“Gong Xi Fa Cai!”: Celebrating Chinese New Year in Taiwan

     It's one of the biggest holidays in Taiwan.  People started getting ready for this holiday much like we do in the US.  Shopping officially starts after Thanksgiving for the Americans, likewise, after January 1, we started seeing all the stores selling Lunar New Year stuff.  This is the year of the snake.  The saying goes like this:

This 2013 year of Snake is meant for steady progress and attention to detail. Focus and discipline will be necessary for you to achieve what you set out to create. The Snake is the sixth sign of the Chinese Zodiac, which consists of 12 Animal Signs. It is the enigmatic, intuitive, introspective, refined and collected of the Animals Signs. Ancient Chinese wisdom says a Snake in the house is a good omen because it means that your family will not starve.

     For more information on the year of the snake, go to:

http://www.hanban.com/chinese-culture/chinese-zodiac/the-2013-year-snake.html

    Here is a list of the customs that we observed in Taiwan:

Custom #1: A nice, long holiday break
Chinese New Year is generally when the the longest national holiday break of the year takes place in Taiwan, which means you will most likely be able to enjoy a luxuriously long time off from work. This year, the break is Feb. 9-17, which means you could get as many as nine days away from the office. However, keep in mind that a few of those weekdays off are “make-up days” or “flexible days” to give the public the option of continuing the break into the following weekend.

Even though the Family History Center closed on Wednesday, Feb. 13, we continued to attend online meetings and missionary district meetings during the New Year's week.

Some of our friends from Gaoxiong Stake took advantage of the long break and went on a camping trip along the east coast of Taiwan. Following their trips on Facebook has been an eye-opener. About 5 families took the trip. Each family drove their own cars. They camped out at the public schools for about US$6 a night. They either ate out or cooked the food they took with them. Sounds like a fun and inexpensive way to travel since hotels cost a lot and all booked for the holidays. This way, you just go and camp for the nights you need. Pretty cool!

  

Custom #2: Getting together with family

Having dinner w/Song relatives in Tainan

This is traditionally the time when people journey back to their hometowns to spend the holidays with their families. The beginning and end of the break is when the most traveling occurs, particularly on the north-south highway routes across Taiwan. Fortunately, to ease the gridlock, most highway toll booths will not be in service to move the flow of traffic along.  We heard that traffic jams were so bad that it would take 5 hours to go from Gaoxiong to Taizhong when it might take only 2 hours normally.  Buying train tickets could be very difficult too.  We went to Tainan to visit some relatives and had to buy "standing" tickets as there were no seats available.  But, the prospect of being home makes it all worth it.  

Custom #3: Out with the old, in with the new

Along with the new year comes the desire to discard old things to make room for the new. If you look around, you’ll find many households doing their spring cleaning several weeks before the new year, with mountains of old furniture and appliances cluttering up the curb. Local officials usually make arrangements to deal with this problem, with trash pickups and making the rounds more regularly to keep communities clean.

The missionaries had their "power cleaning" day on Monday, P-day.  

Custom #4: Stuffing your face

Taiwanese culture is all about the food, but it is never more apparent than during Chinese New Year, when dinners are usually lavish home-cooked meals, complete with savory meats, veggies and seafood, to celebrate the reunion of family.

President and Sister Chen (陳信雄) treated us and 4 young missionaries from their ward to a yummy buffet at the Harbour hotel/restaurant overlooking Gaoxiong harbor.  It was for the early afternoon tea. 

We were also invited to Brother and Sister Liu's home for a special New Year's Eve dinner.  There were 30 different dishes at the dinner.  We could barely touch any food after that buffet, let alone eating 30 dishes of food.  The Liu's are connoisseurs of foods.  They sampled food from various places.  For this dinner, Bro. Liu drove to Nan Tou, 2 hours away to get some specialty food there.  He also drove to Ping Dong to get their famous noodle dish.  We couldn't eat a thing, so they packed some for us to take home.  What a fun evening it was with the Liu's, the Zeng's and Chen Mei Li.  

Custom #5: Red envelopes and giving back

Everyone knows about the elders within a family giving those of younger generations red envelopes filled with money. However, outside of families, the spirit of giving still very much prevails, and it’s customary to be particularly generous to those in your employ or those who have provided you a service during Chinese New Year.

Our grandchildren learned to say "Gong Xi Fa Cai" and each received a red envelope from Grandpa and Grandma.  The red envelopes were still over the Pacific when we called them over the holidays.  They would enjoy that, we are sure of that.  It has become a Davis tradition for us to give each a red envelope to celebrate the New Year.

One would give red envelopes to children, to service people. The taxis have a sign to charge an extra NT$50 (about US$2) during the New Year's holidays.  Work places give bonuses depending on how long you've worked for the company and how the company is doing.  A good company would give a month's pay or more for their employees at this time.  It's a fun time for all.

Custom #6: Making things go crackle and boom

Culturally, lighting firecrackers and fireworks are meant to ward away evil spirits, but it’s also lot of fun. In Taiwan, firecrackers and fireworks are banned in cities, so most people will go to open spaces, such as riversides, to light them. Such activities aren’t technically allowed in these areas either, but sometimes authorities will turn a blind eye during Chinese New Year so everyone can have a little fun.  Whereas we heard firecrackers and booming in Hong Kong during the day and also at night, but here in Taiwan, we haven't had much problem with the noises.  

We hope everything will get back to normal soon!