Happy Year of the Ox!

Blogging from Bruce
Vonda Keon
January 26, 2009

Happy New Year!
I started suspecting something was up when Ping tried her hand at cooking rice. She can cook a lot of things but rice is not one of her accomplishments. I finally went in a got the rice cooker going for her instead of her trying to do it on the stove top. Then Ji Eun began helping me clean up the kitchen and she was talking…..a lot! She is usually very quiet but tonight she was talking to me about Korean traditions at Sol and the traditional foods and how Ping could tell me more.

Later on they were both in their rooms changing the linens and hanging up clothes and washing clothes and just doing general all around getting their rooms in order. I thought about taking their temperatures to see if they were running a fever! As the evening progressed, Ji Eun came downstairs and asked what special songs I wanted her to play on the keyboard.

A few days ago I came home and she was playing the piano and she plays beautifully. I mentioned that I wished she could learn a couple of my favorite special songs so she could play for me in church. I gave her the sheet music and she started practicing!

I decided that I better check the internet to see what holiday was upon us. Then it jumped right off the screen. The Lunar New Year! This is the week of the Chinese New Year also known as the Lunar New Year in Asian communities around the world. The date of the new year is determined by the lunar calendar, so festivities begin with the new cycle of the moon that falls between January 21 and February 19. Each year is named for one of 12 symbolic animals in sequence. The animals, in their sequential order, are the rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and boar. This year of 2009 is the year of the Ox. It sounds like it is going to be an obstinate year!

I read about all of the Asian traditions concerning the Lunar New Year. In the Asian countries they will take any where from 3 days to 7 days of holiday and each day different things are done. They have quirky traditions as we do as to what foods are eaten and my favorite one, cleaning the house before and hiding the broom because you want to start the New Year with a clean house and you don’t want to do any sweeping during New Years because you might sweep all of your new good luck out the door! They shoot firecrackers and fireworks off to chase away the bad (where did you think we got that noisy tradition from!) and it is also the time when the paper lions and paper dragons dance in the streets in the parades.

I wish I could cook their traditional foods for them but I am woefully inadequate when it comes to that and all of the Chinese restaurants in Oxford are closed for the week so no help there! Perhaps having the rice cooked for them and cooking a nice big meal on Monday night will suffice this year for them. I once spent Christmas in Japan and even tho I was with my mom and dad and sister, it still wasn’t the same.

Thanks to technology they can visit with their families on the internet, but they can’t eat their moms cooking or hug their relatives or get their little red envelopes of lucky money.

I decided to look on the Chinese Horoscope page and see what animal year I was born in. 1953 was the year of the snake. And according to the calendar it is a favorable year for me. Erin was born in the year of the Monkey and I had to laugh as I read hers. Ariel was born in 1990, the year of the horse. ‘Nuff said! Scott was born in 1962, the year of the Tiger. Ox and Tiger and Horse are not very harmonious.

Its fun for me to learn about the different cultures and the underlying things that make up their lives and lifestyles. It helps me to understand the diverse community that is my family and my workplace. It’s a small world you know and getting smaller every day. Happy New Year!