Having
lived in the West for more than half of my life, strangely, Chinese
New Year seems less and less significant for me these days, not to
mention that I'm already not someone who's very accustomed to
celebrating holidays. Also, you don't get days off like they do in
Taiwan (somewhere around 6-8 days). Here, I feel lucky if the
Chinese New Year's Eve is on the weekend!
As
I was growing up, my parents used to take us back to their families'
homes in the southern part of Taiwan every Chinese New Year. It's the
tradition for family to get together on this major holiday. We would
first worship and give offerings to our ancestors to ask for their
blessings and protection for the New Year. Then, all the women would
be in the kitchen preparing for the feast, while the men talked and
the kids played. Frankly, because of all the firecrackers that used to scare me, I never really cared much about the Chinese
New Year, except that I was happy to get the days off and to get to
eat a lot of delicious food.
