Chinese New Year Family Gathering

Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday in Taiwan. It's date is determined by the lunar calendar and it usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice. This year that was February 2nd. Almost everyone, except the essential 7-11 convenience store workers, have this day and a good part of a week after it off from work. Kids are out of school for 3 weeks covering this time. However, the English language schools are only closed for a week (or not even). Families plan their vacation and travel for this time. Almost all the families in Taiwan. So, it is very crowded no matter where you go. Making reservations and buying train tickets ahead of time are essential.

House where we spent Chinese New Year

The actual Chinese New Year night is a night for families to get together. Most households consist of parents and kids living with the husband's parents. If there are unmarried sisters they also join the festivities at their parents' house. But married daughters spend this night with their husband's family and the next day is when they go to visit their own parents. So, Jeremy and I were invited by the owners of the school I work for to join their family on Chinese New Year. We were honored and excited to be part of the celebration as well as to be with a family for a night as we missed our own at Christmas.

Johanna, Sylvia and goofy Belle

The owners of my school are Sylvia and Richard who are about our age. They have 3 daughters, Belle and Ella (11 year old twins) and Nana (12). We spent the evening at Richard's parent's house which is in a tight older neighborhood not far from the school. Their house is a traditional style one story house built in the 1930s. There are a couple of similar run down houses nearby in what used to be a family compound. Their family used to own a number of acres but it was subdivided to various children and some of it was sold off so their house is now in a tight little lane behind more modern apartment buildings. Luckily, it did abut some foresty green space so the grandparents grew alot of their own vegetables.

Main entrance of the house, facing the back yard

Old Family Compound of traditional style houses

We arrived in the late afternoon which was nice because we could look around. Grandmother showed us her garden and we could take some pictures of the houses which reminded me alot of Irish cottages. We were joined that night by 2 of Richard's sisters and they helped prepare the food along with Grandmother and Richard. The house is laid out where the main entry door leads into the "altar room" where they have a big wall picture of Buddha with an altar in front. Even modern houses in Taiwan have a room like this. You can drive through the city at night and see the red glow of the altar lights through people's windows. This altar is used daily for prayer and to worship the ancestors. So before we ate the family burned incense, offered food and said prayers at the altar. Jeremy and I waited outside.

Food Offerings to the gods

from altar room to dining room

Then in the same room as the altar we helped set up 2 folding tables - one for the adults and one for the kids, of course. We had a great meal filled with a variety of dishes. Jeremy had prepared one dish of our own as well. The kids' table was very noisy. Conversation was mostly in Chinese but Sylvia and Richard would translate for us and the sisters spoke some English so we could ask basic questions and at least tell them how much we liked the food.

After dinner we left the food and dishes on the table in case anyone wanted to come back for seconds and we went outside to be entertained by the 3 girls. These 3 girls are great. I have them in one of my classes and I give Belle private art instruction. They speak English very well and are learning piano and violin and they love to sing. They usually walk around humming songs from the Sound of Music or Phantom of the Opera. So, this night they played a variety of traditional Taiwanese folk songs, some classical pieces and, of all things, The Marine's Hymn in Chinese. (This is such an American song and I had to learn it on piano when I was a kid so it was so funny to me that here, on the other side of the world, these girls were playing it!)

All the adults sat on stools in the yard facing the porch to watch the girls perform. They were good and very theatrically funny. It reminded me of my own family gatherings when I was a kid. They even put out an open violin case for tips.

After the performance, parents and grandparents gave the girls "han bao(like bough)" which are red envelopes with money in it. The amount in the envelope varies but usually is a derivative of 8, 12 or 16 as these are seen as fortuitous numbers. So the kids usually get a few thousand Taiwanese dollars in each envelope. (One thousand Taiwanese dollars is about $32 US). It's very exciting and the girls were telling me they were going to buy roller blades or books, etc. with it. Sylvia and Richard also gave han bao to Richard's parents. As soon as you are a working adult (early 20s) you don't get han bao from your parents. You give them han bao. And you usually get some from your work as most businesses give a bonus at this time of year. Grandmother was very sweet and gave Jeremy and I a small han bao each. They asked if we had such a tradition and we explained Christmas as being the closest.

We finished up the evening with a final drink and chat on the porch with the adults. Another sister and her kids who lived nearby came over and the kids turned on the TV. So we decided to say our "good byes" as we had to catch an early train for our own little Chinese New Year break to explore other parts of this island.