Since it’s almost 10pm here, on the East Coast it’s already now the Year of the Boar. Bye-bye, Year of the Doggie! Tonite Mr. W and I met up with my parents at my maternal grandmother’s house for New Year’s Dinner. My grandma was all excited to host the dinner, and made a ton of dishes. Mr. W ate all the Chinese food like a Chinese person. My grandma was a bit concerned at first that he wouldn’t eat some of the dishes, like the red-roasted pork knuckles. My parents told my grandmother proudly in Chinese that Mr. W is game to try anything, and that he’s easy to feed. The only thing Mr. W won’t try is the Taiwanese “stinky tofu,” and the dried anchovie snacks.
After dinner, we sat around and talked about Chinese New Year traditions. Like how kids were allowed and encouraged to stay up late on New Year’s Eve (tonite) because superstition has it that the longer the kid stays awake that night, the longer life the parents will have. Parents give the kids new clothes so that on the 1st day of the new year, they wear new for new. The first person to fire off firecrackers in the new year also brings prosperity into his house, so they watch the clock for midnight. As soon as midnight tolls, everyone runs outside and lights firecrackers, and the sound can be heard everywhere in Asia at approximately the same time. The lower generation people (kids and unmarried young adults) also get red envelopes of money from the older generations; you go up and wish the elders a happy, healthy and prosperous new year, and they reward you by handing you an envelope. The envelope is to contain new uncirculated money, which you’re supposed to tuck in your pillowcase that night and sleep on it for 15 nights to bring in wealth for the new year. My mom gave both me and Mr. W a red envelope, like we’re kidlets (to borrow Jordan’s word, which I really like). Mr. W placed his in his pillowcase, and I was about to do the same, and then I stopped and said, “Hey, wait a minute…does it even count cuz this isn’t really MY pillowcase?” He said, “Oh well, if it brings in money to my house, I’ll turn it over to you.” I said, “Okay!” and tucked it in the pillowcase. My dad told us about another tradition for New Year’s Day. People don’t eat heated food, they have cold dishes all day and/or eat the leftovers from the feast of the night before. There are different folklores for this, one of which is that the god of the stoves and fires, who resides with the family, flies off to heaven that day to report back to the big god(s) on your family’s behavior, and you send him off nicely asking him to please bring positive information to the heavens on behalf of your family. “But what does that have to do with not cooking that day?” I asked my dad.
“Because the Chinese believe there are gods for everything, and the god for the fire and stove is away in heaven reporting about your family.”
“So then why can’t you cook?” I asked.
“Because the family wants him to say good things for them when he reports.”
“But WHY can’t you cook? I don’t get the connection,” I insisted.
My mom butted in. “He doesn’t know,” she said. She turned to her mother, my grandmother. “Why do we have to eat cold dishes on the first day of the new year?”
My grandmother waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t ask me about lore, I don’t know a thing about any of that stuff.”
Dad said, “When China was in war, the emperor was also out fighting, and at one point the army was losing and they were freezing and starving. The army cook had no food to cook, so he sacrificed and cut off some meat from his own thigh to make into a dish for the emperor, so that the emperor wouldn’t starve to death. They eventually won, and afterwards the emperor found out what the cook did for him. He was so grateful that he made the cook a general and gave him an army to command. So New Year’s Day, people don’t eat hot food, to remember what he did for the emperor, in honor of that cook. So they don’t cook.”
Here’s my reaction: “… WHAT??? What does that have to do with the stove gods going to heaven to report your family?”
Dad said, “I”m just telling you a different story, a different legend, for the same activity.”
“Oh.”
Aside from all the Chinese traditions, I was trying to remember the story of the New Year itself, and I couldn’t. Despite the fact that I had written a screenplay around it in high school and acted it out. It had something to do with some monster or dragon invading a China village, eating its youth. Something about how it killed and ate an old woman’s only son, and she cried about it so hard in the street that an old bum stopped by and wanted to know what was going on with her, and he gave her some magical advice on how to kill the dragon when it came back that night for her or something. And something about wearing red to confuse or distract the dragon, or maybe it can’t see red or something. Something about making dumplings, the chopping sound scaring the dragon, and the firecrackers scaring off the dragon or something like that. Uh…and that’s why today we eat dumplings and light firecrackers. Uh, yeah.
Okay, I’m a disgrace.