The New New Year: Part I
Spring Festival planning actually starts as Christmas ends. That sad moment of shoving carefully boxed Christmas trees and garlands in the loft offset with bringing down another box, labelled “CNY DECS”. This box isn’t opened up immediately though, there’s a lot of real life things that need to happen, including cleaning and writing the inevitable articles for media who suddenly remember Chinese people exist. The box sits in a corner for a few weeks, saving us the effort of having to head to the loft a second time, but also taking the edge off the January blues, until we open it on Xiaonian.
Posted in Culture and tagged china, Chinese, Chinese New Year, culture, customs, Spring Festival, tradition
Christmas in China
Beyond “Made in China” being stamped on almost every toy under the tree, you wouldn’t really consider the impact of Christmas as a festival in China, indeed my childhood was almost entirely Christmas-free.
Posted in Culture and tagged china, Chinese, christmas, culture, customs, festival, tradition, winter
The Shengxiao and Chinese Horology
The Chinese Zodiac, 十二生肖，Shi’Er Shengxiao, has existed ever since the first dynasty of Qin. There are many theories surrounding its origin. Some suggest that it was a way of counting time created by neighbouring tribes of herdsmen who intermingled with the Han Chinese in various ways throughout history; others that the zodiac was based on the twelve animals ridden by Indian gods. Anthropologically speaking, the zodiac seems to combine our primeval worship of totems with early astrological observations.
Posted in Culture and tagged china, Chinese, culture, horology, science, Spring Festival, tradition
Congee Concepts
I like congee. When my western friends reach for pizza or tomato soup as comfort foods, I do find myself missing that fragrant rice porridge with its accompanying bowls of tasting toppings. It seems I am not alone. I’ve been seeing a lot of social media and articles discussing this south-east Asian dish. They mainly focus on it being the secret of a healthy life, and a pick-me-up when you’re ill. Whilst all of this is true, I can’t help but feel that these representations are somewhat missing the main point, and perpetuating some misperceptions. The Chinese, for one, eat congee as an everyday staple, some even consider a delicious treat. With family roots across central, northern and southern China, I have grown up with a variety of experiences of the 粥zhou (Mandarin for congee).
Posted in Culture and tagged Cantonese, Chaozhou, china, Chinese, congee, cuisine, culture, food, jook, Teochew, tradition
Introductory Talk to Big Fish & Begonia: A Taster
This screening is part of the April Anime season. Anime is faux-French term predominantly used to refer to Japanese animation. Chinese animation is called Dong Hua.
That animation you’ve just seen, “Where is Mama” is a product of the first golden age of Chinese animation. The director, Te Wei,broke a lot of the established rules of the time, and instead of just imitating western animators like Disney, he attempted to create a very eastern style.
Posted in Blog2 and tagged after life, animation, Big Fish and Begonia, china, Chinese, culture, Dong Hua, film, indie, mythology, tradition, Zhuang zi
The Boss Behind the Cowherd and Weaver Myth
This time last year, I launched my book “From Kuan Yin to Chairman Mao: An Essential Guide to Chinese Deities” in the UK. Vivian Ni, the wonderful manager of Guanghwa in London, my bookshop of choice for the launch, wrote a lovely article for the occasion of Qi Xi, which she published on WeChat. I liked it so much that this year, I have translated it into English to share with my English-language readers on the same occasion of Qi Xi. The article contains a brief interview with me, I hope you enjoy it.
Posted in Culture and tagged book, china, Chinese, culture, deities, festival, gods, interview, literature, Qi Qiao, Qi Xi, tradition, Valentine's
8 Festive Dishes & 8 Festive Traditions For Spring Festival
If you’re reading this you probably already know about Chinese New Year, so I won’t spoil the festive occasion with too much scholarly detail. 8 is the lucky number in China so here are 8 festive foods and 8 festive traditions for Spring Festival. Since CNY is as big as Christmas and China is vast, every region has its variation of customs. Having a northern mother and southern father, mine will be a mixture of northern and southern broadly speaking, leaning towards southern because that’s where I spent my childhood.
Posted in Culture and tagged china, Chinese, Chinese New Year, culture, festival, food, Spring Festival, tradition
Moon Cakes
Tiny sticky cakes with a salted egg yolk in the middle. Sounds tasty, no?
One baked lotus seed paste mooncake with one egg yolk weighs about 180 g, has 790 calories, and contains 45 g of fat, so they taste good, but aren’t so good for your figure, unless you want to end up looking like the autumn moon!
Posted in Culture and tagged china, Chinese, culture, festival, food, mid-autumn festival, moon cake, Moon Festival, tradition
Zhongyuan: Ghost Month
When I talk about Ghost Month, what comes up in your mind? Are you now thinking of Dias de Muertos? You’ve got the right idea. This is the Chinese version. There are three traditional festivals of the dead on the Chinese annual calendar, known in Daoist terms, as 上元 Shangyuan, 中元 Zhongyuan and 下元 Xiayuan. Shangyuan, or Qing Ming, the Chinese Remembrance Day, takes place on the 4th lunar month (see my other article). Zhongyuan, popularly known as 鬼节 (“Guijie”) or 鬼月 (“Guiyue”) Ghost Month, takes place on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month.
Posted in Culture and tagged china, Chinese, culture, customs, festival, Ghost Month, rituals, tradition, Zhong Yuan
Duan Wu (Dragon Boat) Festival
Summer is here again, with Dragon Boat Festival to mark it. This year, instead of delivering my culture tweets, I’ve put together an article, so that people interested to look further can read more about it. After all, Dragon Boat Festival is China’s major traditional summer festival, and probably the second most well-known celebratory event after Spring Festival.
Posted in Culture and tagged calamus, china, Chinese, culture, dragon boat, Dragon Boat Festival, Duan Wu, festival, herbs, mugwort, summer, tradition