Chinese New Year: Preparations

The followin clip gives us a good overview of the traditions of Chinese New Year and why certain rituals are done at this particular time:

A huge part of the Chinese New Year customs and traditions have to do with family life, as shown by the following clip:

Even though the generic parts of the Chinese New Year tradition are still practised by Chinese people around the world, the more traditional (countryside) parts of the festival are not always known to the younger generation who are more used to living in cities:

Spring cleaning the house before Chinese Yew Year is part of the tradition of the festival, so we cleaned our house as much as possible with the major effort going into rearranging and cleaning Tiger's bedroom so that he now has his own personal place to work.

After that, we went to Chinatown to buy the ingredients that we would need for our new year's eve Reunion Dinner,

as well as a few decorations for the house.

London Chinatown is the most festive place in the UK to get a feel for Chinese New Year.  However, the scale of the celebration and the number of people involved are nowhere close to some places in the Far East, where the festival is featured more prominently:

After the decorations were put up around the house, Tiger also arranged a centrepiece of a bowl of tangerines with stem and leaves intact to represent wholeness, balance, wealth, and good luck.  Orange-coloured citrus fruit is a usual display during Chinese New Year for its symbolic meaning.  The orange colour represents gold or wealth, while the Chinese names of various citrus fruit sound like the word "ji" (吉), which means good luck.

Have you noticed the red table cloth?  We're nearly ready for the Reunion Dinner!


This post is linked up to:

1. Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #12
2. History and Geography Meme: Ancient Greece activities
3. Entertaining and Educational - Energy
4. Collage Friday: Thankful for Homeschool
5. Weekly Wrap-up: The One with all the Snow
6. The (New) Homeschool Mother's Journal (2/1/14)
7. Hip Homeschool Hop (2/4/14)
8. Chinese Activities Link Up

On the Last Day of 2013

I had an errand to run in town today so Tiger and I went out bright and early in the morning. 

By noon time, London began to get really busy.

Our stomachs were rumbling by the time we arrived at Chinatown for lunch.

 

The weather was not very good today.  In fact, it was mostly wet, windy, and cold. 

 

It was pouring down when we got to Trafalgar Square, so we spent a good few hours at the National Gallery admiring and learning about Viennese portraits at The Portrait in Vienna 1900 Exhibition.

 

After indulging our visual senses at the gallery, with the sky still not brightening up at all, we decided to pop into another one of our favourite haunts:

Another few happy hours spent in the bookshop made me realised how very easy-to-please Tiger and I are: just leave us in a bookshop and we can entertain ourselves very happily for a long time.

While Tiger was deeply engrossed in his reading, I was happily sipping latte (we were sitting near the cafe inside the bookshop) and reading my own choice of book which I think is quite appropriate for new year's eve.  This book has given me much food for thought and I couldn't have read it at a better time.

When Tiger next looked at his watch, it was time to come home.  We just felt that it was getting darker, and many people were starting to arrive in London for the New Year's Eve countdown.  We didn't want to get stuck in London for the night, so we headed home before the big party started.

Now, in the warm comfort of my own home, I am waiting for the new year to arrive in a few minutes.  Here's wishing everyone a very happy 2014!

This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 12/31/2013
2. Entertaining and Educational - Christmas Crafts for Kids
3. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {December 28, 2013}