Where I am from, lunar New Year celebration means a lot. How it is celebrated has its symbolic meaning to affect the amount of prosperity in the year to come. Therefore, even though I am here in York for the New Year holidays, I am trying all I can to decorate my flat with as much festival atmosphere as possible and instill in my friends' foreign minds with loads and loads of ancient legends concerning the New Year of the Rooster; I am sure they all think I am out of my mind because I have been sounding 100% superstitious and old-fashioned, a very different aspect of me indeed. Traditionally, the New Year holidays or what we call, in Chinese, 'spring festival' should really go on for the whole month, with each day carrying its own special meanings, coming with lots of dos and donts. Give children money in red envelopes; don't blame them if they say something wrong; eat chicken and fish so that the coming year would bring more fortune and happiness; don't swipe out dust because it is bad luck. Now it's the fifth day of the New Year holidays, I still have feasts with friends, constantly. Because I am still in the mood to celebrate the arrival of spring! On New Year's Eve, two friends and I cooked dinner together and invited our international friends over. New Year dinner for twelve of us-that was a massive task, at least for me! I've never cooked for so many people, and never ever cooked New Year dinner at all! In fact, I don't even cook often! Owing to the lack of proper ingredients and experience too, it was quite a miracle our guests called it an enjoyable night. I was paranoid for hours and in the end only to reconfirm that I am not fond of cooking. I do like the games after dinner though-we do have to stay up till after midnight as a kind of filial duty every new year's eve. During dinner, I was keen on explaining to friends about our culture and traditions. At home we do this and that, and if I were home, I would be doing such and such, etc. However, I was more eager than eloquent enough to say whatever I liked to say, and I feared that people thought Taiwanese-Chinese culture and convention to be more shallow than interestingly rich with history: I mentioned fortune and prosperity so many times, and the colours red and golden so repeatedly, that even I started to see my own cultural heritage from a very curious angle, which is new to myself too. That was both rewarding and frustrating. There really is a huge gap between what I know and what I was able to pass on to my friends here. I do hope that shall serve as a beginning for them to want to know more about my culture and where I am from. It would make my study here more meaningful!
Wan-yu
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