SC - OT, OOP: Chinese New Year

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hullo, the list!

Good morning, all.

First off, I can see how it would seem a bit unusual to celebrate a
holiday by going incommunicado for a couple of days, but that would be
like saying Americans celebrate Christmas (those who do) by practicing
an ancient custom of littering the living-room floor with
brightly-colored paper. I mean, I suppose that does happen, but it’s
kinda not the point.

And Phlip is partly correct when she says we turn off the phone and
don’t pick up e-mail (customs obviously no older than telephones and
computers or modems) in order to avoid bad news or other unspecified
nastiness entering the home. These customs are perhaps extended
interpretations of older customs. Anyway, here’s what we did for Chinese
New Year: the idea is to prepare yourself and your home for a new year
by making it possible to spend the new year celebration doing what you
want to be doing for the entire year. Confused? It gets clearer...the
idea is to set the tone for the new year.

We did things like calling in a plumber to replace the kitchen faucet,
which was really old and a bit subject to leaks. I put up some shelves
on the walls (one with coathooks on it) to make a bit more room around
the place. Some people do things like painting; we didn’t this year. We
then balanced the checkbook, paid all our bills, except for ongoing
things like the mortgage, and did our taxes. One should settle arguments
at this time, too, to limit emotional baggage and karma from the
previous year messing with the new one. Forgetting a bill and having
your phone service cut off during Chinese New Year would be considered
_extremely_ inauspicious. 

We then cleaned the house from, as I believe Phlip put it, from stem to
stern, putting out of sight, for example, things like books about
criminal psychology, serial killers, and cinema history, many of which
focus on the history of the horror film.  Leaving them out and about
might be interpreted as an invitation to unpleasantness.

Special attention is paid to cleaning Susan’s shrine, altar, whatever
(it’s a shelf, okay?!) for Quan Yin, goddess of goodness and mercy,
probably the equivalent of Hecate, Vesta, and the Bona Dea, as well as
being more directly related to the Japanese Kannon and the Hindu goddess
Shiva. For the Chinese, Quan Yin isn’t strictly a deity in the Western
sense, more like the user-friendly approach to saints found in places
like Italy. She is venerated, respected, and loved, and having a shrine
to Quan Yin in one’s home isn’t considered a violation of the
Judaeo-Christian first Commandment. Many Chinese in America are
Christians, but they would say their philosphy has nothing to do with
their religion, and a shrine to Quan Yin is a part of Taoist philosophy.

And yes, we did turn off the phone and refrain from checking e-mail, not
so much from a desire to prevent us from hearing bad news, but to try to
control our fortune, to some extent. (This is akin to the Celtic
tradition that says if a black-haired man is the first to step across
your threshhold on New Year’s Day, you’ll have good luck. This is just a
way of hedging our bets, filtering out some of the outside noise,
because we know most of the people who might _absolutely have_ to
contact us , can, via a neighbor, etc.)  We invite no one (overtly) to
our home for the celebration, because to share the festival with us is
akin to sharing our karma, which is something we feel should be
initiated by others. Neither do we turn anyone away, and our friends
have a way of finding out when the appropriate day is and showing up
uninvited to share our karma and our meal, and there’s always good will
and laughter.

The last thing to do before sundown on New Year’s Eve is the preparation
of the ritual meal. This meal is designed to be kept until after New
Year’s Day, to ensure happiness and harmony in the home for the coming
year. Although customs differ from place to place, it is traditional for
many in the south of China to prepare two fried fish and two steamed lop
cheung, sweet sausages, to represent yin and yang, harmony, fertility
and regeneration, and the continuation of these things throughout the
year (the preserved sausages representing abundance of an enduring
nature). There is a whole chicken, usually with head and feet, braised
in soy sauce with five spice mixture and dried orange peel, whose golden
skin represents good fortune of all kinds. 

In addition, we also usually prepare some five-spice beef in the same
soy sauce with added five-spice powder, and a shrimp dish for laughter
in the home. (The Cantonese word for shrimp is har.) We also stock up on
a variety of fruits and nuts (not a word, you guys!), for fertility and
prosperity. We don’t generally saute vegetables for New Year’s; the
hissing noise is considered an invitation for strife. 

What we actually cooked:
	Winter Melon Soup with Meat Balls
	Soy Sauce Chicken
	Five Spice Beef
	Manila Clams with Black Bean Sauce
	Dry-Sauteed Shrimp (big guys, #12-15, with the heads and shells on)
	Steamed Stuffed Black Mushrooms
	Cold Bean Curd and Preserved Duck Eggs rolled in Lettuce Leaves
	Assorted Pickles, Relishes, etc., including a weird pickled shrimp,
turnip and chili relish that was a lot 			better than it sounds
	Steamed Rice and Steamed Bread

The next day, BTW, is traditionally spent without eating meat...

Recipes for some or all of this stuff will be forthcoming in the next
few days, when I can get to it.

Gung Hey Fat Toy!

Adamantius 
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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