Happy Year of the Ox!
It’s Chinese New Year (again). Welcome to the Year of the Ox!
Hope you all have a wonderful year!!!!
Traditionally, Chinese follow a lunar calendar system, which is why the New Year’s Eve falls on a different day each year, usually between the end of January and mid-February. For more information on the usual customs, foods, etc. click HERE.
If you’re interested in the Chinese Zodiac (the 12 animals – Ox is the 2nd in sequence if I remember correctly) click HERE.
One of the main traditions of this holiday is to post Chinese couplets around the door of the home to bring luck, health, money, or any combination of these to the family. There are lots of vendors set up to sell these around town, but the weather was pretty bad so I didn’t venture out to take pictures as I’d planned to.
The front of our house is very exposed, and the past 2 years, the couplets I put up were literally ripped from the wall within days. This year I took a different tack, and I think it will pay off well. After writing my own couplets on red paper (the left one is basically for prosperity & wealth, the right one for health and happiness), I glued them to plywood and varnished them heavily. Then I mounted them next to the door with screws. Can’t wait for typhoon season now!!!
This year was pretty low-key for us. As my family is all in the US, we naturally visited the in-laws for dinner (and copious amounts of tea of course!) followed by a few friendly rounds of Mah Jong, including the Teaboy’s first introduction to the game(it requires 4 players, and I was too preoccupied with my gaiwan to get interested).
My own personal ‘celebration’ was to finally purchase the tea board I’ve been drooling over for almost 2 years. This beauty is a piece of 
Taiwan Cypress that has been sanded down smooth. The coloring is from tea spills being wiped into the surface over time. Seeing this (and the smaller ones that Master Tsai uses regularly in his tea room) inspired me to start working on my own tea boards as well.
February 1st, 2009 at 7:28 am
Ken Kushner Says:
Glenn,
That board is truly worth worth drooling over. And I am impressed with the ones your making. I’d like to see them, if possible. And, again, happy new year (from and ox).