Tag Archives: new year celebration

Chinese New Year: Year of the Dragon

Posted on January 23, 2012 | 2 comments

In Australia, there are many Chinese migrants so every year we see Chinese New Year celebrated in full swing. It is a time when not only Chinese but all of the people in Australia enjoy Chinese delicacies and culture. 

This year, Chinese New Year celebration started from yesterday and will go on until the mid of February. It is the year of the dragon. Dragons are most powerful and lucky signs in Chinese zodiac so this year is believed to bring great news to lots of people. 

Many believe there is a balance between heaven and earth in the lives of people born in the Year of the Dragon and they are blessed with good fortune. Those who are born in this year are believed to be innovative, flexible, self-assured and passionate. However, there is also a dark side to Dragons which is that people can be stubborn, intense and quick tempered. 

I read in the news somewhere that China is expecting more babies this year as it is one of the luckiest signs. 

In Sydney, there will be lots of activates marking the new year, like street festivals featuring arts, entertainment and children’s activities, Chinese New Year markets showcasing arts, crafts and food stalls, dancing, music and people wearing colourful costumes to welcome the Chinese New Year, vibrant displays of Chinese lanterns, dragon dances, new lion dances, Chinese magic shows, Orchid New Music, bamboo dances, fire crackers display etc. 

There are many traditions and customs associated with the festival, here are some of the commonly practiced that you might like to try : 

  • Wear new clothes on New Year’s Day (January 23 in 2012) and be on your best behaviour, as actions on this day set the tone for the year to follow.
  • Enjoy a New Year banquet, keeping an empty seat to symbolise the presence of family members who can’t be there.
  • Eat fish on the eve of Chinese New Year (January 22), and keep some stored for the next day. The Chinese phrase “may there be surpluses every year” sounds the same as “may there be fish every year”.
  • Enjoy a bowl of traditional Korean duk gook, a soup of thinly sliced rice cakes, to represent a clean start to the New Year.
  • Serve uncut noodles as they represent longevity.
  • Wear red, as the colour scares away evil spirits and bad fortune.
  • Give red lai-see (“lucky money”) envelopes to pass on prosperity and good luck.
  • Clean your house and sweep out the bad luck of the previous year.
  • Decorate your house with apricot and peach blossom, symbolic for new beginnings and sold during Vietnamese Tet.
  • Say farewell to the Kitchen God, the guardian of the family hearth. As he reports to heaven on the behaviour of the family over the past year, make sure to feed him sweet foods and honey, either as a bribe, or to seal his mouth and prevent him from saying bad things.
  • Pay off all debts and cast aside all grudges. 

Check which Chinese zodiac you were born in: 

  • Rat (1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008)
  • Ox (1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009)
  • Tiger (1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010)
  • Rabbit (1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011)
  • Dragon (1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012)
  • Snake (1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013)
  • Horse (1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014)
  • Sheep (1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015)
  • Monkey (1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016)
  • Rooster (1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017)
  • Dog (1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018)
  • Pig (1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019) 

At work, we celebrate different things like Songkran (Thai New Year), Mexican Republic Day (There are no Mexicans in our team but still who can resist yummy tacos and burritos  🙂 ) and Greek Independence day. I guess we all just need another reason to celebrate and party so we are ready to celebrate Chinese New Year. 

Today most of us at work were dressed in red as red is the lucky colour in Chinese culture. Also one part of the office is decorated in big paper dragon and lots of red lanterns. 

We all cooked one Chinese influenced food and we had lunch together. It is really amazing what people can come up with. We had fried rice, noodles, dumplings, wontons, spring roles and lots of sweets for desert. It was really yummy and different to try so many Chinese influenced dishes made by people from different cultures. We had only one colleague from China so it was interesting to know about real Chinese culture from her. 

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!!! Hope the dragon will bring all of you lots of luck and happiness for the rest of your life!!!

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Posted in Australia

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2011 in retrospect

Posted on January 6, 2012 | 10 comments

I was just thinking how quickly a year goes by. Actually I can’t even recall a decade sometimes. It feels like just yesterday that I left Nepal to come to Australia and that was more than a decade ago. I still remember the time in Tribhuvan International Airport, in Kathmandu where I stood for the last time with my friends and family before I took a flight to come to this new place. It seems funny when I  think of it now that I had 40+ people there to bid me farewell. I had my parents, my brother, my aunties, my uncles, my cousins ( with the little ones crying ), my friends from school (among them was AS, my husband who had no idea at that time that he would marry me one day) and a few other friends . If I think about it now I feel happy that there were so many nice people in my life who cared about me and came to see me off. Time just flies and life goes by. I just want to take a moment and reflect on my year 2011 today.

The year started with AS and me being together for our first New Year celebration. It was really a wonderful experience to have him in my life, living together and planning our life together. I am so sure now that was what I was missing before he came to my life again. I just loved the feeling of togetherness and unconditional love we have for each other. Even though we have lots of adjustments to make in our individual lives to be with each other, it all seemed like worthy sacrifice when I look at it from this point of view.

I think the first half of my year I was just busy planning for the next stage of our life, our wedding. There were so many ups and downs in the planning. There were stages where I was so frustrated with people that I thought the wedding wasn’t happening as I wanted it to happen. And there were those highs when we talked to our parents about the wedding and saw all their excitement in the preparation of the wedding. Even thinking about it now has my head spinning. All I was thinking about was my dresses, wedding venues, photographer, decorations, food and the list keeps growing longer. It was basically a never-ending list of things to do which only ended after the wedding.  I think all is well if it ends well. So this year I became MRS from MISS.

