Happy New Year everyone!As you probably know, the Lunar New Year (or Chinese New Year) was on February 18. In China, this kicks off a serious time of parties and family gatherings. We're told it's kind of like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's all rolled into one.
So many people travel inside the country of China to visit relatives and friends during this time that it's just about impossible for foreign travellers to get around. Our adoption agency just doesn't even try to schedule trips during that time.
We finally got to attend a very cool party with our local chapter of FTA (families through adoption). The party got postponed due to the blizzard. The first couple of pics show Althea and the other kiddos coloring pictures of pigs and other New Year's related stuff.
This is the year of the pig--very auspicious!
While in China, we were told that many, many couples got married last year in the hopes of having a baby in the year of the pig because of its auspici-osity. Go fig.It was a super fun party--great Chinese food, decorations, and music. Althea grooved on the music, especially once she found a long red ribbon on the floor. She picked it up and started dancing! Olympics here we come!
There were also many fun crafts, supplied by one of our high school's Chinese culture clubs. Althea was a bit young to
make a lantern or a fortune cookie, but she certainly had fun running and running and running all over the place, saying "hiiiiiii" to such an appreciative audience. Hmmmm--is it the year of the pig . . .or the year of the ham?
Anyway, we had a really great time. We brought along a video of some traditional lion dancing to show the kids. Very cool wushu stuff. I think it will turn out to be an ongoing event for the group and for us.
So happy auspicious new year to you all!
