Chinese New Year 2015

The Spring Festival has a history of more than 4,000 years. This Festival, widely known as Chinese New Year in the West, is the most important traditional festival, and most important celebration for families in Taiwan. It is an official public holiday, during which most Taiwanese have 6 days off work. 

This year, is the year of the “Goat”, begins on Thursday the 19^th of February, and end on the 5^th of March.Taiwanese will be off work from the 18th of February (New Year's Eve). All of the families gather together to have a special dinner. It is called reunion dinner. They believe it to be the most important meal of the year. Big families – families of several generations sit around round tables and enjoy the food and time together. Most families always cook the foods in their house, but some families go to have dinner in the restaurant. I also joined going to dinner with one family who is working in the Yuan Bao Temple. This family, they cooked the meal in their house. They prepared many special recipes such as Soy-Braised Pork Leg, Alaska Crab soup and Abalone shell, etc. I really enjoyed those foods. Moreover, one guy who is the member of that family made one kind of alcohol for everyone. The taste is spicy and bitter. This is the first time I tried that kind of taste. For me, it is very special. That day, I am very full and grateful.

0n 19^th February, it was very crowded in Yuan Bao Temple, because during the Chinese New Year people go to the temple. They believed that it is blessed, and will lead to a smooth coming year. Thus, this day the temple prepares special activities not only for praying to the gods for good fortune, and also other activities for people. The activities are such as giving the red envelopes, showing lion dance and traditional drumming, hanging lanterns, selling amulets, showing traditional live music, etc.

For the giving the red envelopes activity, one high positioned person in the Temple came to give them to the people in the morning. People went to the temple and lined up very early. Moreover in the evening, The Mayor of Taichung state came to Yuan Bao Temple to give red envelopes also. Many people lined up to get the red envelopes and took a picture with him. People are really delighted to see him.

For hanging lanterns, the temple had many colorful lanterns hung around. That temple is different from others accounting for the lanterns are not only the normal red lanterns, and also have the colorful lanterns they got from a student painting competition.  And my lantern that I painted when I just reached here few days was hung in the same place with the champion.

For showing traditional live music,the temple prepared the traditional band for 2 days to show in the temple. Although all of musician is elder ,they really good at playing.They used Taiwanese folk musical instruments such as Fiddle, Fulte,Chinese Cymbaloc.They dressed up the red Chinese style shirt. The music that they shown is about celebrating.This activity added color to the temple very much.