Celebrating Chinese New Year Day in Beijing

Nǐ hǎo qīn’ài de dúzhě, I am celebrating the Chinese New Year day in Beijing, China. How cool is that?

Chinese New Year day from Beijing

In the morning, I got ready and stepped out of the hotel only to be greeted by the “closed for Chinese New Year” sign (in Chinese, thank you, Google Translator) at a nearby coffee shop. I have grown to love the past few days. I walked around the block and realized almost all the stores were closed. Gāisǐ de!

So I returned to the hotel and watched the last three episodes of Homeland on the iPad before the hunger pangs kicked in. I put my winter jacket back on and walked nearly ten blocks to find everything was closed except for a dodgy-looking lingerie store (I guess the red dragon pattern underwear sales are the highest during Chinese New Year).

I almost walked back when I saw the familiar tiara-wearing green mermaid and some people inside who had sought caffeinated asylum before me. Starbucks, it’s one in a billion indeed. Ha! Get it? Billion, because of China –> Apologies for the lame joke; I haven’t eaten anything for almost a day.

Pony Year

We are entering the year of Horse today. Specifically, 2014 is the year of the wood horse.

According to Feng-Shui teaching in Eastern culture, a horse symbolizes victory, success and all the good things. Some have predicted the wood and horse combination will be a challenging year. But I refuse to listen to the naysayers, at least not on the Chinese New Year day! So do the Chinese; there are so many horses knick knacks everywhere, and I have been hearing firecrackers celebrating Chinese New Year’s day, symbolizing the great start of the year of the Horse.

With that, I, too, believe we are looking at a year’s worth to celebrate.

Gong Xi Fa Cai from China

We can say I officially started the Chinese New Year celebration today by ordering a second cup venti of Peach Blossom Tea Latte and texting my friends with “Gong Xi Fa Cai“, which loosely translated as “May you have a prosperous new year“.

I then went out exploring and ended up at Wangjingfung. The fancy part of Beijing. It was lively and buzzing!! I had a late lunch/dinner there, Xiang spicy food. I also got a battery pack for iPhone (It’s CNY after all, I had to buy something for the prosperous year) and went home. I wrote a guest post on Crystal’s blog and watched a Catching Fire drama about fire officers and their lives. It was lame.

A very Happy Pony Year to you guys too! Wishing you an abundance of happiness and prosperity from China.

I have been invited to have dinner at Yiwen’s house once I am back in Shanghai. I am so looking forward to it.

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