For Chinese New Year, my extended family usually gathers for a meal on Chinese New Year's Eve where we eat traditional Chinese New Year foods. What are traditional Chinese New Year foods and why do we eat them? Uh...well, I'm not entirely sure. But there's generally always fish, dumplings, rice cake (nian gao), and other stuff. I do know that we're not supposed to finish everything because the leftovers are symbolic of having plenty for the new year. At least, that's what I've been told.
So last night I drove up to the East Bay for Chinese New Year dinner. Rather than eating home cooking, we ended up at a restaurant. My aunt, who is a very good cook and usually cooks everything for Chinese New Year dinner, is in Shanghai for the new year. We had fish, dumplings and other stuff, but no rice cake. That was kinda disappointing, but probably better for me from a caloric standpoint. It was nice to see everyone, but the food was not nearly as tasty as what my aunt prepares.
The other really cool thing about Chinese New Year is the red envelopes you get! For those of you not familiar with this tradition, after you pay your respects (bai nian) to your elders, they give you a red envelope filled with money. But since I'm married now, I'm not supposed to get red envelopes anymore. (boo) Instead, I'm supposed to give them out to the single people who are younger than me (read: my cousins). Did I have red envelopes prepared? Nope. Why not? Well, two of my cousins were not home for Chinese New Year, and I wasn't sure if the other one would be at dinner. Thankfully, no one called me (or my other married cousins) on it. What was surprising was that I (and my other married cousins) received red envelopes from my grandma, uncle and mom! Cha-ching! Maybe they forgot we were all married...probably not. Maybe my family doesn't follow the "No red envelopes after you're married" tradition. Or maybe they'll stop giving them to me after I have a baby and give it to the baby instead.
You might be wondering why I'm using the first person singular, I, instead of the first person plural, we, for this post. Well, it's because Greg did not join me last night. He had volleyball. Someone asked me if it bothered me that Greg didn't attend this family function since this is a big holiday for my family and he's my husband. It doesn't really bother me that he didn't go. I think he doesn't really enjoy these gatherings because my extended family either prefers to or can only converse in Mandarin. Really, how much fun can it be if you can't understand most of the conversation and/or very few people talk to you? While I can't really speak Mandarin very well, I can understand most of the conversation and contribute with Chinglish. If I had a choice between volleyball (or some other activity you enjoy) or going out to dinner with people I couldn't really talk to or understand, I would prefer to play volleyball. Wouldn't you?
3 comments:
Hey, that kinda happened to me! (On a smaller scale.) But my fiance who, as you know, is white, went along cuz he enjoys fobby stuff. He even embroidered Chinese words and zodiac things and framed them for my parents and grandma as a New Year's gift, and received red envelopes in return. He is trying to learn Mandarin, too.
I forgot to mention that my mom gave me a red envelope to give to Greg even though he couldn't make it to dinner. And the red envelope that my grandma gave me had Greg's name (written in English) on it. Does that mean I have to share the money with him? =P
Cindy - Wow! I bet your fiance earned a lot of brownie points with your parents and grandma. I think it would be different if Greg was remotely interested in learning Mandarin and/or if my extended family made the effort to speak to him in broken English. I'm sure it would help if they could remember his name too.
Well, "Greg" is a hard name to say for Chinese non-English speakers. Maybe you should rename him "John." haha.
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