Hello Everybody!
This is the first blog post of 2022 and it’s already February! I have been lax with updating the blog. It is one of my new year’s resolutions to get better at making time to sit down and write (if I make it my Chinese New Year resolution then I’m not that behind right?!). I hope you have all had a good Christmas and a happy start to the new year. It’s honestly taken me until now to fully recover from the festive period. We had signed up to do some Christmas markets but the biggest one got cancelled at the last minute and it was a mad scramble to try and book space at alternative markets in order to recoup all the money we spent on getting ingredients and equipment and not let the stock we had made for the market go to waste. Now, nearly three months later, they still have not refunded me the fee I paid to participate despite promising to! Lesson learned, trust your gut when something tells you that something isn’t quite right! After that drama and panic, we had to immediately swivel back to fulfilling all your Christmas Pre orders and delivering them prior to flying back to Ireland for Christmas. Gordon and I were both so knackered that we pretty much just ate and slept for the week that we were at my parents’ house. When we got back to Chester, we had a busy start to 2022 with a lot of birthday, wedding and anniversary bespoke orders. Thank you all so much for the support and orders, we do really appreciate each and every one!
Christmas 2022
This year, Chinese New Year (CNY) fell on the 1st of February, which meant that Gordon was only able to come for the weekend while I spent the week with my parents. It felt like we were going back to Ireland in no time at all after having just been for Christmas. Also known the Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival, CNY is the biggest annual holiday across China and is important in many East and Southeast Asian cultures. Every year, millions of Chinese people travel to their family homes, if at all possible, to celebrate with family members and honour their ancestors. The festivities last two weeks beginning with feasting on New Year’s Eve and ending with the Lantern festival 15 days later. Most people get a week off work in order to be able to travel to their ancestral homes. The traditions and rituals around the Lunar New Year are just as varied and important as those for Christmas in the Western world and much like Christmas, preparations often begin in the weeks leading up to the New Year. Growing up in small town Ireland, more often than not, we would have a small-scale CNY at home in Killarney. In areas with larger Chinese communities, families go out for meals in big restaurants where you can seat whole extended families on one huge round table and there are often fireworks and lion and dragon dances. These delighted us as children on the rare occasions we spent CNY in Hong Kong or visiting our cousins in Wales.
Lion Costumes
At home, my parents will engage in a full and thorough spring clean of the house the week prior to the new year. This sweeps away the bad luck from the previous year and prepares the house to welcome good things for the new year. My mother puts up traditional decorations and all members of the household must be freshly washed and showered the night before New Year’s Day. We wear lots of red clothing (even down to the underwear) and eat lucky foods to bring good fortune in the coming year. Our family bans any angry words, fighting and swearing on new years day too, which challenges my mother when we are all around bickering, and Dad is winding her up, as usual. We avoid washing our hair and sweeping on New Year’s Day so as not to wash away the newly acquired good luck. Children and unmarried adults are given red lucky packets (Lai See in Cantonese or Hongbao in Mandarin) stuffed with cash by their elders and married couples. The major bummer since Gordon and I got married is that we now give out, rather than receive the red envelopes (although Mom and Dad do still give them to us). Hubby and I brought gifts of mangosteens, chocolates and crisps to my parents. Traditional gifts tend to be red and round, citrus fruits like pomelos, oranges and tangerines with the leaves still attached are popular, as are plants like bamboo and orchids.
CNY in Killarney 2022
Last year, we, like the rest of the world, were locked down and unable to travel to be with family. This year, we made up for it and had our first CNY with a new generation of Tongs! Our gorgeous niece Elaina was definitely the centre of the party and loving it! Each day of the holiday has different traditions associated with it but we really focus on the feast at the start of the New Year. We had 13 (or 15 if you include Toby and Leo) round the table for new year dinner and the foods eaten are central to the festivities. Fish is traditionally considered lucky but really, it’s a once a year treat so Dad goes all out with luxury dishes and the best of everything. This year we had stir fried lobster, deep fried fish, roast duck, braised goose, pork belly with pickles, stewed beef short rib, dumplings and steamed eggs along with stir fried veggies and rice with the Aunties contributing some of their favourite dishes too. We played with the baby, ate far too much food, played games, cards and mah-jong, went for walks and generally hung out together. We even managed a couple of mushroom foraging sessions too! Back here in the UK, we celebrated with our chosen family, our friends. We will often invite people round on one of the days during the CNY period for a day of games, food and drinks. This year, we played board-games and had a hot pot dinner.
Chester friends CNY party
The new year festivities end with the Lantern festival. This year, it fell on the 15th of February. On this day families will light lanterns, look at lanterns and solve the riddles that are sometimes attached to the lanterns, look at the full moon and eat tang-yuan. Tang-yuan are glutinous rice dumplings filled with sesame, red bean or peanut butter in a sweet soup. I love them, but there are a somewhat acquired taste, being a tad chewy and gooey. They’re a bit like mochi but in a sweet, hot sugar syrupy, soup. The roundness of the dumplings symbolises family and togetherness. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to make tang-yuan this year as we had our first hygiene inspection the day beforehand on the 14th (yes on Valentine’s day). We registered with the council more than two years ago and they finally got round to coming to see us. We were delighted and relieved to get a 5/5 rating so it was worth the wait! I’ll make hubby and I some red bean tang-yuan later this week to make up for missing it and Valentines day too in the cleaning frenzy.
Tang-Yuan:sweet soup dumplings
Do you have any special cultural celebrations and traditions? I love learning about other cultures’ feasts and festivities so hit us with yours!