Preparing for the Year of the Horse

Around the middle of January, all the Christmas decorations were replaced with Chinese New Year ones.  It's the year of the horse (starting January 31st) which is supposed to be an exceptionally fortunate year…nice to know :)

It was so interesting to be in the middle of Chinese New Year celebrations!  Given the fact that in Taiwan they decorate for Christmas--a foreign holiday they don't even really celebrate--try to imagine the scale that Chinese New Year is done up! It feels like the equivalent of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's all rolled into one. Ryely's school was given a 3 week break.  Julien's school followed the work schedule holidays which only include 1/30-2/4, but we pulled him out at the same time as Ryley and took our family trip early in order to get back in time to not miss anything.

There are so many good luck and good fortune wishes associated with Chinese New Year. Prior to this year, the only one I knew was this one below: gong zi fa cai [May you have a prosperous New Year!]

From what I've noticed, you're supposed to clasp your hands and do a little bow towards the person you say it to. After giving this greeting (and in the same breath) kids will ask their family members for a red envelope [hong boa na lai] which will have the traditional gift of money inside of it. 

 The character below this dragon is the coolest thing: it is a compilation of several characters, written this certain way, which basically forms an entire idiom of ushering in wealth and prosperity at New Year time. 

 Tutor Amy had Ben and I practice Chinese calligraphy with trying to write this mega character. For some reason I can't find our pathetic efforts to include in a photo right now :) 

 Chinese lanterns are hanging everywhere…including our dining room.

 You also see a lot of Chinese knots like these.

 This is the character for "Spring" which is often hung upside-down to indicate that it has already come (the words for saying "it has already come" sound like "it's upside-down")

 We decided to decorate our apartment door with some really good Chinese poems which should ensure us a prosperous year to come. Most people leave their poems up all year long until they put new ones on in preparation for the next lunar year. I think we'll just use ours for awhile :) 

 At the market there are lots of decorations and flowers to buy. 

Explaining the "beckoning cat" (one of Ben's favorite Chinese New Year symbols)

Christmas Traditions

Our family traditions have become all the more important when everything else has been so foreign. It feels so good to exercise some competent control even if its only in the little sphere of my family life--it helps things feel more normal. I've missed the taken-for-granted ability to make simple arrangements to achieve desired results. It has been humbling these past 5 months. I think to compensate, I went all out with revving up the family traditions for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

First, we had to make arrangements to get the kids out of school for some "personal days" for Christmas time. Ryley was scheduled to have his English mid-terms during those days so he had to take them in advance. No big deal--he didn't need to study much. At his school, Julien was supposed to be in an English Christmas drama as the star character of "Santa." Luckily I informed his teacher of his upcoming absence early enough that his role was easily changed to "teacher's helper" instead. For the play practices leading up to Christmas time, his job was to help the other kids learn their lines. He loved it :)

For Christmas Eve we had a special dinner that incorporated a few French traditions that I like:

1. I prepared lasagna which is to help us think of baby Jesus' swaddling clothes. Ben had argued that we should do a Chinese version of "swaddling clothes" and eat jiao zi [pot stickers] for dinner. He insisted that the wrapped up veggies and meat filling was even more like swaddling clothes. I was tired of eating jiao zi and rice though and had a craving for lasagna which I hadn't eaten since leaving the States. I won.




2. I also prepared 13 special desserts, another Provencal tradition, that represent Christ and his 12 apostles. I did try and do this one at least partially Taiwanese style. Most of the desserts I got at a traditional Taiwanese dessert shop that is close to our home (right across the street from Mitsukoshi department store).

The shop specializes in Taiwan's famous pineapple cakes--it even has a cute pineapple fountain out front. 

3. Lastly, I really wanted to have a candle-lit dinner. This arrangement was the hardest to make happen because I had troubles tracking down unscented tea-lit candles. After trying a couple different stores with no success, I got a referral from a friend saying that she'd found them before at the store Hola. I found the candle section easily enough but still couldn't find any unscented candles. I finally realized I'd have to suck it up and try to ask a sales clerk--something that is still so intimidating. I got my trusty old iPhone Google translate ready and approached the unfortunate sales lady who would be burdened with my needed assistance. After a few unsuccessful translations, I simply motioned for her to follow me and I showed her a demo model that was using an unscented candle and asked "where?" in Chinese. That seemed to make some headway and the lady started talking at me and pointed to an area on the shelf. All I caught was the expression "I'm sorry." In efforts to end the conversation that I had no comprehension of, I responded "that's ok, don't worry about it." I bought some scented candles and went home.

Christmas morning brought its familiar excitement and magic. Seriously, kids make Christmas the greatest. I love it! The boys' favorite gifts were some binoculars from their grandma and grandpa. Our 9th floor view out the window provides a lot of action to look at...on the ground, not in other apartment windows, thankfully. 

Theo's gift from Santa was a big hit (I knew it would be)! Since a huge portion of his life in Taiwan is spent in the constraining 5-point harness of his stroller, the gift of a baby doll and stroller was in fact a gift of empowerment. Theo now can be on the pushing end of things. He's so cute with giving his doll one of his toy cars to hold while she gets pushed around the apartment :) Theo typically insists on at least 3 cars in his fists on any given stroller outing. 

