its donations, then a second red lion joined us. Red is also an appropriate colour at the season, again to terrify evil entities (which is of course an interesting reversal of how M. Night Shyamalan saw red in his movie, "The Village"). This was clearly the Less Fortunate Lion as everyone had already given to the previous one. But there's a lot to be said for using lions to extract donations.
We had one more animal type represented that night.
EJ was the walrus (ku ku kachoo, or possibly gu-gu-ga-joob.) Maybe next year can be the Year of the Punkinny Maritime Mammal.
It's the Year of the Dexterous and Sociable Rodent (or similar). Apart from the great food, it was very kid friendly. We got martial arts demos - swords, and a dramatic style of Vietnamese unarmed combat. That, too, was kid friendly. Everyone left their kids in the play area, where everybody was kung-fu fighting. We were all a tad mystified by a lettuce of some kind hanging from a string way up by the ceiling in the kids' play area. Perhaps it was also the Day of the Suspended Vegetable. But consider, Grasshopper, all things in life have a purpose.
We suffered loud gongs and drums, very atmospheric and they should keep evil demons away for at least a year. Ultimately a lion-dance lion, accompanied by a Buddhic figure, entered, and a very good lion it was too.
The Buddhic figure insisted on rubbing my tummy in an effort to get me to rub his very false one for luck. I will consider it luck if my hearing remains intact after the drums and gongs.
We found out that the suspended lettuce was for the lion, which after a number of nice leaps, stretches and lunges, stood on its hind legs (or its component shoulders), took the lettuce in its mouth and ate it (yes, bits of lettuce dropped to the floor).
We had small red envelopes with Chinese characters left on our tables and eventually we realised they were for gifts to the performers, via the lion. Part of the custom is apparently for adult and married family members to give money in that manner to children at New Years. The numeric value of the gift is also significant - an odd amount or one ending in "4" being bad luck, even amounts being fortuitous, and "8" signifying prosperity.
The lion moved around the restaurant, posing dramatically, and the envelopes plus cash were put in its mouth. It grabbed my arm and seemed to want to keep it. Possibly it was only confused as my donation was divisible by either an odd or even base number and quadratics were asking way too much.
Anyway, the lion got its donations, then a second red lion joined us. Red is also an appropriate colour at the season, again to terrify evil entities (which is of course an interesting reversal of how M. Night Shyamalan saw red in his movie, "The Village"). This was clearly the Less Fortunate Lion as everyone had already given to the previous one. But there's a lot to be said for using lions to extract donations.
We had one more animal type represented that night.
EJ was the walrus (ku ku kachoo, or possibly gu-gu-ga-joob.) Maybe next year can be the Year of the Punkinny Maritime Mammal.
posted by DadB | 3:28 PM
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