xīn nián kuài lè

aka: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
the chinese new year lasts a total of fifteen days.. yeah. no joke. quite the process.. someday i want to stay in hong kong or somewhere in china for the whole celebration. mark my words. it is truly fascinating. so much history.
lion dance! so i finally got to see a lion dance. this has to do with the chinese new year. i live with malays so i wasn't surrounded with chinese new year celebrations or information but they did inform me somewhat. so this is what i gathered: chinese families will hire a lion dance company to come to their home because the belief is that this blesses your home and wards off evil spirits. this is crucial to do when a family has recently moved into a new home.
botta boom botta' bang: that's why they have the drums and later in the night pop fire crackers. they are the noisy kind, not the big beautiful ones. (i mean, sure in the big cities they'll have a display show but fireworks are illegal here to begin with but since it has to do with their beliefs, they get away with the noisy ones).
anywho, the lion performs doing a dance and stunts then he will take a melon/oranges and crouch down to prepare it, then he lifts up and pushes it out for the head of the house to receive. after that the family will have the lion come through the home to brush it's paw on tables/beds etc. to bless it. companies/schools will have celebrations too and hire the lion to come perform. this was a low key lion dance.. i really would love to see one of the famous lion dances with the dragon dances as well. (like in mulan!!?) ahah. i asked if they had any parades like that and nobody knew what i was talking about...
also, they give out red envelopes, also called hong bao (mandarin), which have money inside. they will hand them to the lion dance performers but it is tradition to give them to all who are unmarried. once you are married, you give one to your parents and then you must give to all who are unmarried.
oranges: these represent gold for their color and that they will bring wealth. so everyone is giving/getting mandarins. every business has them as well as every home. for the past two weeks i have had more mandarins than ever before in my life.
red, translates to: "prosperous" and it is everywhere. reason: suppose to ward off evil spirts and scare off bad fortune. but it also symbolizes virtue and sincerity.
gold: brings wealth and luck.
i know they gamble a lot during the new year so men will gather and play poker during the nights. one night we had six men over and they played well into the morning playing poker and TEXAS HOLD 'EM. i felt a fool for not knowing how to play... so i walked on the treadmill and read instead of sitting watching them play and chain smoke for hours.
i wish i had more to share about the new year... especially since it lasts so long. but i know that most of the chinese people around here even leave for quite a bit of the holiday to go home to the husband's parents home. so kuala lumpur was pretty quiet for a few days.
lastly, mcdonalds celebrates the chinese new year with selling a prosperity burger. i snapped a shot of the advertisement i saw promoting their double prosperity burger for y'all. they apparently do this every year with offering a "chicken" or "beef" burger. i'm not trying this food. sorry guys.