Wishing you all a most prosperous lunar New Year of the Golden Pig.
Already finished the banquet with about 20 excellent dishes, the bambinas are hyper, relatives are digesting on the sofas and watching TV, I have a load of brownies in the oven, and the sound of exploding fireworks is already noticeable with 3 hours to go before armegeddon. Seriously, I can hear the distinct and almost continuous sound of firecrackers going off in my neighborhood now.
There is a dull roar of distant fireworks, and as I type this my neighbor is starting to fire off rockets. Said neighbor lives in a mansion built in 1946, is a property developer, and certainly subscribes to the general Chinese belief that the more fireworks one blows off over the next 2 weeks (but especially at midnight tonight), the more prosperous the year of the pig will be.
Come midnight, there will be a roar of explosions that will go on continuously for at least 30 minutes accompanied by a thick cloud of gun powder. It will be loud for at least a few hours.
The Chinettes are 26 months now, so maybe next year I’ll be able to buy my fair share of the fireworks and blast them off out in the driveway. My favorite is a big ass cardboard box with 12 rockets that shoot up 20 stories and then explode. Ya light that sucker and run for cover. Alas, with the rug rats, I have had to curtail my pyrotechnic proclivities and play the calm parental unit instead. This is about my 20th Chinese New Year, and ya know what, it’s still about as good as it gets.
Happy Year of the Boar to all my fellow (and sister) hogs! We’re in some pretty illustrious company, if I do say so my born-in-1959-according-to-the-Gregorian-Calendar self!
Weekend Edition, on NPR, was talking about how The Year of the Pig was supposed to be a really propitious year to be born and that there were hospitals gearing up for an overwhelming wave of births, this year, among city dwellers who are permitted only one child and have been planning over the last 11 years to do it this year. One Chinese astrologer was interviewed who was saying, rather disgustedly, that the Chinese media had it all messed up and that this was the year of the Fire Pig, not the Golden Pig, and that all the kids born this year were going to have cranky personalities.
(They didn’t give his credentials, so I don’t know how accurate he was.)
Thanks China Guy. You too. We’re in Bangkok, but lots of ethnic Chinese live in Thailand. Like the wife. We’ve been making the rounds of her family this weekend. And there’s a large beautiful Chinese-style temple down below our balcony, and it’s buzzing with activity today.
I envy China Guy being in a loud, noisy center of celebration! It used to be that I could go down to Chinatown here in NYC to experience the non-stop roar of firecrackers and drums, with the streets clotted with the red paper of spent firecrackers under the feet of lion and dragon dancers and the air heavy with the scent of gunpowder. It was a major tourist attraction as well as a defining memory of what Chinese New Year is supposed to be like.
Then about 8 years ago under Giuliani, the city began a “crackdown” on illegal fireworks, and more or less shut down Chinese New Year celebrations. They now allow a single official firecracker exhibition but it’s nowhere near the same. It’s a crying shame is what it is. Funny but I don’t see the crackdown extending to all the kids still firing off bottle rockets and firecrackers in my neighborhood on the Fourth of July…!
Just wondering, have the other major North American Chinatowns – San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC or Montreal – had their New Years similarly Bowdlerized? Now that I have kids the watered down New Year’s is really starting to bug me. I wouldn’t mind taking them on a trip next year to see “the real thing” (without actually going overseas).
Well, as I’ve posted elsewhere on this board, my wife and I will be adopting a baby from China. Given when we expect to go over to China to pick her up (most likely October '07-March '08) and her age when adopted (between 6 and 12 months), that means she’ll be born this Year of the Pig.
So, those of you who know the calendar better than I: what is said of children born in the Year of the Golden Pig? Will she paint pictures? Will she sing songs? Give us your wise reply.
Happy New Year, China Guy! Glad all your gals are doing so well. Do tell about the Dragon parades. i remember my Step-dad taking us to whatever US Chinatown we were near for the celebration, and I loved the Dragon parade. Almost as much as the fireworks!
I’ve seen Fire and Golden both used, just like you see Pig and Boar. Just a matter of translation, I guess. But whereas the Year of the Pig (or Boar) comes around every 12 years, the Year of the Golden Pig comes around only once every 60 years, so this is an especially auspicious year to be born in. So my advice to you is: Try to be born now.
I’m too lazy to search it out right now as am still stuffed from all the food. That said, one school of thought says the Golden Pig is a marketing ploy to get people to buy more jewelry. That it is the Fire year instead.
At least in China these days, people don’t generally use the element part but just the animal. Eg, they don’t say fire pig, just year of the pig.
BUt this is a special Year of the Pig, isn’t it? Not just the run-of-the-mill variety that appears every 12 years. This one appears once in six decades, hence the Golden designation.
My favorite is a big ass cardboard box with 12 rockets that shoot up 20 stories and then explode. Ya light that sucker and run for cover. Alas, with the rug rats, I have had to curtail my pyrotechnic proclivities and play the calm parental unit instead. This is about my 20th Chinese New Year, and ya know what, it’s still about as good as it gets.