For Ben's gift, the boys gave him a chop with his Chinese name. Everyday on the way to Julien's school we pass a shop that makes these seals. With Theo's babysitter's help and 3 separate trips, we successfully chose and ordered the perfect one.  

The boys chose a case that means "riches will come." 

They chose a round seal because that means riches will flow your way (vs. a square seal which is supposed to help keep you from losing your riches). They also liked the engraved dragon design.

Now Ben can use his chop to sign the boys' daily school communication books. How cool is that?! I used to have to sign side-ways (as you can see on the left hand side in purple pencil).

For my gift, Ben gave me a homemade gift certificate to get monthly massages (Asian style, love them!!) and the boys got me 2 super soft rugs for my bathroom. I'm a lucky girl to have such sweet boys :)  

To end our Christmas day, we joined some friends for an evening feast. They had also taken the day off from work and school and it meant a lot to spend that time together. 

 

12-Year Anniversary

Christmas time is never complete without trying to squeeze in a good wedding anniversary celebration. Could someone please remind me why Ben and I decided to get married in December and make all our friends and family come to our wedding 4 days before Christmas?!? Good thing love isn't expected to be logical :) Thanks for not hating us!


This year marked 12 years of being married to my best friend. I could go off and get all sappy about the topic, but given the forum, I'll refrain.

It was my year to plan so I arranged for our babysitter to come, then we took off for an efficient, one-stop, reliable Christmas present source. Don't let Ben's expression fool you, he's lovin' it! 

Next we had the most posh movie-watching experience ever!  

The theater is called "Gold Class." It's located on the 7th floor of Tiger City department store (show times can be found at www.chinapost.com.tw). For the equivalent of US$25 per person, you get quite the movie-watching experience!

Upon arrival, we were seated at a little cafe table and given a menu to order anything from a multiple course meal to popcorn and a soda. The admission price included a NT$400 stipend for food (about US$13). Since this was our dinner time, we ordered the following meal for two:

It turned out to actually be really tasty food!

After ordering, we were given the chance to win a cool prize by picking a number from a bingo-type spinner. My lucky number got me a sample package of lotion and face wash. Ben's was the same. I wonder if they all were the same? Regardless, it makes you feel quite special :) 

Then at show time, we were led to this incredibly schnazzy theater with duos of full reclining seats, a provided blanket and (for this movie in particular) 3D glasses.

Throughout the movie we were served our meal and fully enjoyed it!

Felt a lot like Christmas!

Ironically, in a country with less than 5% of its population Christian and who doesn't even officially recognize Christmas as a holiday (it's a regular school/work day), it began to feel a lot like Christmas around the same time as it does in the United States: come mid-November, all the big department stores began putting out their fancy Christmas displays and lights:

 

 At Top City department store

 

At Mitsukoshi department store--we could even see this tree all lit up at night from our balcony :) 

 

Taichung City government building put out an enormous tree! 

And I've also never seen so many poinsettias before! They were in pots everywhere outside...

 

...and even in our apartment lobby, which also had a huge Christmas tree with fake presents all around it.  Theo only got to the poinsettias twice and luckily his destruction was minimal. 

Ryley and Julien had to be assured multiple times that, unfortunately, 

there really wasn't anything in the wrapped up boxes.

 With all of the familiar Christmas decorations, there still were a few obvious oddities that would remind me that this was Christmas "Taiwanese style." Here are a few of my favorites:

 A huge advertizement for a sale at Sogo department store

A sign in the Japanese-style burger joint called "Mos Burger"

In a department store window

And here's my all-time favorite: a recycling of Halloween candy, tied up all pretty in a Christmas bag and put back on the shelf at a little candy specialty shop at Tiger City department store! But really, what's wrong with taking two foreign holidays and making the most of it?!
It would be a shame to waste merchandise! 

Inspired by the above shop's recycling efforts, here is Ryley and one of our friends stuffing our remaining Halloween candy in a huge advent Santa calendar that I found at the IKEA here.

We also did our best to make our apartment look like Christmas:

 We hung some snowflakes...

 ...and snagged a little artificial Christmas tree from CostCo where we were given the good advice to buy one early before they were all gone!

And to load on a bit more Christmas tradition, we made gingerbread houses for the first time.
Thanks, IKEA, for selling convenient little kits!

For Christmas activities, we had friends over to make snowmen decorations

And we attended 3 different Christmas parties:

 This is Julien on Santa's lap at party #1

 This is Theo very impressed with the Latin dancers at party #1

 This is Theo gazing into some oddly familiar eyes of the Santa at party #2

 This is the Santa at party #2 terrifying a poor child (it all started off badly when Santa mispronounced the child's Chinese name)

 This is Theo still trying to figure Santa out at party #2

 This is Ryley's smug look of "I know who you are, Santa" at party #2

Party #3 has no good photos to share because Theo was on the loose in a hazardous environment with destruction on his mind. His main target were 8 fully decorated gingerbread houses. For some reason he didn't have much of an appetite come meal time.

Party #3 was a good bonding get-together with the small expat group from Ben's company. Ben's boss put the expat spouses in charge of planning everything and it was a lot of fun to get to know the other ladies better. We were able to reserve the party room at our apartment and they provided an incredible catered meal. I ate a few bites here and there on my breaks from chasing Theo around :)