Photos by Vania Sampereru
I lived here for a while now, but I realized that I am ly ignorant about the celebrations of the Chinese New Year. Except good food, hanging red lanterns everywhere and a special animal per year, this is basically my only knowledge. God thank you, we have BlackBerry so I issued a message to 38 of my Chinese friends.
My question was simple:
What is the Chinese New Year to you? After a few minutes, my BB started flashing like a Christmas tree and had the answers:
B: "Seb, as I am not married yet, I receive many red envelopes in my family. "This means that if you are Chinese, it is better that you marry as late as you can, because apparently when you get married, uang habis (you run out of money)!
S: "Food, food, food and pulang kampung ." which means that the Chinese New Year is basically the same as Idul Fitri history (in a sentence, I have already lost 50% of my Chinese friends and 50% of my Muslim friends).
J: ".. From a family holiday and the red envelope" Second time I heard of this magic envelope
P: "Dragon Power" Knowing this, it is something to do with the girls! The Chinese still have a powerful drug made from dragon claws, or perhaps it is only in the movies of Jackie Chan.
B ". I look Chinese, but my blood is American" very strange response from Mr. B ... This means that the Yankees should be afraid! The Chinese are now vampires
M: "I do not celebrate CNY that we do not speak more Chinese" So you have to speak Mandarin to celebrate this means that there will be a dozen people.? the streets in Jakarta this year - what a party
P: ". Raise the red lantern, it brings luck" Like most of my friends are quite successful, I will ask my satpam (security officer) to buy hundreds of red Chinese lanterns And since I'm the only foreigner in my Muslim street, then I'll make new friends
W:.!. ". Red envelope, Seb "This is the third time I heard about this amazing envelope
P:" As the new normal year. " Well, I never pass New Year surrounded by red lanterns, red dragons and red envelopes. Not sure this is a true Chinese ago.
S :? . "These memories before I married" Now I know, no more envelopes
L: Ah, finally something in common with my Western New Year "Five kilos won in three days.".
V: "There is something very special and beautiful. We're finally all together, all over the world with our common roots, our traditions, our beliefs. We appreciate every minute with fantastic food and pray together. "OK this one lives on the planet Walt Disney! It confuses Christmas to church with the Chinese New Year. And his poor, it does not mention the red envelopes despite not being married! There is something wrong with V.
So basically, I learned a lot from all these friends. first, you need to speak Chinese to celebrate, you must marry very late, you need to buy this medicine named "Chinese dragon powder claws", you must hang hundreds of lanterns if you want a new car this year, you will be fatter after the celebration, you can have American blood and yet you can celebrate CNY. But the most important is that red envelope (Ang Pow). I received many envelopes from my family when I was a child, mostly empty or with a postcard inside. Our parents were in panic with "red" because it was the color of communism. again my parents lied to me and once again it was west of capitalist propaganda!
The good news is that I'm a rat in the Chinese horoscope. Rats are not compatible at all with the Rabbit 2011 and I felt deeply, but it seems incompatible with the Dragon 2012. Do not ask me why. Please also note that I am not married and I'm ly OK to be adopted by one of you, my Chinese friends. I just wish that owns the Santo Pak toko Listrik (electrical store) side will not be my neighbor father, I'd rather be adopted by Mr. Mr. Ciputra Djarum or to receive a red envelope BIG!
Happy New Year to all my Chinese friends!
Sebastian Wijaya Lee
(European I like, but my blood is Chinese, like Mr. B)