Xin Nian Hao (Happy New Year)

Chinese New Year started this weekend. In Chinese-speaking countries this is their major holiday, 9 or 10 days without work and most of this time is spent partying. I read that 100 million people travel on the trains to their hometowns during this period and that train seats are booked a year in advance. In fact there are so many people taking the trains vendors have set up stalls in the train stations to sell disposable adult diapers because no one can get to the bathroom on the trains. It is also the tradition for the adults to give red envelopes filled with money to all of the children in your family, one reason we are here and they are in Taiwan!!!!

The local Chinese Association had their festival on Saturday. We went with Elizabeth and her family. There were many different types of music and dancing.

We ate so many wonderful foods like spicy shrimp, sticky rice filled with pork and my favorite, beef/noodle soup.

On Sunday we went to an all-day party hosted by the parents of the little boy we take care of, here is Bei Bei, Lex and his mom Lusia.

Dumplings are the traditional food prepared and eaten on the first day of Chinese New Year. These are prepared using store-bought "skins" or the traditional way of preparing the dough, rolling it into a long cylinder, cutting it into squares and rolling it into thin, flat pancakes the size of baseballs. There were several people involved in this production. One person made the filling which consisted of ground pork, mushrooms and cilantro and 3 or 4 others filled the dumpling skins with this mixture and carefully sealed them.

Our friend Maria and her son dressed in the traditional red clothing eating Chinese steamed buns filled with port and dumplings

Red is a good color for the Chinese, red means go, go, go. If you are ever driving in China and you have a green light, remember this!!!