Also our honeymoon to Vietnam was the highlight of this year. It was a great place to just relax and see beautiful places.  Wonderful memories are flooding my brain now 🙂 . I think June 2011 was the best time of my life so far and will always be in my memory as one of the most important time of my life.

I also got a new family this year i.e. my in-laws. It is really nice to have more people who care about you and look after you. I am really happy that my MIL, FIL and BILs are great people who have accepted me in their home as their own. I feel lucky that we get along well together and now I have a new family who will have a big part in my future. I have lots of cousins from his family side who called me sister-in-law (I feel so old when they call me that but I need to get used to it 🙂 )

Last year, one of my cousins got married and one of my good friends got married too. Both ceremonies took place in Nepal so I missed it but I am really happy to see them happily married to the love of their lives.

Two of my cousins had babies this year. Both had a baby boy and they are growing up so fast. They are in the US so I haven’t had a chance to meet them yet but I just love all their photos in Facebook. Hope I get to meet them soon.

Also two of my friends had December babies, a boy and a girl as I wrote in a post. They are just cute, adorable, beautiful babies.

I learnt to cook in 2011. Last year me and AS started living together on our own so I didn’t have much choice but to learn how to cook a few simple meals as surviving on take away was impossible.  I suprised myself that I can cook some good meals and follow recipes to have something decent on the plate. I should probably say that I became a responsible woman from a headstrong girl 🙂

Also in 2011, for the first time in our lives, both of us fasted together for a Puja ceremony in Nepal before our wedding. I was so glad that AS joined the bandwagon of fasting at my house where my mum had organised a big Puja to bless our wedding. It was kind of nice to see him support me in the traditional aspect of our life.

I managed to tick a few items off my bucket list as well. We travelled to New Zealand, Vietnam and Vanuatu so my list of placed to visit have shrunk a bit. I can cross abseiling and black water rafting off my list as well.

How can I forget to mention that in 2011 I started blogging too?  Nepaliaustralian was born in September 2011 and has been growing since then. I think it is one of the good decisions I ever made. It has given me a platform to share my ideas, thoughts and rant sometimes about the issues and topics that has affected my life. I also got to meet really nice people who share similar opinions and I got to read their blogs filled with creative ideas. Thank you everyone for making me feel welcome in this blogosphere.  Also thank you to those who awarded me various awards . I am honoured to receive 7 awards last year.

There were a few bad news last year. My aunty was diagnosed with breast cancer which is a first in both sides of the family. It was kind of shock to everyone but she is getting a treatment right now and it looks good and she is recovering well. Just want her to be normal soon.

My best friend’s dad passed away and I feel bad that I was not with her when she needed me. I am glad she had her family and her fiancé with her at that time. Hope to meet her soon.

It seems like so much has happened but at the same time I feel that everything happened yesterday. I hope 2012 has lots of good thing in store for me and I want to live this year happily without worrying about stuff that I have no control over (like I always do).

Wishing all of you a great 2012 and hope this year all your wishes come true. Be happy everyone!!!

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Welcoming 2012

Posted on January 1, 2012 | 6 comments

I am finally back in Sydney after our nice break. We had an early morning flight leaving Vanuatu so I was sleepy the whole flight. When we landed in Sydney airport, I felt good that I was in Sydney just in time to celebrate New Year.

2011 was one of the best years for me as it was the first New Year celebration that AS was by my side to start the year together. I wanted to do something special for AS so I had bought a cruise ticket to watch the fireworks in front of Harbour Bridge and Opera house. They say Sydney’s fireworks are one of the best in the world so I wanted to be sure that we got the best seats in the house.

After Skyping with our family and having lunch, we headed to the city. As soon as we were in the train I could see that it was going to be a very crowded few hours. We got off at Circular Quay to catch our boat. There were thousands of people every where. I had not seen that many people at one place for a long time. We went to our pick up area and saw that there was a long queue to board the boat. We joined the queue and we were escorted on to our boat.

Once we were in the boat, I saw that they had a live band playing beautiful songs. There were around a 100+ people but there was enough room for us to walk around and pick the best seats. We decided to stay on the outside top deck. After everyone was aboard, our boat moved towards the open water and stopped in between Harbour Bridge and Opera House.

AS was armed with his DSLR camera so when the countdown began for New Year 2011, the camera was clicking as fast as it could. I think we had almost 1000 photos for that night alone and most of them were of the fireworks. It was a beautiful display of colourful fireworks. The atmosphere was so alive that I was sorry the celebration ended after just 25 minutes. There were so many boats in the water that I was glad I was among them  and so close to see the amazing show.

This year, it was a different story. As it was the last day of 2011 and I had so many things I needed to do but I was too tired (read lazy) after our holiday to do them so my New Year 2012 resolution will be to tie up all the loose ends this month. Also I will try to eat healthy and work out regularly along with AS. I also want to be a better human being and try to be less selfish with my needs 🙂

Last evening, we met up with a few friends and my brother and headed to Brighton Le Sands to watch the fireworks because the city is always too crowded for the New Year’s fireworks. Of course there were many people in Brighton Le Sands as well but we managed to get to the front of the beach and watch the amazing fireworks from there. Even though the fireworks may not have been as spectacular as the one in the city, it was still breath-taking and the crowd too was just awesome. The best part was we could walk back home after the celebrations.

This year too AS was armed with his camera and he got beautiful shots of the display and obviously some beautiful shots of me as well with the fireworks in the background 😀 .

The theme of 2012 was “Time to Dream”, capturing the imagination and giving hope.

Happy New Year from Sydney, everyone. May the beginning of the New Year be the beginning of great things to come the whole year through and may the New Year be filled with wonderful adventures and many successes!!!

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Posted in Australia

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