February 7th is the Chinese New Year, the biggest holiday in Chinese culture. This year is the year of the rat, considered the best of all the 12 zodiac animals.
Even better, my mom and sister were here to celebrate. Plus (yeah, it gets better), the owner of the coffee shop where we buy our coffee invited us all to their celebration at his parents' home in Da An, a small town on the west coast of Taiwan. They fed us two huge meals and entertained us all day. They even let us watch while they did their ancestor worship. This is beyond like inviting strangers over for Christmas dinner, this is like inviting strangers over to open presents in pajamas on Christmas morning and
then stay for dinner.
Check out Ellie's New Year outfit, she and Grammy (my mom) are both festive in red.
Ellie was a complete hit with all the kids. She was so much of a hit that I actually had to protect her from their overzealous attentions.
One of them is trying to feed her in this picture.
Before lunch we went to see a small temple down the street.
Four lovely ladies...
....and the rest of our crew (minus Jason who is behind the camera and the adults who are back home, probably glad the foreigners and kids are all out of the house so they can have some peace and quiet).
This is our wonderful lunch, the smaller of the two meals (and still twice as much food as we needed to stuff ourselves silly).
After lunch we drove over to nearby Da Jia to visit the famous Matzu Temple.
The temple was packed with worshipers coming to make offerings to Matzu in hopes of receiving blessings and good luck for the coming year. The tables set up outside are waiting to be filled with offerings to Matzu, and I am sure that in the next couple of weeks they will be full to the brim.
Tables inside were already overflowing with offerings of food, fake money, and flowers.
In addition to food and other offerings, worshipers also offer prayers and incense.
When we had finished
ogling observing the temple goings on, we milled around outside while our hosts finished worshiping.
Aren't those chrysanthemums gorgeous!?
This is my favorite picture from the time with my family.
We thought this little fella was funny. Taiwanese people love the Yankees of course.
Amanda talks with a couple of her young fans.
After our trip to the temple we received a driving tour around Da An. This was fine with us, it was too cold to get out and walk. Then we went back to the house to drink tea and hope our lunch would digest before we had to stuff ourselves again at dinner time.
During dinner the children came to the adult table and started saying wishes and blessings to their grandparents. Most were cute and silly, like "I wish you to be 18 forever". In return each child got a red envelope full of money. Instead of looking forward to Santa Claus all year, Chinese children
look forward to getting their red envelopes at the New Year.
Then, on top of all the kindness and generosity this family had already shown us, the grandparents even gave Ellie her own red envelope full of money!
If it wasn't for this family, we would have spent the New Year in our apartment with nothing to do because all the stores are closed. Instead we had an incredible experience and learned tons about Chinese culture. They went
way out of their way to make us feel at home in their country.
Happy New Year Everyone!
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