Happy New Years!! It is the year of the Rabbit and it is the most celebrated holiday here in Taiwan! The decorations are all red and gold with rabbits painted everywhere and sellers sporting rabbit ears to attract people's attention. I had a double celebration of my birthday as well with some people who weren't sick and some that were, hadn't left the country or weren't busy with their family's at home. It ended up being just a few of us but I had 7 different languages song to me to the Happy Birthday tune which I really enjoyed (Mongolian,Japanese( which is really English but with an accent),Czech, Korean, Spanish, English and Chinese :)
The plan had been to go ice skating but I was contending with a holiday that makes the city virtually a ghost town. For real, the MRT was empty the streets were near empty and most everyone was inside their homes or outside the city back in their hometowns. The ice skating ultimately failed so we ate pizza hut outside the Taipei arena and then returned to my room to watch a movie on my computer and play a popular card game I learned here. 大二 (big two) I rescheduled the ice skating because I still would like to go. The day started out at Mister Donuts with my Korean friend who made me laugh the whole day with his crazy stories in mixed Chinese and English (somewhat limited but his hand motions make up for the rest) and feel better about nothing working out the way I had hoped. He had been out all night and was celebrating with me so I was happy he had come in the end.
As for the New Years...
I had friends from here explain all of the traditions and the way the Taiwanese would celebrate. I fortunately got invited to participate with the cousin of my recent Taiwanese friend. He he wasn't there celebrating with us because he was at his family's but Amy and I were together with the extended family. I had met the cousin before one time going out to the night market but this was the first time alone with her and her family but it wasn't awkward in any way. They prepared three special vegetarian dishes for Amy to eat and they kept offering more food afraid that I wasn't full or wouldn't find the dishes to be tasty or lavish enough. I was really happy because the grandmother kept doing the customary giving food to give others to eat and she kept cleaning shrimp and giving it to me to eat. I just so happened to not like having any blood on or around the shrimp and they noticed me trying to clean it out so they started throwing them into the center of the table's hot pot to cook it out so I would eat it. They explained the various dishes to me and the meaning behind each. The first dish was like gelatin and so sticky and was brown with green onions. The cousin, Grace, is her English name and her older sister both don't care for the taste so they kept suggesting the grandmother to give me the bowl with the smallest portion size in case I also didn't care for the taste. I actually, really liked it! I also tried a jelly fish or medusa dish which I learned is called 水母 （the characters for water and mother). I didn't get the name for the jelly, sticky dish because they said there was no name. I learned the texture is called QQ'd which is squishy. The significance of the dish is bringing friendship and goodness to your heart for the new year as everything else does that they do for the new year. The main dish was the hot pot in the center. It is a customary style of cooking I notice. The most common New Year's dish is called 佛跳墻 (Buddha jumps over the wall) After eating the family cleared the main space of the apartment and took the 10NTD coins off the rim of the stone fire pit that had been heating from the fire at our feet while eating. They gave out one coin to each member, for bringing good luck and then started handing out 紅包 to the younger people which were the cousins, Amy and I. They gave Amy and I each three different ones so we were 300 NTD richer that night. It's customary for the people who aren't yet working a full time job to receive a red envelope with money. The grandmother seemed attached to me and kept telling us that their family was truly a great place to practice our Chinese. They kept welcoming us back to practice and to help Grace in return who they 'criticized' slightly for not being up to the same speed. I felt they wanted their daughter to be also up to the same level and were hoping for us to work hard together. They all followed us out their door to wave goodbye to us with us promising to come back to visit.
The only thing I didn't get the chance to do was go to temple with my friend who invited me to eat with his cousin's family. He wanted to bring me so I could see how the people say "byebye" to all the evil and welcome the good for the new year. That day he had taken Amy and I around the special Markets that are open for a few days before the start of the Chinese New Years for family's to stock up on food to celebrate. Jill joined us to go to the hot springs that evening. We ended up getting back too late from Beitou, the four of us. We were there to relax in the hot springs and begin my birthday because the two of them would be with family celebrating on my birthday. The funny part about this time was the small tub we shared had to be manually controlled with the water level so it would gurgle in really loud noises that made us all laugh. Amy and I made it a new experience for our Taiwanese friends who told us they never ate and listened to music before while soaking.
